Sunday 13 October 2019

Sounds of 2012: Nos. 66 to 62

With any luck, as you read this post I shall be away at UK PonyCon, and the final episodes – ever! – of Friendship is Magic will have received their official broadcast on Discovery Family. I know this could be considered a time to look ahead, and I'm sure I'll do some of that in due course, but right now I'm heading back seven years for another Sounds of 2012. A quick refresher on the rules I use to determine whether a song is featured – they're all Rule 1 songs this time:

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

66: Sim Gretina – BBBFF (remix)
65: Sim Gretina – Laughter (feat. Bubble Berry)
64: Baasik/BlackGryph0n – Paper Sky
63: Matthew Mosier – My Cadence (feat. Megaphoric and ismBoF)
62: Flaedr – Crystal Ponies (Flaedr Remix)

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


Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 26 Apr 2012
If you've been following me this far, you'll know that I like Sim Gretina's remixes. This one is pretty much as you'd expect, with an infectious beat and some clever vocal choppery. It turns the S2 finale's gentlest song into something considerably more high-energy; in fact, it's probably a better tune to dance to than "Love is in Bloom", which was actually written for that purpose! Unfortunately, HQ versions seem conspicuous by their absence.


Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube on 5 Aug 2012
Well, this is a bit of an oddity. The general sound is, again, what you'd expect of Sim Gretina: a bouncy rhythm and show-song vocals chopped around to give them new life. In this case, though, they're also combined with circus music, no less, as well as a pingy synth solo late on. I'm not sure who "Bubble Berry" is – ponyfic people may well know the name as that of Pinkie's R63'd stallion equivalent, but that doesn't seem to apply here. Again, no HQ version: a SoundCloud link in the video description is dead.


Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 2 Oct 2012
One I didn't previously know from BlackGryph0n and brother Baasik. This one is very much a pop song, and with a little imagination you could almost hear this as if it had been a mainstream hit from the likes of Owl City. I'm struggling a bit to work out what it's actually about, though there's a lot of reference to the singer feeling alive knowing the sun will rise. Anyway, there's a (working!) SoundCloud link in the video description, though that seems to be your only option apart from YouTube itself.


Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 17 Sep 2012
Something for the indie fans now. Matthew Mosier says in the description that he was inspired by the fact that "Mi Amore Cadenza" can be interpreted as meaning "My Love Song". Lots of acoustic guitar here, and some really nice vocal harmonies. Like many similar songs, this one is maybe a minute too long, but relax and enjoy the duetting and it won't seem too much. Megaphoric is a name I still know quite well, but ismBoF is new to me, though it seems they were around the Pony fandom for some years after this. There's a 320k MP3 download via a Mediafire link in the description, or you can get it for whatever you want to pay on Matthew Mosier's Bandcamp.


Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 15 Jul 2012
Hey, it's a remix that isn't by Sim Gretina! The sound isn't a million miles away, though, so if you like SG you may well like what Flaedr has done here with the least-played song from the S3 premiere. There's a reasonable, but not excessive, amount of booping (booping as in electronic sounds, not as in the snout-prods) and the song maintains its energy until the end, though it does stop a little more abruptly than I'd expected. Flaedr departed for the world of anime back in 2015, but if you like this track there's still a 320k MP3 available via a Mediafire link in the video description.

1 comment:

  1. Sim Gretina had a series of songs that all "featured" R63 names of the mane cast. It just meant that he'd pitched down their vocals; apparently, Pinkie Pie just doesn't sound particularly masculine when you do that. I seem to recall some of the others did, Rarity especially.

    Anyway, oh yes Paper Sky. I'm pretty sure it was the dynamic duo's first release together? BlackGryph0n I had known previously for "Proud to Be a Brony" (I wonder if that's on this list or if it's older). But this song still gives me chills. And then they released IMmortal. Man, 2012 was one of the best times to be highly entangled in the brony fandom's music scene. :D

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