Hi everyone – sorry this has come so late! First of all I want to thank everyone who took part in the listening party for its week-long duration, you’ve all helped answer one of the most important questions that arises when making album – what should the track listing be? Well, without further ado, here it is:

1. This is Where We Are Now (10 votes)
2. Home (14 votes)
3. Remember Me (17 votes)
4. Headlights (24 votes)
5. Holding On (22 votes)
6. Fears (15 votes)
7. Nightmare (9 votes)
8. Slow (13 votes)
9. Complicated (12 votes)
10. Judgement Day (17 votes)
11. The Light (12 votes)
12. It’s Not Okay (11 votes)
13. Easy Way Out (9 votes)
14. The Wrong One (16 votes)
15. Trying (11 votes)
16. What You Want To (13 votes)

Now the first thing you’ll probably notice is that there are 16 tracks there, rather than the 15 I said there would be. Why is this? Well, after LOTS of research into the average album length and concluding that it doesn’t really matter as long as the songs are good enough - I figured it wouldn’t hurt to put an extra track on there. I went with my gut feeling and my gut feeling told me that the 16th track should be on there. I’ll leave you to guess which track that was In total the album clocks in at just over an hour – which I hope is long enough to satisfy, but not long enough to overstay its welcome!

So what bleak fortune awaits the two non-album-making tracks? Are they to be cast away forever, locked in a dusty vault somewhere, never to been seen (or heard, even) again? Nah, you can just download them for free:

The ‘Home’ EP, in all its wondrous glory, contains the track ‘Home’ (to give you a little taster of the album, in case you missed the party) and the two omitted tracks:

Nowhere Fast (13 votes)
Foundations (15 votes)

Download the ‘Home’ EP

You’re probably now looking at those tracks thinking ‘whuuuuu????’ – ‘but other tracks that made it onto the album had LESS votes!?? What Gives!?? WHAT IS THIS MOCKERY???’

Well, um, like, you know. And stuff. To break it down for you, there were 24 voters in total. Whilst I can’t know the exact figures due to dynamic IP’s and other technical faff (although it’s obvious enough just by looking at the amount of votes on each track) not all of you voted for 15 tracks. Which means you probably didn’t listen to the whole album, therefore your vote was kinda biased, so you could argue it was slightly invalid (chill it dawg, I ain’t sayin nuttin’ yo!)

Also, take a look at the listening figures: (‘partial’ means around 50% listened to and ‘skip’ means around 10%)

1. This is Where We Are Now (36 plays – 10 complete, 15 partial, 11 skip)
2. Home (30 plays – 8 complete, 15 partial, 7 skip)
3. Remember Me (26 plays – 7 complete, 12 partial, 7 skip)
4. Headlights (27 plays – 9 complete, 12, partial, 6 skip)
5. Holding On (23 play – 5 complete, 13 partial, 5 skip)
6. Fears (22 plays – 7 complete, 8 partial, 7 skip)
7. Nightmare (24 pays – 4 votes, 10 partial, 10 skip)
8. Slow (18 plays – 2 complete, 8 partial, 8 skip)
9. Complicated (18 plays – 1 complete, 6 partial, 11 skip)
10. Judgement Day (14 plays – 4 complete, 7 partial, 3 skip)
11. The Light (9 plays – 2 complete, 4 partial, 3 skip)
12. It’s Not Okay (9 plays – 5 complete, 2 partial, 2 skip)
13. Easy Way Out (11 plays – 4 complete, 6 partial, 1 skip)
14. The Wrong One (11 plays – 1 complete, 5 partial, 5 skip)
15. Trying (11 plays – 4 complete, 4 partial, 3 skip)
16. What You Want To (9 plays – 3 complete, 4 partial, 2 skip)

Nowhere Fast (10 plays – 4 complete, 2 partial, 4 skip)
Foundations (10 plays – 3 complete, 5 partial, 2 skip

total plays = 318

Notice how the plays dwindle towards the end of the album? Not everyone listened the whole way through, and there were more partial listens and skips then there were complete listens. Considering how most music will take a few listens to fully sink in and appreciate, it was obvious these votes were more on first impressions. First impressions certainly count for something (and in some ways arguably tell us more), but ultimately the people who buy this album will be listening a bit deeper, and so I wanted a track list that considered that element also. Hence why a pinch of salt was required when surveying the voting results.

Nowhere Fast and Foundations had more votes than some of the tracks that made it on to the album, yes, but they had less plays (and oddly enough more votes than there were listeners – again, pinch of salt methinks) than a lot of other tracks. The sharp eyed amongst you will notice tracks like What You Want To had the same problems – so what it boiled down to was me choosing what I felt fitted best on the album amongst those tracks. Though I like Nowhere Fast and Foundations, I feel they are better served as a separate entity – the other tracks feel more cohesive.

To sum it up, I hope I’ve done the album justice, and you are all happy with the results. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone that took part – I may sound cynical breaking down the results like this and pointing out some of the flaws, but I just wanted to give an honest and detailed overview of it all (so you know I’m not cheating! )

I am genuinely extremely grateful for the participation. I wasn’t expecting much from this at all and so I was pleasantly surprised. I should add that alongside the votes there were many of you sending nice messages and comments, some people even going as far as to give detailed comments on the tracks, which is amazing! Some of you also signed up to my mailing list (which if you haven’t already, you can do so and get a free track.)

PRE ORDERS ARE NOW OPEN AGAIN FOR THE ALBUM -  BE SURE TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE EP TOO

All the best,
Marc

PS. Shout out to Nottingham LIVE, Notts live radio, Only Indie Radio, Notts about music & Poddingham for all writing, talking and tweeting about the listening party! It’s great to have so much support from local press and (local and national) radio!

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