Wud Records: July 2024 top ten published at SoundCloud

The July 2024 Chart

The top ten tracks for July 2024 from Wud Records have been published in a new compilation at SoundCloud.

However… there is a certain proviso to all of this. In much the same way as all social media platforms become ever more strangled under ever tighter controls, so too is the data from streaming services – especially SoundCloud – more vague and less complete. In fact, the quality of data from some platforms has become so downgraded that we have been forced to calculate the chart this month using an entirely new system. Thank goodness for the Statistics module at university!

This new system is entirely based upon general tendencies and trends that have occured over the last calender month. We shall elaborate further below with regard to each platform where our music is represented.

Why Use Bandcamp?

We believe that the stats we see from Bandcamp are perfectly accurate, just as SoundCloud‘s used to be before they decided to downgrade everything to a pile of rubble that is unfit for purpose.

If you are not yet a member of Bandcamp, we strongly suggest you sign up. Do it now! It’s free to join.

If you are an artist and want to sell your music and 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. Bandcamp are simply Numero Uno. Finito.

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. When you subscribe, you don’t own any of the music! You’re just renting a bit of bandwidth on their distribution service, most of the revenue from which goes to big corporations rather than the artists you love. It’s a terrible business model for artists and fans alike.

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. It’s always a good idea to download from Bandcamp whenever possible as they are the best site for supporting artists. 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.

HearThis

We are considering moving all of our SoundCloud music to HearThis because we rather like the platform, even though it is less than 5% of the size of SoundCloud. Their MD has promised us personally that his company will not ride roughshod over its userbase without any warning at all in attempts to cut costs, and that is rather appealing.

We’ve had plenty of issues and arguments with SoundCloud over many years, such as our disabled messaging for allegedly ‘spamming’ other artists there, who we dared try to inform about being included in a Musical Discoveries compilation. It would have probably been fine if we’d supported a bunch of major hiphop stars, as that is what SC loves best, instead of the multitude of curious and largely undiscovered wonders we try to support.

More news on this will follow in the future.

SoundCloud

In the last few months, SoundCloud have decided, in their seemingly infinite wisdom, to downgrade their excellent ‘Stats’ for premium users (such as ourselves) to something completely and unbelievably dreadful that they call ‘Insights’, which are surprisingly uninsightful despite the profoundly misleading nomenclature. You couldn’t make this stuff up. It beggars belief.

Somebody at the company thought it would be a good idea to take a system that worked spectacularly well in real time, and replace it with another that is so riddled with inconsistancies and errors that the data is a worthless waste of time. One can even observe the data changing right before one’s eyes! Who thought this was a good idea?

The downgraded data has become so unreliable by now that all we can go by is the list of recent popular tracks. Nothing adds up correctly and, as mentioned before, figures can unexpectedly change, even as you are looking at them. Essentially this means that SoundCloud data has become completely worthless and unusable. Once again we are considering abandoning that platform for another one that gives reliable data.

We simply do not believe the information we get from SoundCloud any more. It makes no sense and is of such poor quality that specifics need to be disregarded completely. We have very strong evidence that it is not accurate at all.

Why on earth people have to do these things seems utterly bewildering, but there we are. It has been done, and there is nothing we can do, apart from write monthly emails of remonstrations and complaint, pointing out specific errors and inconsistencies within their system, only to receive an AI generated response from a bot that has failed to understand our email and might indeed be answering somebody else’s. Customer service was never really one of SoundCloud‘s strengths.

This is the world we live in today. All social media has been tightened and downgraded and it’s becoming ever harder to use any of the platforms, with ever diminishing rewards for anyone bothering to fritter away their precious time doing so.

Shitify

We are now using data from our distributors for streams on platforms such as spotify, YouTube, Deezer and so on when reckoning the monthly charts. Unfortunately the data arrives several days late, so we only use it to extrapolate general trends.

The data from the Wud Records Snotify for Artists pages covers everybody at that platform on our label. We also use the Snortify data from our distributors CD Baby and Soundrop.

Truth be told, we dislike spotify rather intensely right now. Not only are they tardy regarding supplying their stats, they have also implemented their most hideously egregious policy so far from 1st January 2024.

Spotify have chosen to take all of the revenue generated by any track having under 1000 streams and redistribute that revenue to the people who have the most streams, such as drake, kanye, taylor and so on.

Read about it here: https://blog.discmakers.com/2023/11/spotify-royalty-theft/

This isn’t just theft, it’s an absolute disgrace. Whoever thought this up should be ashamed of themselves and publicly rogered with a wire brush. Size four.

As such, we are considering boycotting spotify entirely. More news on this to come at the end of 2024.

Should our music achieve more than 1000 streams per track, which is highly likely over the course of a whole year, that means we are in effect stealing somebody else’s royalties when we are paid.

Just because a creative person achieves under 1000 streams for a song doesn’t mean we have the right to take their royalties. They probably worked just as hard as we did to make and release their music. They are no less deserving of their royalties than anybody else.

The whole thing is mucky and bad and makes us feel dirty for being paid not just our own royalties, but those of people who were unable to make the cut. This is just so wrong. It’s a proper mess.

In Conclusion…

Previously the algorithm we used gave greatest weight to downloads and reposts, then likes and comments (active engagement) over plays (passive engagement).

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 July 2024 Chart?

We have combined the stats from the general trends and tendencies from all of the services mentioned above. Each platform is represented and weighted. Archive tracks and bonus tracks are ignored. Feedback from people who clearly didn’t listen to the music is now rendered insignificant.

Only you, the listener, can influence our August 2024 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 July 2024 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 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, 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 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 July 2024 Top Ten?

Flicker

Congratulations to Flicker! They enjoyed an excellent month in July 2024 as they achieved three entries on the new Wud Records chart, including the top two. All three tunes come from their incredible 2002 album At Least 1000 Words.

There is a re-entry at number one in the new July 2024 chart. Moonpath is a beautiful melodic progressive rock instrumental with impossible hybrid harmonic guitar chords that require tentacles rather than fingers to play.

Moonpath was composed after looking out to sea at Sidmouth beach on the night of a full moon. George plays the guitars using the Ice Maiden, and the bass using the Plank. Dave plays the drums and the djembe.

Moonpath had a sudden spike of being viral on various streaming services for a few days. It is always a popular SoundCloud tune and is usually not far from the top ten in the months when it doesn’t find representation. It is fully two years since Moonpath hit our charts.

Week Five is a climber from four to two. Week Five has a remarkably live-sounding feel for a studio recording. It is a breezy feelgood latin rock dance number with summer vibes that wouldn’t sound out of place in a set from Carlos Santana.

Week Five is a piece about looking forward to the future and feeling excited about forthcoming adventures and new experiences. It begins with a sample from the Prague metro and as the tune builds it becomes progressively more intense.

Welcome to the Family is another re-entry, having been outside the top ten since November 2023. 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.

& co / Dark Company

Rising five places to number three is a track from Dark Company‘s Signmaker album and the sole entry from & co, the remixing department of our amazing band Dark Company.

This is an & co remix of Armed & Dangerous, and was left unfinished when Dark Company’s internal and external troubles caused the band to implode in 1994.

There is actually not much more of the original Armed & Dangerous than some of the intro in the brief (just 1:57) Digital RMX version that has appeared in the new chart.

Of course, the original idea was to finish the whole song in a new digital version, like the digital remixes of Killer (also unfinished, no outro) and Astrologer (finished!), so that Dark Company might be able to perform them live using a DAT machine for their backing tracks. It is unlikely that Armed & Dangerous (Digital RMX) will ever be finished, but never say never.

Pok the Bard

We have started to release Pok’s Anthology album’s tracks to SoundCloud (as mentioned in this News post) and doing so has made an immediate impact. Pok has claimed three of the top spots on our new chart.

Down from number one last month to number four is The Lecher. This has just been remixed and remastered and sounds a whole lot better than it did before.

The Lecher is in the key of E major and trundles along at 88 BPM with a shufflesome 12/8 feel. The song was composed by Pok, who created the riff, and there were likely others involved in its creation as well, such as George, Roy and Dick, when they were all pupils at The King’s Grammar School, Ottery St Mary, in 1982.

The Lecher was actually inspired by one or more of the teachers at the aforementioned school, which had rather an abundance of beautiful young maidens. Exactly which teacher (-s) would have been the main inspiration for The Lecher is now lost to the mists of time.

The Lecher is a deliciously expressive piece of music that captures, with considerable style, the essence of a lecherous schoolmaster going about his daily business.

Essentially the song is a truly awesome riff and lots of jamming, and the result is just fabulous. It was the first finished and released song for Pok’s Anthology album.

Down from number five to this month‘s number seven is our newest release. Wear a Feather in Your Hat tells a most extraordinary tale about a group of travellers in the USA in the 19th Century and a man with purple skin. This really truly is a delightful song and the tale has the most peculiar twist at the end.

Pok plays three guitar parts on his beautiful Gretsch acoustic – one left, one right and a lead part. The lead part was recorded all in one take, and it was the first take. The man’s skills are often under-rated. Maxx and Sven do a fabulous job with the bass and percussives, as always.

Wear a Feather in Your Hat first appears on the Indeed recording by Laughing Sun. The lyrics even say “You can be a man of Wud or you can go insane!” – which seems a relatively easy choice to make.

Back in 1985, when Pok wrote Wear a Feather in Your Hat and used the word ‘man’, it was widely understood to mean ‘woman’ as well, in an all-encompassing and friendly way, rather than today’s necessity for lengthy politically correct pronoun conjugations and configuarations.

Down from number seven to number ten is the third entry from our PokStar. Young Light is a beautiful song that Pok composed after he left the sixth form of school in 1983. He wrote it for Mark Drower for all the inspiration that Mark unintentionally gave to the fledgling wudders.

Young Light is quite a short song at only 2:36 and is full of wistful wonder. There is also a banjo, that Pok happened to have with him when he came to visit the studios on the day the song was recorded. It seemed like a fun idea to include it.

The Bastard Sons of Dennis

The Bastard Sons of Dennis enjoyed a good month on the chart in July 2024, claiming one of the ten possible positions. The song comes from their fabulous Cosy Lube Turtle album.

Since the studio upgrade early last year, we have been working on improving the sound quality of everything we released in the last few years. Fans of our gruesome twosome can expect some exciting news regarding this album fairly soon. We are waiting on just a single file before making a big announcement.

A progtastic full-band mini-album by the dynamic duo is also in the early stages of finalisation.

Sadly we tend to feel that further recordings of their many remaining Blue Oyster Cult covers seems an unlikely prospect. This is mostly due to “discommunication, disorganisation and general untogetherness”, as the legend who is Paul Bateman once said of them when they were in Rough Terrain.

Then Came the Last Days of May rises four places from number seven to number three. This beautiful song 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.

Dark Company

Future Sadness Past is down from number two to number six. Future Sadness Past enjoyed some more viral streaming, mostly in North America.

With both feet planted firmly in the “distinctly weird” category, Future Sadness Past is unlike any other Dark Company song. It appears on their Signmaker album.

The version you can enjoy there was recorded live in Silent Running Studios in 1991. George plays guitar, Jeff plays bass and there is a lot of echo from the Alesis Quadraverb. Pete’s wonderful vocal delivers a most extraordinary and allegorical lyric that was still hot off his pen at the time the song was recorded. Pete also adds a few percussive sounds, using a rather odd Zippo gas lighter and a Fast Fret tin.

The band tried a few times to recreate the magic of this version of the song, but could never quite do it. Ultimately the original ‘live’ studio version was salvaged from cassette and polished for the Signmaker album. It was highly spontaneous and some rather good hashish may have been consumed before, during and after the performance.

Alchemeon

Alchemeon return to the charts after a short sabbatical. Alchemeon were an awesome foursome powered by the phenomenal Iggy on drums, Jim Iz on his copious racks of keys and harmony vocals, Pok on guitar and voice and George on bass. They were an amazing quartet whose progressive/psychedelic/space/cosmic rock sound was something truly special. Sadly the band’s existence was far too short lived, due mainly to Jim’s poor health and Pok’s desire to follow the way of the bard rather than the way of the band member.

September 2021’s chart topper, Alchemeon‘s Castrol GTX a-Go-Go, is a re-entry at this month‘s number eight. Besides being a work of insane genius, there is a tremendous backstory behind the composition of Castrol GTX a-Go-Go. You can read it at any of the song’s own web pages, such as on Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and Explicit Music.

* None of our other acts made it onto the July 2024 chart. *

Listening Options

If you would like to go to SoundCloud to hear the top ten songs from Wud Records in July 2024, 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 July 2024 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.