The top ten tracks for March 2023 on Bandcamp and SoundCloud have been published in a new compilation.
How Did We Calculate The March 2023 Chart?
The algorithm we use gives greatest weight to downloads and reposts, then likes and comments (active engagement) over plays (passive engagement).
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!
We have combined the stats from both SoundCloud and Bandcamp for the new chart. This is because it will not be long until all our Bandcamp tracks are also published at SoundCloud.
Radio play and songs published at other platforms are omitted from the statistics. There may be further developments when our music is added to more platforms.
Archive tracks and bonus tracks are also ignored, as are likes and comments from people who clearly didn’t listen to the music. We have ways of knowing these things.
Only you, the listener, can influence our April 2023 playlist. So if there is a track you particularly like, keep playing it! Leave a comment, repost it and share it to your social media feeds! 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 March 2023 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. 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 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 seem 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 oursevles 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, both of which opened recently, 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 as 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 March 2023 Top Ten?
The Subterraineans
Congratulations to The Subterraineans! Their wonderful song Short and Sweet tops the chart for the first time, having held a previous highest position of number 2 way back in September 2016. It is the first time The Subterraineans have topped the Wud Records charts.
Two of their other songs, Out of His Head and Get on the Road also made it into the new Top Ten as new entries. The fourth track, Speeding with the Starlight, was just outside the top ten. This means March 2023 is the most successful month for The Subterraineans since we started publishing a monthly chart back in October 2015.
The main reason for the success of The Subterraineans is the remastering and rerelease of their Demo from 1987. The difference in sound quality of the recording after its enhancement in the new studio is profound.
The Subterraineans Demo was recorded on a 4-track cassette portastudio in 1986 and 1987, and mixed onto cassette. The audio degraded even further over the intervening 36 years. Even though it was never going to match today’s standards of perfect high fidelity, we felt that this recording was worthy of addition to our catalogue at Bandcamp.
Dean tragically committed suicide in 1994 by jumping from the Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol. He was just 29 years old. He received absolutely no professional help from the uk medical or social professions. With a little professional help he would surely still be here with us today. He was a unique and charming character and his passing was a great loss to the world.
As such, we have decided to donate all proceeds of the sale of this EP and its individual tracks, beyond the first euro, to The Samaritans. They do amazing and dificult work, trying to prevent more people jumping to their deaths from that notorious bridge.
Short and Sweet is an amazing, beautiful, epic song. It used to really affect people listening to it whenever The Subterraineans played this song live. Like many of Dean’s songs, it is a rather poignant prophetic prediction of Dean’s ultimate fate and how he felt about his struggles.
Short and Sweet is well over eight minutes long and feels much shorter somehow. Jerry’s bass sounds a bit uncertain at the start, but he always played it that way so he must have had some idea what he was doing!
Out of His Head is a new entry at number eight. This song was a hard rock guitar piece that George had composed. Dean added the lyrics in the summer of 1986. He had recently been brutally assaulted by police as he attempted to make his way to the Stonehenge festival. Just a couple of days before writing these lyrics, Dean had also seen a good friend of his being mercilessly beaten, arrested and dragged through Exeter city centre by police during a busy summer lunchtime.
George was also the victim of an unprovoked police assault a few months previously. This attack took place in the yard at the back of Heavitree police station. He had simply gone there to report that his bicycle had been stolen. Police brutality was commonplace in Thatcher’s uk in the mid 1980s.
The wailing at the end of Out of His Head represents police sirens. The drum break represent the blows and kicks raining down on the prostrate victim, surrounded by a gang of hate-fuelled bullies in uniform. Fortunately the uk police are far more professional and restrained in their use of violence these days.
Get on the Road is a new entry at number ten and the third song from The Subterraineans Demo in the March 2023 chart. It was a very new and fresh song at the time of this recording, having been composed in December 1986.
One curiosity of Get on the Road is that one guitar is played with a capot on the fifth fret and the other with no capot. It is an upbeat rock song full of ambition and hope. It survuved the transition of The Subterraineans to Rough Terrain and went on to be a staple of the latter’s live set for the entire duration of their odyssey.
The Bastard Sons of Dennis
The Bastard Sons of Dennis enjoyed an excellent month on the March 2023 chart, with three of the ten available places. All three of the songs come from their splendid Cosy Lube Turtle album.
Cosy Lube Turtle has been available on Bandcamp for some time. We recently released the Cosy Lube Turtle album to SoundCloud as well, and sent it away to a distributor for global distribution. More news on this will follow soon.
Down one place to number two on the new chart is Astronomy. This is a beautiful and haunting song 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 is a little more produced in the opening bars than their 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.
Last month‘s number seven climbs two to number five on the chart this month. Seven Screaming Diz-Busters is a highly esoteric and extraordinary piece of progressive rock composition, beautifully interpreted by The Bastard Sons of Dennis. It is a song for which they were well known.
Originally it was released by Blue Öyster Cult on their 1973 Tyranny and Mutation album. It was big crowd favourite at a live performance by The Bastard Sons of Dennis and you can enjoy watching a video of them playing it live by clicking here.
Falling two places to number seven is the third Cosy Lube Turtle song. This one is a cover of Blue Öyster Cult‘s Wings Wetted Down, from the 1973 Tyranny and Mutation album.
Wings Wetted Down is a masterfully crafted piece of songwriting, with its clever key changes and all its vocal and instrumental melodic hooks. It is considered a deep cut among BÖC fans. The version performed by The Bastard Sons of Dennis is largely true to the original, with the addition of a riff section that Derek solos over.
Dark Company
It’s been a good month for Dark Company, who occupy two of the remaining four chart positions. Both songs are from Alien Heat, a fantastic work-in-progress album that we shall be attempting to finish as soon as possible.
Making a re-entry this month at number three is Ship to Shore. This is a wonderful progressive rock song with a lot of history. The work-in-progress version on the Alien Heat album was transformed into a hybrid electronic rock song by Jeff and George in the early days of Dark Company‘s second incarnation, when the band became a digital trio.
Ship to Shore was last seen in the charts in September 2022. Originally an Alien Heat song, Ship to Shore has been a big favourite for many years. It begins with a sound that was sampled from the Alien Heat band’s version. Zaphod created this special sound himself on the Yamaha DX7 and the song would usually begin with a cry of “Cue The Noise!”.
A new entry at number four is Where Are You. It comes as something of a surprise that this song has never made it to the Wud Records Top Ten before, but apparently it has not until now. We are looking forward very much to having this wonderful song finished and the whole Alien Heat album released as soon as we can manage it.
Where Are You was originally written in the very early days of Alien Heat. Although that band never took the song very far, the bare bones were developed during the early days of Dark Company, when Jeff energised the song with his urgent bassline.
Where Are You is a wonderful allegorical classic or progressive heavy rock song and a real earworm. It works wonderfully well with just acoustic guitar and voice as well, always a measure of a good song. Pete does a wonderful job with the harmonies and the way all the guitars and keyboards work together is truly a delight.
Flicker
Flicker enjoyed a good month and achieved two of the entries on the new Wud Records chart. Both came from their incredible 2002 album At Least 1000 Words.
Up two positions this month is Oily Road Hideaway at number six. This is a delightful and catchy latin jazz dance. Oily Road Hideaway is the only track from Flicker‘s first album with programmed drums. It also has twin bass guitars playing in unison, with Dave panned to the right on his Fender and George panned to the left on the Plank.
A very unusual instrument called a string fish appears towards the end of the tune. This is a home-made creation, from the workshop of Pyg frontman Martin Dearmunn. A string fish is a little like a pair of dulcimers or zithers, joined together at an acute angle. The strings are vertical and played with fingers, like a harp. To play a scale, the player must alternate between the left and right side, like a kalimba.
Welcome to the Family is down five places from four to nine on the new chart. Welcome to the Family is a wonderful latin-jazz-rock-fusion instrumental. It builds from its acoustic guitar beginings to a heady climax of guitar feedback and noise. There is a lovely bass solo from Dave, who also plays all the keyboard parts with outstanding aplomb and sensitivity.
Welcome to the Family was inspired by The Godfather by Mario Puzo and a new chord from a Portuguese sea shanty. It is one of Flicker‘s most enduring and popular releases.
* None of our other acts made it onto the March 2023 chart. *
Listening Options
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.
Each of the previous charts now has its own dedicated 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.
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