Credit: Far Out / Quejaytee
Wed 30 September 2026 2:00, UK
If you were to ask Rick Rubin, any artist who thinks of the consumer is a loser (I’m certainly paraphrasing).
In his book, The Creative Act, he said that it’s counterproductive for anyone within the artistic world to think too much about the end product, or how said end product will be received. Instead, they should focus on the creative journey, and when they make that their priority, the end product will take care of itself.
There are plenty of other great musicians out there who believe artists shouldn’t worry about what the consumer thinks, as well. Noel Gallagher was one, as he said that the public didn’t ask for a lot of the great bands in music, but this lack of demand doesn’t change the fact that these artists are the ones who changed the world: “The customer didn’t want Jimi Hendrix. But they got him. And it changed the world”.
This is all well and good, and it’s a pretty good mindset to have when it comes to tapping into something truly original, but the fact of the matter is, there is more than just the self who works in the music industry. Yes, you have artists who want to tap into something truly inventive and exciting, but then they have managers they need to impress, label executives they need to secure funding from, and audiences that they have to maintain. There is more to the creative act than just the journey, and those who have carved out a successful career for themselves understand the balancing act that comes with being an artist.
One of these artists is Van Morrison. Your regular listeners will likely point towards records like Astral Weeks, Veedon Fleece and Saint Dominic’s Preview and call them the musician’s best, and these would all be pretty fair conclusions to make. That being said, Morrison has continued making great music, despite some of his best records coming in the ‘60s and ‘70s. For instance, his 2016 album, Keep Me Singing, is a pretty overlooked offering in his discography that more fans should give credit.
So, as the album turns ten years old, it’s worth considering what his creative outlook is when it comes to putting together music. For him, he said it was less about dismissing the end product and instead using it as a trophy that you’re given once you’ve finished battling with yourself. He is constantly trying to put together music that he finds interesting, and that means taking ideas new and old, and competing with yourself in a bid to turn those small ideas into something bigger.
“Well, it’s about keeping the work interesting for me, who’s doing it,” he said, when discussing the album, “The work’s not enough after a while. One has to make it interesting for oneself. Well, I do anyway, to keep doing it, you know, because if it’s not interesting, then I don’t want to do it. You’re competing against yourself, like, I think, and trying to make it interesting for oneself.”
Further reading: From The Vault
This album is a great representation of Morrison battling both his past and present, as some of the songs were written during the recording process in 2016, whereas others were ideas he had come up with years ago, dragged from decades past and into the 2010s.
As such, when you listen to Keep Me Singing, you’re listening to the result of a man who has competed with himself and won. It’s not Morrison’s greatest album by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a great reflection of how the creative mind can work when it finds the balance between caring about both the journey and the destination.
