Sounds of 2012: Nos. 3 and 2

Here we go with the penultimate post of "Sounds of 2012", a series counting down the tracks voted by Everfree Radio's listeners back at the end of 2012 as being their fandom favourites of that year. For form's sake, here are the usual inclusion criteria, though anything that ranks in the top three is damn well going in anyway!

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

03: Bronyfied – Brony Metal Medley
02: AcoustiMandoBrony – Loyalty

I normally put a page break here, but I won't bother with that for this post or for the final one, as they won't end up all that long. Here we go...

03: Bronyfied – Brony Metal Medley

Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 1 Apr 2012
This seven-minute extravaganza from Bronyfied is pretty much what it says on the tin: a collection of fandom hits, all played in an orchestral metal style. Bronyfied called it "a sort of love letter to all the musicians in the community", and it's accompanied in the video by a collection of art pieces made specifically for this project. The eight or so songs chosen are all well known even today, ranging as they do from Eurobeat Brony's "Luna" to The Living Tombstone's "September". I'm not sure this really deserves to be number three, but it's enjoyable listening for sure. Almost inevitably, the Dropbox link given to download the song is long dead. It's interesting that Mediafire links are nearly always still working years later, whereas Dropbox links are pretty much universally not. Oh well.

02: AcoustiMandoBrony – Loyalty

Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 24 Jan 2012
This is still, almost eight years after it was released, AcoustiMandoBrony's biggest hit by far. That may be slightly irritating to both MandoPony and Acoustic Brony (now Re:Make), who both released heaps of music after this, but I doubt it's going to change now. The first of the "Elements" series (which still lacks "Magic" to finish it off, but apparently that's coming), this is very much a paean to Rainbow Dash. The production quality here isn't all that amazing, but the song has a tremendous energy that not many other tracks can match. I can vouch for the fact that it sounds very fine live, though I've only experienced it all through once. (BUCK 2014. At UK PonyCon 2019 I had to leave after one verse to make the Pub Quiz!) There's a 320k MP3 download link (a direct one, too) in the video description.