Hopes and Fears

Most songs were already composed by the album's conception date; the track "She Has No Time" was composed circa 1999, making it the earliest composed song appearing on the album. Some were already played in a guitar-led form with Dominic Scott still in the band. The tracks "On a Day Like Today" and "We Might As Well Be Strangers" were the last to be composed, circa 2003.

Four songs on the album were recorded in Normandy, France, on the property of the record producer James Sanger, from July to November 2001. Sanger co-wrote these songs, including "This Is the Last Time" and "Bedshaped". The rest of the album was recorded at Helioscentric Studios in Peasmarsh, Rye, by Andy Green and the band from September to Christmas 2003. Sanger did not attend any recording sessions in England.

The album was mixed down to six channels to enable a release on Super Audio CD (SACD).

Hal Leonard music published two versions of the official score book for Hopes and Fears, designed for differing skill levels. The Music Sales Group also published a book, including two demo CDs with accompanying bass and drum tracks.

More information Aggregate scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	61/100[7]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[8]
Blender	[9]
Entertainment Weekly	B[10]
The Guardian	[11]
The Independent	[12]
NME	7/10[13]
Pitchfork	2.8/10[14]
Q	[15]
Rolling Stone	[16]
Spin	A−[17]

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Hopes and Fears received generally positive reviews from critics. Review-aggregating website Metacritic, reported a normalised score of 61/100, based on 18 reviews, indicating "generally favourable" reviews.^[7]

Playlouder was very positive, calling it "one of the best albums you'll hear this year",^[7] as was Q magazine, which gave it four out of five stars and wrote that "as a debut album, its confidence is right up there with [Oasis's] Definitely Maybe."^[15] AllMusic, giving the album four and a half out of five stars, praised its "beautiful, emotive dalliance of instrumentation", singer Tom Chaplin's "rich vocals", and the band's "open-hearted ambition...audible on every song",^[8] while Rolling Stone noted that the album "contains more hooks than most pop groups manage in their careers."^[16]

In a mixed three-star review, The Guardian criticised the first half the album for "rely[ing] too heavily on Chaplin's show-stopping vocals" and for the "radio-friendly simplicity of the lyrics", while praising "Can't Stop Now" as a "swooning, epic pop song" and the "booming drum and bass" of "Untitled 1" on the second half.^[11] Drowned in Sound gave it 5 out of 10, accusing Keane of excessively imitating Coldplay (specifically comparing "Your Eyes Open" and "On a Day Like Today" to, respectively, "Daylight" and "Politik" on the band's album A Rush of Blood to the Head), criticising the album as being "stylistically all over the place" and its lyrics as being "immature" and "cringe-worthy". However, it gave credit to the album's "fine moments", praising lead single "Somewhere Only We Know", for example, as "breathtaking".^[18]

A CD+DVD version was released internationally over the course of 2005. This version included two bonus tracks, "Snowed Under" and a remix dance version of "We Might as Well Be Strangers" by DJ Shadow. The DVD contained the four international videos for "Somewhere Only We Know", "Everybody's Changing", "Bedshaped", and "This is the Last Time", and the US video for "Somewhere Only We Know".

This version of Hopes and Fears also featured a different box cover design: white and with Keane's "Everybody's Changing" promotional image. The inner 2-CD box had the same cover as the international version.^{[citation needed]}