Here we are again with another "Sounds of 2012" post. To remind anyone who's forgotten, this is a series wherein I look at the songs that Everfree Radio's listeners voted into the Top 100 tracks released in 2012. As ever, a quick reminder of the criteria 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
32: Lenich & Kirya – Pinkie's Brew Russian Gypsy Jazz
31: Aviators – Friendship
30: The Living Tombstone & Bronyfied – Stuck in Time
29: PrinceWhateverer ft. Liquid Cobalt and ISMBOF – Between Fairytales and Happy Endings
28: Assertive Fluttershy – Boooring!
Just the five songs featured here today, but beyond the cut you'll find videos of them all, as well as where (if anywhere!) you can pick the songs up in better-than-YouTube quality. Let's go!
Rule 1: re-uploaded to artists' channel in 2018
Lenich & Kirya are still releasing similarly-styled music, although not Pony music. Lenich's original channel was banned in 2017 (I don't know why) but they re-uploaded the song the following year. Yay! Anyway, this is what it says: a jazzified version of the Friendship is Witchcraft classic. It's smooth and easy to listen to, even if like me you speak no Russian. Five years after the original, they made a slightly different version with "20% cooler sound", though it's the original that's embedded above. Get the 2012 version in MP3 or FLAC via its video description – though note that the download is via Mega, not Mediafire.
Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 21 Feb 2012
What in the name of Tartarus is this doing down at number 31? This was Aviators' 2,000-sub special and, okay, the production isn't as good as his later stuff – but it remains a classic of the fandom to this day. Aviators' voice is as great as ever and the story is compelling: it tells of a group of friends (not necessarily the Mane Six) having a serious breakdown in their friendship – but the singer swearing to "make this right". I wonder how many people predicted at the time that Aviators would go on to gain over a hundred times as many subscribers as he had then? The song is a free download on Aviators' Bandcamp.
Rule 1: uploaded to Youtube 21 Apr 2012
This collaboration between The Living Tombstone and Bronyfied has not stood the test of, aha, time all that well – certainly not as well as the track that charted immediately below it. The main problem to my ears is that the lyrics to this song celebrating Dr. (W)hooves aren't actually very good. They're certainly not very clear – I couldn't make head nor tail of the line "Back to the TARDIS, fighting the Daleks, right in time again" until I read the lyrics in print. The orchestration is classic 2012-era Tombstone, but then so are a lot of other things that don't have the aforementioned lyrics issue. Still, if you do love it, you can get a 320k MP3 via direct download from the video description.
Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 12 Jun 2012
This one isn't what you might expect from PrinceWhateverer, being a soft-spoken guitar ballad. It's desperately dated in its subject, since it's very much a (slightly delayed) reaction to Derpygate; there are lyrics like "You wanna drop me because of how my voice sounds?" Despite the outdated topic, though, it still works pretty well as a tribute to Derpy – and also a nod to the way we the fandom took her into our hearts. Five years later came PW's REINVENT album and a completely redone version featuring Aiko and Senra. To be honest I'd recommend the 2017 version, as it's much better produced, but in keeping with "Sounds of 2012" it's the original that's embedded above. Get it in either MP3 or WAV via the video description.
Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 4 Jun 2012
Assertive Fluttershy is just known as Assertive these days, but in its day he was one of the fandom's biggest names. This track was made for Balloon Party's 100% No Feeble Cheering album, and as its thumbnail above will tell you, it's a Pinkie Pie song. In keeping with many earlyish-fandom songs, it contains plenty of show samples (I'll say it again: I'd like to see those used a bit more nowadays) and is a nicely put together slice of electronica. Even though it's not my favourite style of music, it's easy for me to appreciate this as it's just so nicely done. You can't download the HQ version on its own, but you can grab the entire album for free-or-more on Balloon Party Bandcamp.
Feel better soon, Logan.
ReplyDeleteI'm enjoying these roundups even if I wasn't there at the time and don't really listen to much fan music, it's all entirely new to me and I'm as fascinated by the historical context as the music.
Thank you; I think it's very gradually improving. The forecast in these parts (Worcs) is finally dry for the next few days, which should help a lot.
DeleteI was actually in a similar position for the 2011 series, as that was before I joined the fandom. It's a bit different with the 2012 songs as I remember some of those coming out, having arrived at the tail end of S2. That said, I wasn't a huge fan music listener and compared to some I'm still not, so there are still plenty of surprises in here for me!