Sounds of 2012: Nos. 72 to 67

It's long past time I got back to looking at Everfree Radio's Top 100 of brony music from 2012. As always, my four rules determine whether I should feature each track; this lets me skip any where it's fairly clear that the artist wants them gone from the internet and there's no overriding reason why I should go against that apparent wish. Here's the summary:

Rule 1: Still available in the same or (1b) similar form direct from the artist
Rule 2: Available from a third party, with reason to believe the artist is fine with this
Rule 3: So famous that it would be plain silly to leave it out
Rule 4: Being unlisted is not, on its own, grounds for exclusion

The entire half-dozen can be categorised as Rule 1 this time, so yay for that! I'll talk about each song in detail after the cut below, but here are the six tracks that I'll be featuring today:

72: H8_Seed – Neverending Strife
71: Stormwolf + WoodenToaster – Fruits Of Her Labour
70: Aviators – Melody
69: Eurobeat Brony – Diamond Dogs (Euro Dirt Mix)
68: Forest Rain – Memory Lane (cover)
67: dbPony (feat. EileMonty) – Miles

If you want to know more about these tracks, please keep reading!

72: H8_Seed – Neverending Strife

Rule 1: uploaded on 15 Jan 2012
We saw H8_Seed last time with "Petrified", and here's another classic track by the artist now going by his real name of Trace Mychal. This one is about Discord, and how he revels in his role as king of chaos, delighting in the fact that all he needs to do is to facilitate ponies' own downfall. It's full of distorted synths and bloopiness, and was remixed by quite a few people, including famously in 2013 by The Living Tombstone. The original song and its instrumental are available as Mediafire downloads via the video description, but only as 160k MP3s. I can't find anything higher-quality, I'm afraid.

71: StormWolf + WoodenToaster – Fruits of Her Labour

Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 1 Mar 2012
You don't see many Cherry Jubilee songs! Actually, I'm racking my brain and can't think of any others. This one, on WoodenToaster's account (StormWolf is at JoshLohMusic), has quite a simple message, being about how CJ succeeds (in a rather AJ-like way) in providing for her kin through her skill at fruit farming. Distortion is the order of the day once again, though this time mostly on the vocals. I'm not a huge fan of that, but there's a nice synth solo a couple of minutes in that I appreciate rather more. Unfortunately, there's no HQ version that I could find.

70: Aviators – Melody

Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 29 Sep 2012
A track Aviators originally intended for the Balloon Party album, but decided not to upload because he "thought it sucked". After many requests, he gave in and after a little remastering, released it anyway. He mentions in the description that he felt it was time to move away from dubstep and find his own style. In all honesty, I'm not sure what the My Little Pony connection is here, other than its creator being (at the time) a huge MLP fandom name. I don't think it's named after either Octavia or the G1 Tales character! While I wouldn't be quite as hard on this piece as Aviators, I certainly don't find it especially compelling among his releases – but then dubstep isn't my style, either. Another song whose Mediafire download is a mere 160 kbps.

69: Eurobeat Brony – Diamond Dogs (Euro Dirt Mix)

Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 28 Apr 2012
Something a bit different from Odyssey Eurobeat now: not a remix, despite the title, but a complete original song! The Eurobeat style with its insistent beat remains intact, but it's accompanied by a song that despite its name doesn't have a lot to do with "A Dog and Pony Show", but rather uses the Diamond Dogs name to do its thing. Indeed, Odyssey says in the description that "it's not explicitly about MLP:FiM in any way besides title and inspiration". You can pick it up for whatever you think it's worth on Odyssey's Bandcamp.

68: Forest Rain – Memory Lane (cover)

Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 18 Feb 2012
Certainly my favourite from this batch, Forest Rain's lovely rendition is in fact a cover of Osoth's relatively little-known folksy acoustic original from the tail-end of 2011. Forest Rain has long been one of my favourite fandom musicians, and although this cover is one of her earlier efforts it still works very well. Considering it was written so long ago, "Memory Lane" is also a song that feels relevant even now, as the end of the show approaches. You can get it as a 320k MP3 via the video description – but if that's not enough, pay $1 on Forest Rain's Bandcamp for access to the WAV and FLAC versions.

67: dbPony (feat. EileMonty) – Miles

Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 15 Nov 2012
A double act now between dBPony (who reappeared on YouTube in mid-2018 after several years away) and the ever-popular EileMonty. It's a song about Apple Bloom feeling down about her continuing lack of a cutie mark, followed by Applejack dispensing a bit of big-sisterly wisdom about patience being a virtue. It's a cute, bouncy song, too that sticks in your head. EileMonty's AJ impression isn't quite as accomplished here as it would later become, but it does a reasonable job. There's a 320k Mediafire download linked from the video description.