News

The cost of downloading our music from Bandcamp will be increasing during January. This is due to inflation, which affects both increased running costs and the value of music in general.

As a rule of thumb, a €7 album will be increasing to €9, and a €1 track will be increasing to €1.50.

We know that nobody enjoys price rises, especially in the current climate. We also believe that recorded music still has real value — not just as entertainment, but as culture, history, and human expression.

Every release on Wud Records represents hours, weeks, and sometimes years of writing, collaborating, recording, mixing, mastering, publishing and artwork. This is usually done by one member of our team or another, working independently in bedrooms, living rooms, offices and small studios. We don’t use any big commercial facilities.

Bandcamp remains one of the few platforms where artists and labels are treated fairly. Listeners can genuinely support the people who make the music they love on Bandcamp.

A larger share of each Bandcamp sale goes directly to the artists, and to keeping this label alive and active. This in turn encourages and enables us to continue releasing legacy recordings, new material, and experimental projects that would otherwise never see the light of day. And that’s not to even mention our Archives, a collection of bands we have known and loved over the years that the world needs to hear and love as much as we do.

If you have been thinking about picking up an album or a single from one of our artists on Bandcamp, or even our entire discography, now is a good moment to do so before the new prices start to take effect. Everything purchased before the changes will remain yours, downloaded and in your Bandcamp collection, in full quality, forever. Of course, it will afterwards as well.

We are not increaing the cost of downloading our music to chase profit. We need to make sure Wud Records can remain sustainable, independent, and creatively free. The alternative would be less time to make music, meaning fewer releases, fewer remasters, and fewer opportunities for overlooked or underground music to reach the audience it deserves.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support. Whether that is through buying music, sharing links, telling friends, or simply listening, we genuinely appreciate it all. Every download, every play, and every message helps more than you might realise.

We look forward to bringing you many more releases in the months and years ahead.

To check out and join our awesome Bandcamp Community, please click here.

To check out our music on Bandcamp, please click here.

Cruelty to Blues distributed to streaming platforms? The new album from BSoD + D²? In other words, The Bastard Sons of Dennis with Dave Danielli on bass?

That’s right. The Cruelty to Blues album by BSoD + D² was sent away to a new distributor we wanted to try. It is now available to listen to at all the big (and many smaller) streaming platforms. But not spotify!

The nature of the original artwork for the Cruelty to Blues album proved to be something of a difficulty. The streaming services balked at all the alchemical symbols and lettering that was not part of the title of the album and the name of the artist. We learned that if we wanted Cruelty to Blues distributed to the streaming platforms, we would need to change the artwork.

We asked if a completely black Smell the Glove type artwork might be ok, and one of the bosses at the distribution company said that it would, as long as we didn’t use what Spinal Tap had originally intended as the artwork for their infamous album.

In the end, we managed to produce some artwork based upon four lines of one of the songs. Can you guess which song, and which four lines?

That is why the same Cruelty to Blues album has two different covers. The one we used for the offical release, with the alchemical symbols, such as the version at Bandcamp. And the version of Cruelty to Blues distributed to streaming platforms, with the flights of black horsemen that soar over churches, pursued by an army of birds in the rain. Ah, that might be a spoiler…

Anyway, the middle and both ends of this tale are that the Cruelty to Blues album has now been distributed to many, many streaming platforms via a new distributor who we’ve decided we like. We shall probably use them again.

It is not available on spotify though, and nor is anything else in our catalogue. Spotify are hell bent on detroying music, and their CEO on humanity itself it would seem. So do yourself and the music you love a favour – remove any music you have at that vile platform and cancel your subs. They don’t need to use your money to invest any more into AI war machines or AI-generated music.

We shall be updating our recent “Boycott Spotify!” post soon, and including it in the Miscellaneous section of our website. Watch out for news of this via our News service and on BlueSky and X, formerly Twitter.

To listen to or download the album Cruelty to Blues by BSoD + D² from Bandcamp, please click here.

To listen to it at one of the streaming platforms, e.g. Tidal, please click here.

The December 2025 Chart

The top ten tracks for December 2025 from Wud Records have been published in a new compilation at SoundCloud.

Changes are underway at Wud Records…

Regarding the new chart, we shall elaborate further with regard to each platform where our music is represented.

Bandcamp Is Still the Best Platform for Artists

If you are not yet a member of Bandcamp, we strongly suggest you sign up, whether you are an indie label, a musician or a fan of music, or all three. Do it now! It’s free to join. Just click here. :)

For any independent artist or label wanting to sell music or merch, there is no better place on the web to do so. If you don’t believe us, check out any search engine to see what other artists have to say about what the best site is for independent artists and labels. Bandcamp are simply Numero Uno. Finito!

When you subscribe to a music streaming platform, you don’t actually *own* any of the music. You’re just renting a bit of bandwidth on their distribution service, and most of the rent revenue you are paying for it goes to big corporations rather than the artists you love. It’s a terrible business model, both for artists and fans alike.

Consider also this. There is always a danger that streaming services might remove music or artists from their platform (e.g. the recent dispute between Universal Music Group and TikTok), or the platform may even cease to exist altogether. Remember VitaminIC, MySpace, FriendsReunited?

To avoid having the soundtracks to your life erased, we strongly recommend buying physical media and downloads so you can listen to your favourite songs whenever you wish. You know it makes sense!

Whilst several music platforms offer music downloads, they all charge a lot more and take a much bigger percentage of that higher price then Bandcamp does.

This means that you pay more, the band receives less, and a big greedy corporation takes a big old chunk of the money you paid to support the artist all for itself, just because it can. It’s a lose-lose situation, unless you happen to be a big greedy corporation who can rip people off however the fancy takes them.

Buying music from Bandcamp will cost you less and support the artist more. About 80% to 85% of what you spend at Bandcamp goes directly to the artist or their label, and is paid daily.

So it’s always a good idea to download from Bandcamp whenever possible, as they are the best site for supporting artists. For us, one download of a €7 album is worth about 3300 snotify streams.

You can even pay more than the asking price for music on Bandcamp if you wish to add a little extra support for the artist. Again, this goes to the artists themselves, not some greedy anonymous megacorporation who only care for money, not the music you love.

There is also a rather fabulous Community feature at Bandcamp, and you can join ours by clicking here.

SoundCloud

Just as we were enjoying the best month we ever had on SoundCloud, our account was unexpectedly deleted by mistake. The account was subsequently restored, but was still badly damaged. It took until mid-October for it to be properly repaired.

In the meantime, there was not a single word from SoundCloud themselves regarding what they were doing to repair our account. This was the catalyst for a number of the changes that are happening.

We still do not fully trust the information we get from SoundCloud and its slowly improving Insights system. However, there has been enough improvement in data quality in the last couple of months for it to be useful again.

Shitify

We removed all of our music from spotify a few months ago. We highly recommend you do the same, if you have any there. We also highly recommend that you cancel your subscription, and move your playlists (and so on) to a more ethical streaming service. Every other streaming platform is more ethical than snotify.

We don’t say this lightly. Nor do we say so from a position of ignorance. There are many very good reasons to remove all your music from spotify and to cancel your sub. Do it now!

For more information, please refer to this news post: https://www.wudrecords.co.uk/news/wud-records-boycott-spotify/

Tidal, Coda, YouTube, Amazon, Deezer, Apple Music, etc.

We use data from our distributors Globex, Soundrop and CD Baby for information regarding streams on platforms such as Coda, Tidal, YouTube, Deezer and so on when reckoning the monthly charts.

Data from the streaming services filters through to us via our distributors, and we are not very trusting of it. At best we can get a general feel of what is going on across all of the streaming services this way. Because the data arrives several days, or even weeks, late, we only use it to extrapolate general trends.

HearThis, Audius, Audiomack

We have started organising our music at HearThis since the recent debacle with SoundCloud. Unfortunately, their stats are not terribly helpful and rather time-consuming to collate, although to be fair, they are improving.

The aforementioned debacle with SoundCloud was the catalyst for ourselves taking the decision to add our music to both Audius and Audiomack. Both platforms came highly recommended, although their stats, like at HearThis, are also not especially informative.

In Conclusion…

If somebody actually pays to download something, they must have liked it! Our artists and ourselves are always very grateful to our supporters in this respect. It genuinely helps keep the fires burning and the wheels turning.

When somebody reposts a track, that gives it the opportunity to be heard by a potential new fan. This is always a tremendous help for creative souls. It enables that track to be discovered and enjoyed by the community of the person doing the sharing, which can generate new fans.

A ‘like’ is nice, but reposts actually helps the artist reach a bigger audience. You create the chance for that to happen. Recommending a song costs you nothing at all and can be a massive help for an independent artist. Why not do it now? :)

How Did We Calculate The December 2025 Chart?

The algorithm we use gives greater weight to downloads, then comments and reposts and likes (active engagement), then plays (passive engagement). Different platforms perform differently and are given different weightings based on standard deviation calculations.

We use general tendencies and trends that have occured over the last calender month, as well as specifics where they are available. The data has been amalgamated together from all of the different platforms to make the new Top Ten. Archive tracks and bonus tracks are ignored, as is anything from people who clearly didn’t listen to the music.

Only you, the listener, can influence our next chart. So if there is a song you particularly like, keep playing it! Leave a comment, repost it, share it to your social media feeds! Download it from our Bandcamp! Add it to a playlist! It absolutely can make a difference.

Thanks For All Your Help!

Massive thanks go out to everybody who helped to support all of us during December 2025 by listening to, commenting on and reposting our bands’ tracks on SoundCloud, Bandcamp and elsewhere.

All the wonderful fans of our bands who supported us with downloads from Bandcamp are especially appreciated. Just one download of a €7 album is worth about 3300 snotify streams. By buying a download, you genuinely help us keep the fires burning, and collectively we thank you for that most graciously. May you be blessed by the gods of rock n roll! :)

We would also like to say a special thank you to all the splendid people on Twitter and BlueSky who have been enjoying and reposting our tracks to their followers. All the support and positive feedback has been incredibly heartwarming for us all. It makes our endeavours here feel worthwhile.

Thank you very much to everyone who bought items from our merch store. Anyone who shares a photo of themselves with their Wud item on social media will receive an extra goody from ourselves once we have seen it and shared the photo on to our community as well.

If you buy something cool from the Flicker merch store, or the Dark Company merch store, we shall also send you an extra goody if you show us a photo of yourself (or friend, or environment) on social media with the item you purchased.

Last and by no means least, we would like to say thank you very much to all of the splendid people who have been buying us coffees at BuyMeACoffee. It’s very kind of you to help us out. All of these things absolutely contribute to ourselves being able to keep going, and spend more time making beautiful music for you to enjoy. It is truly appreciated very much indeed.

Who’s In The December 2025 Top Ten?

The latest top ten features six different acts. There are four songs from The Bastard Sons of Dennis, including BSoD + D², four from Dark Company, including two from & co, and one each by the Band of Georges and Rough Terrain. Three of the songs are new entries, three are re-entries, two are climbers and two are fallers.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis

Congratulations to The Bastard Sons of Dennis, for topping our final chart of 2025, and for having three other entries in the top ten. The number one song this month is Then Came the Last Days of May, and it is its first time to reach number one. Its previous highest position was number two, which was in April 2024.

Then Came the Last Days of May is a beautiful song, which tells a true story of how three university friends of Blue Öyster Cult’s guitarist, Donald ‘Buck Dharma’ Roeser, were brutally murdered in a drug deal that went horribly and tragically wrong. The version by our dynamic duo adds a twist to the versions heard on Blue Öyster Cult’s eponymous studio album and the live On Your Feet Or On Your Knees album from 1975.

Derek would sing “Now and then a duck” instead of “truck”, which caused fans of the duo to bring toy ducks with them along to live performances. Chuck’s solo is largely based on the live On Your Feet Or On Your Knees version, and his little whistle at the end (which didn’t always come out quite right in a live show) came from the character Tom Good in the uk tv sitcom The Good Life.

A re-entry at number nine this month from the Cosy Lube Turtle album by The Bastard Sons of Dennis is The Subhuman. This is another wonderful Blue Öyster Cult song. It was originally released on the 1974 Secret Treaties album and there is a sublime live version on On Your Feet Or On Your Knees. The Bastard Sons of Dennis drew inpiration from both versions.

The Subhuman is seven minutes long and filled with beautifully crafted definitive guitar melodies. Live performances would be very similar, despite the length and the apparent jamminess of the piece. This is another song where Chuck tunes his low string to a drop-D.

BSoD + D²

The new release by The Bastard Sons of Dennis with Dave Danielli, Cruelty to Blues, has provided the newest chart with two splendid songs, both climbing from their positions last month. Cruelty to Blues was only released in October and has already gone very well.

Up from number five to number four is the first song this month from BSoD + D². Seven Screaming Diz-Busters is a highly esoteric and extraordinary piece of progressive rock composition, beautifully interpreted by The Bastard Sons of Dennis with Dave Danielli on bass. It is a song for which The Bastard Sons of Dennis were well known.

Originally this song was released by Blue Öyster Cult on their 1973 Tyranny and Mutation album. It was big crowd favourite at a live performances by The Bastard Sons of Dennis and you can enjoy watching a video of them playing it live by clicking here.

Then Came the Last Days of May is a climber for BSoD + D². Blue Öyster Cult perform this song in the key of E minor, and our tremendous trio have transposed it to A minor for their cover version.

Then Came the Last Days of May tells the tragic story of three young men who were killed in a drug deal that went wrong. It is a very wistful and beautiful song, and The Bastard Sons of Dennis with Dave Danielli base their version more on the live On Your Feet Or On Your Knees version than the original studio version on Blue Öyster Cult’s 1972 eponymous album.

Dark Company

Dark Company enjoyed another excellent month and claimed two spots on the newest chart. Both belong to the SNAFU CD of their forthcoming triple-CD album A for Acronym.

Down from number one to number two is Committed by Dark Company, from their growing SNAFU CD. All of these songs are work-in-progress, although many of them are not too shabby and give a decent idea of where the songs are going.

Committed is a lyric that Pete wrote in December 2010 and describes his extreme sense of alienation from everything that he felt ‘normal’ people did. He was always very thankful that he’d forged his own path and never had any interest in conforming to what society expected of him. He really was the most unqiue of characters.

The music for Committed is unusual as well. The original guitar part was abandoned, although the original bass part still stands. The bass plays the main riff always in the ascension, even though to do so seems counter-intuitive. The guitars play single notes in harmony with the bass to make the triads that form the chords of the song, which is in the key of B minor.

Falling from number three to number six is the second Dark Company song to hit the chart. It is called Conspiracy. It starts with Sven’s thundersome drums accompanied by industrial grade heavy guitars in the key of E, then moves up to A for the verses. There is no chorus.

Conspiracy is one of Dark Company‘s heavier songs and also features some splendid synth work from Josh. The lyric was penned by Pete in the summer of 2010.

& co

The strangely named outfit known as & co make remixes in a trance, EDM or dub stylee from Dark Company songs. There are several such mixes that were released as bonus tracks on their Signmaker album, as well as a whole album of & co music called Drifting Stars. This album features remixes of songs from the Dark Company albums Rage in Heaven, Alien Heat and Ghost of the Art.

A new entry for & co at number eight is Killer (Digital RMX). This remix took place when Dark Company started trying to digitise their songs, from the analogue band that was Dark Company’s first incarnation to the digital, sequencer-driven three-piece that Dark Company’s second incarnation became.

When Killer was converted to a digital song that could be run on the new machinery, it was largely completed, at least up as far as the instrumental outro. It is therefore possible to sing along to this remix, and the arrangement remains the same as the analogue version of Killer on the Signmaker album. The & co remix was released some time after the original album release, as a bonus track.

Number 10 is also a re-entry for & co, and the first time this track has charted since October 2017. The original song, Medicines, is still Dark Company‘s most well-known track and appears on their Rage in Heaven album.

The remix version of Medicines by & co, on the Drifting Stars album, takes two or three elements of the original sequencer track and uses them to make a whole new track. The challenge with the Drifting Stars album is to find the parts of each tune that come from the original songs, on the Rage in Heaven, Alien Heat, and Ghost of the Art albums.

Band of Georges

A few months ago, we absolutely could not have anticipated the level of dominance over the charts the Band of Georges has had recently. Why? We were not even expecting to release any of these songs at the start of March!

The Wud Records website was launched in 2008, replacing the old Wud site which simply disappeared soon afterwards. Ever since before the Wud Records website went live, various people tried to persuade George to allow his old Tascam 244 portastudio demos to be released. He always refused, point blank. There was no arguing with him. It was just: “No.” And that was that.

And then, suddenly, he seems to have had a change of heart. He allowed a few of us to listen to his demos, which we thought were surprisingly good. Certainly a lot better than we had anticipated, given everything he had said about awful they were. Whatever it was that happened, we are delighted that it did. Because now, we have been allowed to release all of the volumes of his early songs in their demo form.

We have done very little work to these recordings. They were just lifted from their master cassettes and digitised in our studios, and normalised to 0dB. That was it. Everything sounds just as it was. The cassettes, nearly 40 years old, have stood the test of time very well.

There are no pages for the Band of Georges at Explicit Music at this time, although some may appear following further negotiations. Each released song from the Band of Georges has a comment or a memory from George on its album’s page here at the Wud Records website. Some of that information, along with other facts regarding each song, appears at its page on SoundCloud. There is likely to be different extra information given on the two separate pages, as the words come from the keyboards of two separate writers. We recommend you check out both.

Too Many Times is a new entry at number three, and is a song that George has a strong dislike for. He wrote it on 2nd May 1983 and his Dad rather liked the guitar melody. George said that he was surprised at how long the song was, at 10:37.

Rough Terrain

Sometimes when a song is a new entry on our charts, it surprises us. In the case of the fabulous Frog by Rough Terrain from their Howell Road Demo and Exit Stage Deaf compilation, it was a surprise that this song has never charted before. We’re fairly certain that if we ran a monthly Top Twenty instead of a Top Ten, Frog would have charted many times. However, we are unable to verify that without undertaking a considerable confufulation, with is probably – ultimately – not especially worthwhile.

Frog is an instrumental that Rough Terrain performed at probably every single one of their many live shows. It was composed by George and Pok in the early 1980s, with significant contributions from both Mark Drower (“Mmmm, thanks.”) and Marc Greatorex (the frog noises). George came up with the chords and Pok wrote the lead part. Frog was earlier performed by Now and Fooog Dinboffin and the Release, and has a fun backstory.

* None of our other acts made it onto the December 2025 chart. *

Listening Options

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in December 2025, as played, liked, commented upon and reposted by listeners, please click here.

If you prefer to listen right here at the Wud Records website, you will find that it is the new default music player. You will find it on all non band-specific pages at the site, including our Links collection and homepage.

The December 2025 chart has its very own dedicated page among the charts pages of this website. You can listen to the new compilation on its page by clicking here.

Each of the previous charts also has its own page in the charts section of this website. If you would like to see all our old charts, or for any previous month you are especially interested in, all of them can be accessed easily by clicking here.

Most Played Tracks of 2025

We thought it might be fun to make playlists of the most played tracks of 2025, one for each platform – or group of platforms – where our music is represented. We felt that such playlists would enable fans of our bands to hear what’s been hot and to have the opportunity to enjoy listening to some of our most popular tracks of recent times.

SoundCloud

Wud Records enjoyed an outstanding year on SoundCloud, the best ever with over 54,000 streams. This was more than double the 21,000 streams of our previous best year, 2017. We gained many new followers overall, and lost some old ones whose accounts were no longer maintained, ending the year with just under 4000 followers. It is very pleasing that more new fans across the world are discovering and enjoying the great music made by our amazing artists.

Making a SoundCloud playlist of the tracks that were popular there is easily done. To listen to the 20 Most Played Tracks of 2025 playlist at the SoundCloud website, simply click here to open that page in a new tab.

The 20 Most Played Tracks of 2025 was completely dominated by the Band of Georges. The level of dominance was so strong that nineteen of the top twenty tracks came from the Band of Georges, with just one of Pok’s songs making it into the list. All twenty of the most played songs on SoundCloud were released in 2025.

We shall be releasing a small number of further compilations from the Band of Georges in due course, but there are no more songs to release as far as we can tell. Make sure you are following our News service, Bandcamp Community, BlueSky and X (formerly Twitter) to be sure of knowing when these things happen.

There will be further songs from Pok‘s Anthology album coming to SoundCloud over the coming year. More new songs will be completed and some of the old ones will receive their sonic upgrade, now that our engineers can accurately hear how they sound in our studios. It really helps, does that.

It is worth noting that these are only the most streamed tracks, rather than the most popular. The total amounts of likes, reposts and comments have been ignored. Taking these other factors into consideration would inevitably yield different results.

Bandcamp

Bandcamp is the platform with the best ethos in the business. If you are not a member yet, it’s time to join.

One of the great features of Bandcamp is its Communities. You can join ours by clicking here. ;-)

It’s been a reasonable year for Wud Records on Bandcamp. Overall in 2025, both our streams and sales were down very slightly compared to 2024. Exactly like last year, the best-selling album was Flicker‘s At Least 1000 Words, and the best selling song was Dark Company‘s Medicines, from the band’s Rage in Heaven album.

The 2025 chart of most streamed tracks on Bandcamp sees a good spread of different artists, with no particular act claiming domination for the year’s Bandcamp streams.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis had the most streamed song and two others in the top twenty. There were four songs for Dark Company, two for Laughing Sun, seven for Flicker, three for Pok, and one for Alchemeon.

We have also created a playlist at SoundCloud of the twenty most streamed tracks at Bandcamp in 2025 for your listening pleasure. It’s much easier to do that at SoundCloud than at Bandcamp. There are a number of tracks from Flicker‘s HappySad album that are not present at SoundCloud, and perhaps someday they may appear at that platform.

Previous Years

If you would like to compare all of the figures for the most played tracks of 2025 against the figures for 2024, please click here to open the relevent news post in a new tab.

If you would like to compare all of the figures for the most played tracks of 2025 against the figures for 2023, please click here to open the relevent news post in a new tab.

If you would like to compare all of the figures for the most played tracks of 2025 against the figures for 2022, please click here to open the relevent news post in a new tab.

If you would like to compare all of the figures for the most played tracks of 2025 against the figures for 2021, please click here to open the relevent news post in a new tab.

If you would like to compare all of the figures for the most played tracks of 2025 against the figures for 2020, please click here to open the relevent news post in a new tab.

If you would like to compare all of the figures for the most played tracks of 2025 against the figures for 2019, please click here to open the relevent news post in a new tab.

If you would like to compare all of the figures for the most played tracks of 2025 against the figures for 2018, please click here to open the relevent news post in a new tab.

If you would like to compare all of the figures for the most played tracks of 2025 against the figures for 2017, please click here to open the relevent news post in a new tab.

Happy New Ear 2026! \,,/(^_^)\,,/

A very Happy New Year to you in 2026! Let’s hope it’s the best one we’ve ever known.

First, the whole team would like to say a massive “THANK YOU!!” to everyone who helped to support us in our efforts to make music during 2025. We are truly grateful and humbled by the support we have had from the four corners of the earth. You lovely people continue to amaze us and make us smile.

In 2025 we were heard the most in the USA, followed by Ukraine, the uk, Russia and Germany. The top city was Kyiv, and we hope very much that our music brought some peace and solace to the souls suffering the effects of war. And let’s not forget everyone else as well. So here’s wishing a very big Wud Records Happy New Ear 2026 to all our listeners, wherever you are from!

So, whatever happened over the twelve months of 2025? Well…

We removed all of our artists’ music from spotify. That platform is pure evil and the antithesis of music. If you are supporting spotify with a subscription, cancel it. Do it now. If you have music released on spotify, contact your distributor and tell them to take it down. Do it now. We say this with full conviction, and knowledge and understanding of the reasons why you must do this. For more information, click here.

In 2025, something most unexpected happened. We released all of the songs that George recorded on his portastudio in the 1980s. We’ve been bothering him about this on and off for many, many years. He always refused to let us release any of it. Suddenly, in March, it would seem he had a change of heart. Not only did he let us listen to his songs, which were a whole lot better than he had said they were, he let us release them to the general public as well! They have performed very well for us and we regard the entire effort as a tremendous success.

As such, we are planning to release all of those songs to Bandcamp in 2026 so that fans of the songs can own them and enjoy them whenever they wish. More news regarding this will follow in due course.

We made a few compilations of those songs where it seemed logical to do so, such as The Concept Album, the Flashback EP, Песня За (Piestnia Za), and others for our legacy bands that performed George’s songs. There are a few compilations still to be released, and there will be more news regarding this in the early part of 2026.

We also released an album of songs from The Bastard Sons of Dennis with Dave Danielli, Cruelty to Blues. The story here begins with Dave, who first worked with us as the awesome bass player in The Ug Brothers. As a lifelong fan of Blue Oyster Cult, he heard the Cosy Lube Turtle album and felt inspired to pick up his bass and add basslines to the songs. The result was Cruelty to Blues, which was finally released in October.

Besides all of that, we also finished and released two of Pok the Bard‘s most wonderful and classic songs, It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain and She’s Beautiful. Both are very historic and amazing pieces of music and we hope that you enjoyed them. They are both available on Pok‘s growing Anthology album and we intend to release even more of his songs in 2026.

We also released several new Dark Company songs over the course of the year, adding to the work-in-progress A for Acronym album. There are now ten songs from the first CD, SNAFU, out in the public domain and more will be forthcoming in 2026.

We did more work regarding our legacy bands Now and Wud. Some of the writings for Wud were updated and are now nearly done, and an album of their songs was released at HearThis. Now got some new artwork and two new homes, on Audius and Audiomack. More music will probably be added to both in the coming year.

Mark Drower and the Everyones had a song that hit the global Top Ten on HearThis. We were both surprised and delighted that this should have happened to a song that was already 43 years old!

Some more videos were added to our horribly neglected YouTube channel. It would be fabulous if we could add even more in 2026 and who knows, perhaps it might happen.

There were also a couple of untriumphant moments that took place, such as the SoundCloud disaster of July. This happened the month after we enjoyed our best ever month at that platform. Although our SoundCloud account was eventually fully restored after a few months, the platform refused to contact us to let us know what was going on and a fair bit of damage was done. We remain extremely unimpressed.

There was also the final and inevitable meltdown of the old laptop we used to use for streaming in our studios. We have so far not managed to get around to replacing the deceased laptop. Perhaps in 2026?

Looking ahead, we are anticipating a few more operational changes in the coming year, particularly with regard to streaming and social media. To stay tuned, you can join our mailing list by clicking here. Remember also to bookmark our News page and follow us on BlueSky, which seems to be where things are going right now.

Life tends to take all manner of twists and turns. Events that have taken place in the last year or more have reduced our opportunities to make music. Time has become more and more scarce. In fact, the machines in our studios have remained mostly dormant since November, due to the lack of time. We hope some more time will be found from somewhere soon, but as there are only 168 hours in a week, that remains a conundrum.

Apart from wishing for a little more time for making music, what we would love to see in 2026 would be a lessening of the hate and polarisation that seems to be growing around the globe. As teenagers we had great hopes for the future, hopes that when the older generation shuffled along, the new blood would create levels of understanding, tolerance and comradeship not seen before on a global scale and the Age of Aquarius would begin.

That has not happened. While we can look back with joy upon some events, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, those spring flowers of hope we once had have largely crumbled to dust, in a very similar way to that awful cold war monument itself. Everyone seems to be becoming more and more aggressive, more offended, more entrenched in their separatist views, and the whole world, politically at least, seems to be lurching sharply to the right. Did humanity learn nothing from the two world wars in the last century? Apparently not.

Let’s pray to the gods of rock n roll for an end to wars, more tolerance and understanding, the eradication of hunger and poverty, cures for diseases that affect so many in the poorest nations of the earth, better distribution of wealth, the rolling out of universal basic income for all, a reduction of misery and suffering for everyone, and a global humanity where we are all brothers and sisters living in harmony together. Humanity has the power to do this – and chooses not to.

Perhaps you have seen a photo of the Earth taken from space? We only have the one world, and we are all one species whoever different our neighbour might seem. Being kind to each other would be a pleasant change.

What are you planning to achieve in 2026? Let us know on your socials. Whatever it may be, we wish you success beyond your wildest dreams… and a very Happy New Ear 2026!

The November 2025 Chart

The top ten tracks for November 2025 from Wud Records have been published in a new compilation at SoundCloud.

Changes are underway at Wud Records…

Regarding the new chart, we shall elaborate further with regard to each platform where our music is represented.

Bandcamp Is Still the Best Platform for Artists

If you are not yet a member of Bandcamp, we strongly suggest you sign up, whether you are an indie label, a musician or a fan of music, or all three. Do it now! It’s free to join. Just click here. :)

For any independent artist or label wanting to sell music or merch, there is no better place on the web to do so. If you don’t believe us, check out any search engine to see what other artists have to say about what the best site is for independent artists and labels. Bandcamp are simply Numero Uno. Finito!

When you subscribe to a music streaming platform, you don’t actually *own* any of the music. You’re just renting a bit of bandwidth on their distribution service, and most of the rent revenue you are paying for it goes to big corporations rather than the artists you love. It’s a terrible business model, both for artists and fans alike.

Consider also this. There is always a danger that streaming services might remove music or artists from their platform (e.g. the recent dispute between Universal Music Group and TikTok), or the platform may even cease to exist altogether. Remember VitaminIC, MySpace, FriendsReunited?

To avoid having the soundtracks to your life erased, we strongly recommend buying physical media and downloads so you can listen to your favourite songs whenever you wish. You know it makes sense!

Whilst several music platforms offer music downloads, they all charge a lot more and take a much bigger percentage of that higher price then Bandcamp does.

This means that you pay more, the band receives less, and a big greedy corporation takes a big old chunk of the money you paid to support the artist all for itself, just because it can. It’s a lose-lose situation, unless you happen to be a big greedy corporation who can rip people off however the fancy takes them.

Buying music from Bandcamp will cost you less and support the artist more. About 80% to 85% of what you spend at Bandcamp goes directly to the artist or their label, and is paid daily.

So it’s always a good idea to download from Bandcamp whenever possible, as they are the best site for supporting artists. For us, one download of a €7 album is worth about 3300 snotify streams.

You can even pay more than the asking price for music on Bandcamp if you wish to add a little extra support for the artist. Again, this goes to the artists themselves, not some greedy anonymous megacorporation who only care for money, not the music you love.

There is also a rather fabulous Community feature at Bandcamp, and you can join ours by clicking here.

SoundCloud

Just as we were enjoying the best month we ever had on SoundCloud, our account was unexpectedly deleted by mistake. The account was subsequently restored, but was still badly damaged. It took until mid-October for it to be properly repaired.

In the meantime, there was not a single word from SoundCloud themselves regarding what they were doing to repair our account. This was the catalyst for a number of the changes that are happening.

We still do not fully trust the information we get from SoundCloud and its slowly improving Insights system. However, there has been enough improvement in data quality in the last couple of months for it to be useful again.

Shitify

We removed all of our music from spotify a few months ago. We highly recommend you do the same, if you have any there. We also highly recommend that you cancel your subscription, and move your playlists (and so on) to a more ethical streaming service. Every other streaming platform is more ethical than snotify.

We don’t say this lightly. Nor do we say so from a position of ignorance. There are many very good reasons to remove all your music from spotify and to cancel your sub. Do it now!

For more information, please refer to this news post: https://www.wudrecords.co.uk/news/wud-records-boycott-spotify/

Tidal, Coda, YouTube, Amazon, Deezer, Apple Music, etc.

We use data from our distributors Globex, Soundrop and CD Baby for information regarding streams on platforms such as Coda, Tidal, YouTube, Deezer and so on when reckoning the monthly charts.

Data from the streaming services filters through to us via our distributors, and we are not very trusting of it. At best we can get a general feel of what is going on across all of the streaming services this way. Because the data arrives several days, or even weeks, late, we only use it to extrapolate general trends.

HearThis, Audius, Audiomack

We have started organising our music at HearThis since the recent debacle with SoundCloud. Unfortunately, their stats are not terribly helpful and rather time-consuming to collate, although to be fair, they are improving.

The aforementioned debacle with SoundCloud was the catalyst for ourselves taking the decision to add our music to both Audius and Audiomack. Both platforms came highly recommended, although their stats, like at HearThis, are also not especially informative.

In Conclusion…

If somebody actually pays to download something, they must have liked it! Our artists and ourselves are always very grateful to our supporters in this respect. It genuinely helps keep the fires burning and the wheels turning.

When somebody reposts a track, that gives it the opportunity to be heard by a potential new fan. This is always a tremendous help for creative souls. It enables that track to be discovered and enjoyed by the community of the person doing the sharing, which can generate new fans.

A ‘like’ is nice, but reposts actually helps the artist reach a bigger audience. You create the chance for that to happen. Recommending a song costs you nothing at all and can be a massive help for an independent artist. Why not do it now? :)

How Did We Calculate The November 2025 Chart?

The algorithm we use gives greater weight to downloads and reposts, then comments and likes (active engagement), then plays (passive engagement). Different platforms perform differently and are given different weightings based on standard deviation calculations.

We use general tendencies and trends that have occured over the last calender month, as well as specifics where they are available. The data has been amalgamated together from all of the different platforms to make the new Top Ten. Archive tracks and bonus tracks are ignored, as is anything from people who clearly didn’t listen to the music.

Only you, the listener, can influence our next chart. So if there is a song you particularly like, keep playing it! Leave a comment, repost it, share it to your social media feeds! Download it from our Bandcamp! Add it to a playlist! It absolutely can make a difference.

Thanks For All Your Help!

Massive thanks go out to everybody who helped to support all of us during November 2025 by listening to, commenting on and reposting our bands’ tracks on SoundCloud, Bandcamp and elsewhere.

All the wonderful fans of our bands who supported us with downloads from Bandcamp are especially appreciated. Just one download of a €7 album is worth about 3300 snotify streams. By buying a download, you genuinely help us keep the fires burning, and collectively we thank you for that most graciously. May you be blessed by the gods of rock n roll! :)

We would also like to say a special thank you to all the splendid people on Twitter and BlueSky who have been enjoying and reposting our tracks to their followers. All the support and positive feedback has been incredibly heartwarming for us all. It makes our endeavours here feel worthwhile.

Thank you very much to everyone who bought items from our merch store. Anyone who shares a photo of themselves with their Wud item on social media will receive an extra goody from ourselves once we have seen it and shared the photo on to our community as well.

If you buy something cool from the Flicker merch store, or the Dark Company merch store, we shall also send you an extra goody if you show us a photo of yourself (or friend, or environment) on social media with the item you purchased.

Last and by no means least, we would like to say thank you very much to all of the splendid people who have been buying us coffees at BuyMeACoffee. It’s very kind of you to help us out. All of these things absolutely contribute to ourselves being able to keep going, and spend more time making beautiful music for you to enjoy. It is truly appreciated very much indeed.

Who’s In The November 2025 Top Ten?

The latest top ten features four different acts. There are four songs from Dark Company, four from BSoD + D², and one each by the Band of Georges and Mark Drower and the Everyones. Six of the songs are new entries, two are re-entries and two are fallers.

Dark Company

Congratulations to Dark Company! They enjoyed another excellent month and claimed the top four spots of the newest chart. All four songs are new releases, and belong to the SNAFU CD of their forthcoming triple-CD album A for Acronym.

Straight in at number one is Committed by Dark Company, from their growing SNAFU CD. All of these songs are work-in-progress, although many of them are not too shabby and give a decent idea of where the songs are going.

Committed is a lyric that Pete wrote in December 2010 and describes his extreme sense of alienation from everything that he felt ‘normal’ people did. He was always very thankful that he’d forged his own path and never had any interest in conforming to what society expected of him. He really was the most unqiue of characters.

The music for Committed is unusual as well. The original guitar part was abandoned, although the original bass part still stands. The bass plays the main riff always in the ascension, even though to do so seems counter-intuitive. The guitars play single notes in harmony with the bass to make the triads that form the chords of the song, which is in the key of B minor.

A new entry at number two is another song by Dark Company from their A for Acronym album. This one is called Helping Hands, and is a solid slab of classic rock or britpop in the key of E major.

Whilst recording his bass part, the normally quicksilver-fingered thudmeister Maxx laughed with puzzlement upon discovering that his part was rather harder to play than it sounds. Dark Company have a couple oof future plans for the ending of Helping Hands, which are reassuringly goosebump-inducing.

Helping Hands undergoes a rather unusual key change in the third verse, which happened completely by accident when Pete couldn’t quite remember where the melody went. The result turned out to be splendid, and the band went with it and kept it.

The third new entry this month is at number three. This is also the third Dark Company song to hit the chart and is called Conspiracy. It starts with Sven’s thundersome drums accompanied by industrial grade heavy guitars in the key of E, then moves up to A for the verses. There is no chorus.

Conspiracy is one of Dark Company‘s heavier songs and features some splendid synth work from Josh. The lyric was penned by Pete in the summer of 2010.

Another new entry at number four is Project Terminated, the last of the latest batch of the newest Dark Company songs. Pete wrote the lyric for Project Terminated in January 2011. The guitar was composed on an instrument in standard tuning that had been lowered by a full tone, and with a drop-D – effectively, a drop-C.

Project Terminated describes the various ingenius ways humanity has discovered for sawing off the branch of the tree upon which is stands, thereby rushing with a certain amount of inevitability towards its own doom. It may seem a dark subject, but it is done with plenty of dark humour, and perhaps an alternative future may yet exist for us all.

BSoD + D²

The new release by The Bastard Sons of Dennis with Dave Danielli, Cruelty to Blues, has provided the newest chart with four splendid songs, including two new entries.

Cruelty to Blues was only released last month and has already gone very well. Further news regarding the album will appear in the coming days.

Down from number one to number five is the first song this month from BSoD + D². Seven Screaming Diz-Busters is a highly esoteric and extraordinary piece of progressive rock composition, beautifully interpreted by The Bastard Sons of Dennis with Dave Danielli on bass. It is a song for which The Bastard Sons of Dennis were well known.

Originally this song was released by Blue Öyster Cult on their 1973 Tyranny and Mutation album. It was big crowd favourite at a live performances by The Bastard Sons of Dennis and you can enjoy watching a video of them playing it live by clicking here.

Then Came the Last Days of May is a new entry for BSoD + D². Blue Öyster Cult perform this song in the key of E minor, and our tremendous trio have transposed it to A minor for their cover version.

Then Came the Last Days of May tells the tragic story of three young men who were killed in a drug deal that went wrong. It is a very wistful and beautiful song, and The Bastard Sons of Dennis with Dave Danielli base their version more on the live On Your Feet Or On Your Knees version than the original studio version on Blue Öyster Cult’s 1972 eponymous album.

Falling five places from number three to number eight is a song which is also from the new Cruelty to Blues album by BSoD + D². Astronomy is a profoundly beautiful and haunting creation. It was composed by the Bouchard brothers, Joe and Albert, and Sandy Pearlman. It is the final track of Blue Öyster Cult’s 1974 Secret Treaties album, and an absolute masterpiece of progressive rock composition.

The version of Astronomy by The Bastard Sons of Dennis with Dave Danielli is more ‘produced’ than live performances. They would often end a show with Astronomy, introducing it as a song that was famously covered by Metallica. “We wrote it, of course; ahem, cough…” Chuck would quip.

The second new entry for The Bastard Sons of Dennis with Dave Danielli is at number nine. It is a cover of Blue Öyster Cult‘s fabulous song The Subhuman, from the 1974 Secret Treaties album. This cover version leans heavily on the breathtaking awesome live version found on Blue Öyster Cult‘s 1975 live album, On Your Feet Or On Your Knees.

Despite its length and with plenty of lead guitar breaks, those guitar parts were learned and composed, and were performed almost exactly the same every time The Bastard Sons of Dennis gave The Subhuman a live outing. There is a video of them playing it here… and here. The video is in two parts due to a member of the audience having an accident with the camera person.

Band of Georges

A few months ago, we absolutely could not have anticipated the level of dominance over the charts the Band of Georges has had recently. Why? We were not even expecting to release any of these songs at the start of March!

The Wud Records website was launched in 2008, replacing the old Wud site which simply disappeared soon afterwards. Ever since before the Wud Records website went live, various people tried to persuade George to allow his old Tascam 244 portastudio demos to be released. He always refused, point blank. There was no arguing with him. It was just: “No.” And that was that.

And then, suddenly, he seems to have had a change of heart. He allowed a few of us to listen to his demos, which we thought were surprisingly good. Certainly a lot better than we had anticipated, given everything he had said about awful they were. Whatever it was that happened, we are delighted that it did. Because now, we have been allowed to release all of the volumes of his early songs in their demo form.

We have done very little work to these recordings. They were just lifted from their master cassettes and digitised in our studios, and normalised to 0dB. That was it. Everything sounds just as it was. The cassettes, nearly 40 years old, have stood the test of time very well.

There are no pages for the Band of Georges at Explicit Music at this time, although some may appear following further negotiations. Each released song from the Band of Georges has a comment or a memory from George on its album’s page here at the Wud Records website. Some of that information, along with other facts regarding each song, appears at its page on SoundCloud. There is likely to be extra information given on the two separate pages, so we recommend you check out both.

Losing Your Grip is an odd and perhaps under-rated song, especially so when it was contemporary. There is a glorious chorus and three verses, each being about a different person and their gradual descents via entropy into insanity. The sections between the verses are in 3/8, or are atemporal dissolutions into strangeness and noise, with all the knobs on the Electric Mistress turned up to full.

Losing Your Grip was performed by Wud. Ken did a fine job of singing the vocal parts. You can enjoy the Wud version of Losing Your Grip at the HearThis website by clicking here.

Mark Drower and the Everyones

It has been a very good month for Mark Drower and the Everyones, with a song from their seminal Blaze Tape recording landing at number ten.

Treasure by Mark Drower and the Everyones has a redoubtable history and was often jammed and made into other songs entirely, songs which never saw the light of day beyond the rooms they were jammed in.

Treasure is a fabulous song that Mark created. Its wonderful lyrics were often quoted, and those obscure chords in drop-D tuning that Mark taught us never appeared in any chord dictionary. The drop-D tuning is still known as Drower Tuning by many of the wider Wud posse.

Treasure features the seminal lead guitarings of a teenage Pok the Bard. Lisa Williams, who played the part of Treasure during the play, reads the talkover at the beginning.

* None of our other acts made it onto the November 2025 chart. *

Listening Options

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in November 2025, as played, liked, commented upon and reposted by listeners, please click here.

If you prefer to listen right here at the Wud Records website, you will find that it is the new default music player. You will find it on all non band-specific pages at the site, including our Links collection and homepage.

The November 2025 chart has its very own dedicated page among the charts pages of this website. You can listen to the new compilation on its page by clicking here.

Each of the previous charts also has its own page in the charts section of this website. If you would like to see all our old charts, or for any previous month you are especially interested in, all of them can be accessed easily by clicking here.