Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! Today is the final day of the formal promotional campaign for the Hopes and Dreams album and to celebrate, I've uploaded a stream of the full album to Newgrounds which you can check out for the full 39+ minutes of uninterrupted heartfelt ska punk / pop punk that is Better Than The Book's Hopes and Dreams! I hope you enjoy it!

Purchase the “Hopes and Dreams” album on Bandcamp:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/

Or grab the full album and complete Better Than The Book discography now when you become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

A whole lot more radio news to share this week too as “Artificial Ignorance” was featured on The Undiscovered Sound on idobi Radio! Thanks so much to Jeff for featuring the music and you can read more about The Undiscovered Sound on their site here:

https://idobi.com/show/the-undiscovered-sound/

On top of that, "Artificial Ignorance" was also featured on Channel One Radio’s The Warp Factor! Thanks so much Kirk and Craig for playing the track, and no worries at all on getting the name wrong (you're not the first)! Ironic considering the title too! You can listen to the full radio show again via the link below for many great tunes and a history of punk segment too! “Artificial Ignorance” plays in the last half hour of the show:

https://www.mixcloud.com/thewarpfactor/the-warp-factor-ultimate-punk-with-craig-cabell-6th-sept-19/

Lastly in the radio related news for this week, Button Down Radio and Tonic Ska Radio both seem to be expressing their love for Better Than The Book recently too! Thanks so much for playing the tunes and you can listen in and read more via the Facebook posts below:

https://www.facebook.com/buttondownradio5446/posts/2401291610142662

​https://www.facebook.com/tonicskaradio/photos/a.920763794801085/1091865371024259/

https://www.facebook.com/tonicskaradio/photos/a.929833417227456/1093440354200094/

With that final full-album stream released, it feels crazy to me that after almost 5 months of pre-hype and post-promo, the formal Hopes and Dreams album promotional campaign has finally come to a close, and what a heck of an adventure it has been so far! Let's take a look back at everything the album has achieved so far since the first single dropped back in May:

Before the album was even launched, Hopes and Dreams, was featured in a number web magazines with one of the singles “(The Travelling To See Eva Song)” earning Better Than The Book its Australian FM radio premier on The Ska Show with Beefy, the #2 ska music podcast in the world! Fast forward to today, and less than 2 months after the album’s release, 5 out 10 of the tracks have been featured on radio shows and podcasts worldwide including:

Idobi Radio’s Fresh Picks, Spinning Thoughts, and The Undiscovered Sound shows (California)

Bobs Ska Radio (Seattle)

Channel One Radio’s The Warp Factor (UK)

Button Down Radio (UK)

Tonic Ska Radio (UK)

The Masita Ska Show with Beefy on Southern FM (Melbourne)

Bear in mind that many of these shows have featured and played multiple tracks from the album in multiple episodes too! On top of all the radio features, Better Than The Book has been featured and/or interviewed in a number of web magazines and music blogs too including:

Broken Arrow Magazine

Pete's Rock News And Views

Happy Metal Geek

Breathing The Core

The Punk Site

World Beyond Blog

A special mention of course goes out to good old Newgrounds too where the 2nd single “Artificial Ignorance” (which seems to be a crowd favourite across the board) earned a front page feature award too! A HUGE thanks to everyone who’s shared and played the music and helped spread the word with a round of applause for the album’s PR extraordinaire Meg who especially made many of the magazine/blog features and interviews possible! Thanks Meg! Check out all these features in full, reading interviews as well as re-listening to many of the radio show/podcast features on Better Than The Book’s press page below! I hope you enjoy them:

https://betterthanthebookuk.weebly.com/press.html

And if you’ve yet to hear the Hopes and Dreams album and see what all the fuss is about, the full album is now streaming on YouTube, SoundCloud and Newgrounds as well as available in all the usual places (iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc...) and of course on the Better Than The Book Bandcamp page! Enjoy:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/hopes-and-dreams

(and of course you can listen via the video too!)

Onto other news if you've not yet heard, now that the Hopes and Dreams album is out, it felt like a great time to make some updates to my Patreon page, and so I’ve revised the descriptions, goals and tier rewards (now only 3 tiers to choose from) as well as added REWARD ARCHIVE posts for the convenience of new patrons so you can grab all the past rewards for your tier (including the full Better Than The Book Discography and more) in one place when you sign up! Read all about the new updates via the Patreon post below:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/28931894

With such a big BTTB related project just finished, the newer rewards which started up again this month will focus mainly around my other musical personality Jabun (electronic / cinematic) for a little while, but don’t worry, Better Than The Book is not done yet which leads me to the final piece of news for today:

Last month for the first time since its conception in 2012, 4 guys (including myself) got together to jam the tunes live as a Better Than The Book band! It was just a casual living room jam, but the results were promising enough that over the past month we’ve been hard at work arranging and learning our parts for our first full band practice at the start of October! I can’t say for sure what’ll happen next if that all goes well but there is a definite possibility that after 7 years of being solely a writing/recording project, Better Than The Book may be hitting the stage! Many logistics to figure out before then first, but it’s certainly an exciting time for the project (as if the last year wasn’t exciting enough)! Crazy!

A friendly reminder that Better Than The Book is significantly fuelled by my Patreon page, and while recording everything myself is relatively cheap and just takes a huge time investment, taking things to the stage is a bit more of a financial challenge. If you’d like to contribute (for as little as $1 a month) head over to my Patreon homepage to read more about the various rewards you can receive, the goals for the project and pick up the full Better Than The Book discography (including some Patreon exclusives and bonuses) if you decide to sign up!

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

If you’re unable to contribute at the moment, then no worries at all! Sharing the Bandcamp or Patreon link on social media is also a huge way to help spread the word and only takes a moment! Thanks for supporting Better Than The Book in any way you’re able to!

And that wraps up this post! I hope you’ve enjoyed all the amazing news this time and throughout the campaign, and I have a feeling that there’ll be more press features to come and big news to share soon (we’ll have to wait and see). If you’re itching to hear more then head over to the Better Than The Book Facebook or Twitter (@BTTB_UK) for the most immediate updates, or consider supporting my music on Patreon for a front row view of all the action! Until the next post, a huge thank you for supporting Better Than The Book and my various music projects and I hope you have a fantastic week whatever you’re up to! Take care!