Wud Records: March 2025 top ten published at SoundCloud

The March 2025 Chart

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

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

About a year ago, SoundCloud decided, in their seemingly infinite wisdom, to downgrade their excellent ‘Stats’ for premium users (such as ourselves) to something that was so completely and unbelievably dreadful it was unfit for purpose. They call it ‘Insights’, and they were surprisingly uninsightful, despite the somewhat profoundly misleading nomenclature.

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 was completely riddled with inconsistencies and errors. One could even observe the data changing right before one’s eyes! Even some of the most basic functions, such as choosing particular date ranges, no longer worked properly. Which idiot thought this was a good idea? Whilst we still do not fully trust the information we get from SoundCloud, there has been enough improvement in data quality in the last couple of months for it to be useful again.

Shitify

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, which don’t cover the exact range of dates we would like them to, 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.

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.

Not only that, two of our songs have had “excessive” plays. This excess has resulted in punitive measures, which we are still protesting. It seems ridiculous, but that is what has happened.

One such song, Future Sadness Past from Dark Company‘s Signmaker album, has been removed from spotify completely. In order to punish us for having our song played “excessively”, the rest of the Signmaker album has also been removed from spotify.

The other missing track is Welcome to the Family by Flicker, from At Least 1000 Words. This track seems to have been hidden from the public.

Our distributors have so far been unable to help regarding these issues.

As such, we are considering boycotting spotify entirely. They are, after all, extremely shabby corporate scumbags, and have treated our label, and every other independent artist, with absolute contempt. Perhaps because we have spoken out repeatedly against their egregious policies?

Various members of our team have had quite heated argumnets about the merits or otherwise of leaving our music on the platform. For now it is still there, because it is easier to leave it there, than it is to remove it and then put it back. More news on this to come soon.

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

We are now using data from our distributors for streams on platforms such as 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 for these services filters through to us via our distributors, although 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.

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 March 2025 Chart?

The latest system is based upon some of the general tendencies and trends that have occured over the last calender month, as well as specifics where they are available. These have been amalgamated together to make the new Top Ten.

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

Only you, the listener, can influence our April 2025 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 March 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 March 2025 Top Ten?

The latest top ten is probably the craziest chart we’ve ever published! There is one non-mover and there are nine new entries. Only the first one we published had more!

Pok the Bard

Congratulations to 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 a big impact. Pok has claimed many of the top spots recently, including two on our new chart.

Staying at number one is a song by Pok called It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain. This is a beautiful and historic song that Pok composed when he was just a teenager. It was performed by Laughing Sun, Spacegoats and Alchemeon before being recorded and added to Pok‘s Anthology album.

The production is suitably huge. We tried to incorporate elements of all the important parts from the song’s various incarnations and outings. It is also one of our lengthiest chart toppers, at nine minutes and fifteen seconds.

It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain is in the key of E minor. There is a lot of Em7 and A7 throughout the instrumental sections. You may also hear the delightful key change for the “What have we done” sections, where the guitars play C7 – D7 – Gm7 – C7, before resolving to Am7 – C – Em. The tempo varies between 65 and 77 BPM and there is a screenshot of the tempo track at the bottom of the news post announcing the release of the song.

A brand new entry from Pok the Bard is at number eight. This is the amazing, wonderful, beautiful, wistful, mystical, crazy Silver Ships on the Sea. Loved dearly since the first time we heard it, this particular version has been remixed and remastered and the new audio has replaced the old at Bandcamp, as well as being released to SoundCloud.

What started out as a gentle, folky, nerdy, questioning, acoustic ballad about the elves leaving Middle Earth in their silvery boats has grown into the most insanely hardcore piece of psychedelia you will ever, ever hear. There are four acoustic guitars, three basses, numerous electric guitars, a cello, a rainstick, a schoolgirl’s wooden descant recorder, and a whole lot more to feast your ears upon.

If you can, listen loud on big speakers, or headphones, whilst lying relaxed in a dark room. Let the music take you away, perhaps after you have partaken of something… relaxing. Don’t be afraid to listen again, as you will be sure to have missed some of its details the first time around. Silver Ships on the Sea is one of the most glorious things we have ever released.

Band of Georges

We were absolutely not in the least little bit anticipating the level of dominince over the new chart the Band of Georges has had. Why? We were not even expecting to release any of these songs at the start of March! How swiftly things can happen. And what a month it has been for one of our most revered stars, claiming no less than eight spots in the top ten.

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 have 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. For now we have been allowed to release all ten volumes of his early songs in demo form.

All of these songs will take some time to release. Volume I is finished aleady and from tomorrow, with any luck, Volume II will start to appear.

There are five songs from Volume I Side A and three from Volume I Side B.

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.

For Volume I Side A at Wud Records, please click here.

For Volume I Side A at SoundCloud, please click here.

For Volume I Side B at Wud Records, please click here.

For Volume I Side B at SoundCloud, please click here.

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

Listening Options

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