Saturday 26 October 2019

Sounds of 2012: Nos. 55 to 49

"Two of these posts in the space of three days?" you may be thinking. "Who are you and what have you done with Logan?" But yes, we are indeed returning to "Sounds of 2012" today: the top 100 fandom tracks of that year, as voted for by listeners to Everfree Radio. Boilerplate coming up to remind you how I decide if a track should be included, and then we'll be off towards the fringes of the top 50. Unfortunately, one song this time didn't qualify for inclusion.

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

55: Aviators – Love is in Bloom remix (feat. Yelling At Cats and HMage)
54: Silva Hound ft. Rina-Chan – Hooves Up High
53: Forest Rain – Raise the Sun
52: JakeLion – Fluttershy Inc. (Gorillas Pony Parody)
51: The Living Tombstone – Smile Song (remix)
50: skipped
49: Random Encounters – The Brony Song

If you'd like to read my rambling about these tracks, then past the cut with you!


Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 16 May 2012
Aviators did a few nice remixes of canon songs, and here's an interesting example. It starts off much as you'd expect an Aviators song to, with melodic synthiness, but then there's the rapping. Rapping? Yes indeed. That's the work of Yelling At Cats, who as far as I can gather was one of those who not only left the fandom but Left The Fandom long, long ago now. Then it's back to the synthiness, which as you'd expect is more to my taste. Producer HMage's account is still up; there's nothing on it from after September 2012, but he certainly stayed around long enough to play at BUCK 2014. There's a 320k MP3 download in the video description.


Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 20 Nov 2012
A song now that I'm slightly surprised to see ranked so low; perhaps its late-year release stymied it a little. Silva Hound is still releasing Pony music now, in autumn 2019, but this song remains one of his biggest hits. (Indeed, a certain Odyssey released a remix this very month.) Rina-Chan's vocals are as good as you'd expect, if you can live with the distortion, but then there's a drop and... well, this is a 2012 song, from the days when dubstep was princess, so you probably know the rest. Besides, if you like your dance-floor wubs, then I'd be amazed if you didn't know this song like the back of your hoof already. You can purchase a high-quality version for 99 cents on Silva Hound's Bandcamp.


Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 11 Dec 2012
This Forest Rain song may also have done better in the chart had it not been for being released so late in the year. You might not associate this singer with a gritty military anthem, but she really nails it. As someone whose favourite princess is also Celestia, this ode to her is very satisfying and even inspiring, especially as back in 2012 the Luna fans were perhaps even louder than they are now. ;) The song was produced for the Bronies for Good Seeds of Kindness 2 project, and at the time that was the only way you could get this in higher-than-YouTube quality, as part of the charity album Faithful and Strong. I have no idea whether there's a legitimate way to get it in HQ now. (Edit: see Soge's comment below.)


Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 15 Mar 2012
JakeLion is still active and still releasing Pony material (among other things), but this parody of Gorillaz' 2005 hit "Feel Good Inc." was easily his biggest hit. It's a very good version of the original, right down to the chorus that sounds startlingly like The Kinks' "Sunny Afternoon". The parody is set at the time of the Pegasus Race, and the first half is from Fluttershy's point of view as she's knocked off the cloud and saved by the butterflies. Then, we get a brasher section with Rainbow sounding as cocky as she does in the early days of the show. Unusually, the artist links to a Pony.fm upload in the video description, so I feel okay in doing the same here.


Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 19 Mar 2012
In 2012, The Living Tombstone was at the zenith of his popularity in this fandom, as evidenced by the fact that this frankly rather workmanlike remix of that show song has over 3.7 million views. There's nothing wrong with this version, but it doesn't really do anything especially interesting. Imagine "Smile" in Tombstone's style and you already know what it sounds like. In my book, this one isn't among his greatest releases. Also, for some reason people keep saying the infamous Smile HD animation uses this track. It doesn't, at least not in the versions I just checked. Anyway, there's a Mediafire link to a 320k MP3 in the video description,

50: skipped


Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 18 Jun 2012
Random Encounters did a couple of MLP pieces, and this parody of "This Day Aria" was the first. It's definitely one of those tracks that does benefit from watching the video, as it's a fun take on the fandom as it was back then. It's all done in good heart, with no nastiness, so don't worry about finding anything unpleasant here. Although one or two lines do feel dated now, most of it could apply today. I especially smiled at "All my feelings are conflicting over Lyra/Bon Bon shipping". No HQ version of this song exists, as far as I know.

4 comments:

  1. perhaps its late-year release stymied it a little

    Yeah, I could see this. I think I overlooked HUH that year, too, despite it legitimately being one of the best songs released by this fandom. (Of course, I say this and I actually have two remixes instead of the original. <.<) I'm just as shocked to see it so low! To say nothing of Raise the Sun! D: Who votes on these, they're all dummyheads.

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    1. Well, I didn't vote on any of them. Take that as you will. :P

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  2. You can still get all the Seeds of Kindness albums by donating to the latest one. They will send you a download link for all the previous albums, not only the latest one.

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    1. Aha! I either did not know or had forgotten that. Thanks!

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