3 years for 41 minutes. Who has the time?

It’s a curious state of affairs when we finish an album. You’ve done the best you can. You’ve ironed out as many of the niggles as your wallet will allow. You’re fidgeting with the artwork, tweaking this and that. You’ve settled on your running order and you’re wondering if you’ve held onto your musical integrity. Was Ed right to have convinced me to change my choice of opening track?

So the deed is finally done. You’ve sent the 41 minutes of what you currently think is the best music you’ve ever made away and now you’re waiting for the mastering people to send you that all important “audition copy” of your final product. Will they get the gaps between the songs timed exactly right? Will they leave that intake of breath you want there? Will they understand what you mean when you ask them to see if they can do something about the slightly abrupt fade on track 7?

It’s not over even when you’ve all heard your proof copy, though. Then you start the anticipation of audience reaction. What should we release as a single? Should you release one track before the album and then another one alongside its release? Should you go with the obvious pop song that has a ridiculously catchy and feel-good flavour to it, but that starts just a little...averagely? Should you choose the initially quiet, introspective, quirky but frankly beautiful slow-burning but ultimately rousing one? Is there one song that really represents your sound well enough? If you choose You Rock My World, do you potentially isolate those people who may’ve appreciated and / or much preferred Hey Look That’s Me? Regardless of any decision about which songs to use as “singles”, have you got the order right across the whole twelve tracks? Do you go the route of putting the safest pop first or do you stick to your guns and have a running order that keeps the light and shade running perfectly throughout?

I have welcomed what the iPod has brought to us, but I come from that generation that still cares about an album as a whole. All I have ever wanted is for people to listen to all our songs and want to come back for more. It disheartens me so much to think about what will happen in reality. Now that we have made our choice of running order, we’ve sealed our fate. There are so few people around these days that are prepared to give 41 minutes of their time to make a full assessment of what I believe is, to be honest, my heart and soul laid bare. What percentage of people who know me will ever make it to track 12? Track 12 may not be the most immediate song in the world, but I look forward to it every time – and it’s the best song of the lot.

The twelve songs we’ve dished up for Keep Going On are a very varied selection. If anyone reading this ever listened to our fifth album Make It Better, they may’ve thought it was a little...um...constant. This album is not constant. It’s noisy then it’s peaceful, it’s happy then it’s lamenting. It might wallow on occasion before picking itself up and being optimistic again. It’s familiar for a bit, then it almost goes off the rails. After that it becomes urgent and desperate before becoming resigned and easy-going. It’s totally us, basically.

I have never been more proud of any of our albums (although I do worry I say this every time we release one, and in retrospect, I have not always been right). There are those, I know, who will say we have never reached the dizzy heights of our debut – there is, I would have to admit, a certain naive and irreverent freshness to Never Wonder Off, but it’s not as beautiful, as varied or as ambitious as this record. Usually, by the time we release an album, I already despise most of it. You can trick yourself by not listening to your own stuff for a long time, but this time, it is fair to say, I have not had to do that. In fact, if anything, this is where the power of the MP3 has worked its magic. I have caught myself turning songs up when my iPod is on shuffle – and it turns out to be tracks from Keep Going On.

I am tremendously grateful to those select few of you who really do take an interest, I really am, but I cannot pretend that it doesn’t bother me that so few people give a monkeys. I have four friends who are authors and I am eager to read and feed back on their work for two reasons. Firstly, I know them and I know how hard they have worked and I feel a certain “struggling artist” affinity. But, secondly, it’s because I genuinely know that they are talented people and the work they produce is every bit as good and arguably better than work that is actually published. Interestingly, of those four authors, three of them, I have to tell you, know a lot of the words to my songs, so I know they listen to our stuff. I am confident enough within myself to know that they are not doing it just because they like me either.

It is a shame, though, because there are a fair few other people who like me but just do not care about my music. I get it – we can’t all like the same stuff...and, indeed, many of my closest friends are into genres more to the left of where we sit – and this can’t be helped, so I’ve made my peace with it to a certain extent. I think my feelings can be pretty well summed up by the words of one of my Year 10 students. I won’t lie...I’ve been relentlessly touting [a] Naked Season in lessons and occasionally using the staff bullet-in too. When you consider I teach about 200 students and have 100+ colleagues who regularly interact with me, it is very disheartening when the only feedback you get is one Year 10 who has been to SoundCloud and says to you “It’s actually quite good”!

This is the thing. One of my immediate colleagues is an opera singer of outstanding quality. If she were to go on Britain’s Got Talent (which she won’t, for which I respect her) she would make finals night I am sure. I have seen her perform and on both occasions it has been spine-tingling. Opera is not my thing, but I can’t help but be in awe of the proper talent on display. Us struggling artists live in a world where, because we are not “signed” or “published” (or whatever the stage equivalent is) we are ignored.

How anyone can ignore [a] Naked Season is totally beyond me. I don’t have the best voice in the world and I don’t profess to be anything more than a solid (yet inventive) guitarist, but John and myself do make a brilliant song-writing partnership. I know this sounds arrogant, but it is true. We write good pop songs. You’d like some of them of you listened. If you’ve given up on the pop charts and are looking for something with integrity and melody, choose us! We tag a lot of our stuff with our influences (Crowded House, Del Amitri, BareNaked Ladies, Ben Folds, Deacon Blue, Trashcan Sinatras, R.E.M. et al) and still no traffic!

But what am I saying? I have a hit counter on this blog. I know that, of my alleged 250 odd FaceBook friends and the 300 ish “fans” of [a] Naked Season, only about 9 or so people read this blog. We put up songs, animated videos, the occasional download...and...we are met with a staggering lack of response.

I know I am fast approaching 40 and that, to many, I am a sad act who should move aside and let the young-uns have their day. I don’t need to move aside. I’m not in anyone’s way. I don’t, for even a split second, consider myself to be competition for anyone. I am not trying to cling on to my youth here – I like being older. When I see young-uns plugging their bands and their “money-on-the-door” gigs in back rooms, it brings back some good memories and a pang of jealousy because I am no longer young, but I genuinely wish these kids every success. We hardly play live these days. For one thing, my back can’t cope with lifting all that stuff and, for another, I’m too comfortable in my own skin now to have to deal with that “You’re very tight, mate, but I didn’t recognise any of your songs” stuff you inevitably get around these parts. I am not interested in being signed. I do not want a record deal. I wouldn’t mind some interest from some publishers though, I’d have to admit. Our tunes could easily appear on soundtracks to heaps of stuff, with our lyrics or no lyrics.

But, even sadder (in a way) than the knowledge that literally hardly anyone cares, is that now that the artistic process is finally out of my hands, this set of songs is obsolete. It’s old news. And I want people to hear the brilliant song that John and I started on last week. And those others that only didn’t make it onto Keep Going On because they didn’t fit. And that song I wrote in the February half term. The next album has started. Keep Going On has gone off.

It really hasn’t – it’s a great record!

Folks, I’m not asking you to drive to a craft sale miles from where you live to look at my wares in which you have no interest. I’m not asking you to commit to 300 pages of a novel you might not like. I am, however, for starters, asking you to listen to the full 3 ½ minutes of our first and second singles – the videos will be up soon. I am asking you to spend at least 79p on one of those singles. And I am asking you to click on the 30 second previews of the other tracks via iTunes or Amazon, to see if maybe you think the album is worth a punt.

And, please, tell your friends.