Sounds of 2013, Nos. 24 to 20

After rather a long break, it's time to return to Everfree Radio's 2013 list of the fans' favourite 100 tracks. The usual refresher on the criteria for inclusion – to get in, a song has to satisfy at least one of the following rules:

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

Here are this week's five songs. The run of skipless instalments has been broken, but oh well.

24: skipped
23: Replacer and &I feat. Feather – Until the Sun
22: David Larsen ft. MandoPony – Double Rainboom
21: DJ Pon-3 – Vinylicious
20: Forest Rain – A Summer in the Stars

As ever, there are YouTube embeds of the featured songs after the break, along with a few details about each one.

24: skipped

23: Replacer and &I feat. Feather – Until the Sun

Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 4 Jan 2013

The first featured song this time is one I came to relatively late, but which I now adore. It's on &I's YT account, though with lyrics by Replacer and vocals from Feather this is a bit of a supergroup. It's a song about Rainbow Dash's relationship with Fluttershy, so naturally I was going to be interested in it! It's sung from Dash's perspective, as she reveals to Fluttershy that she (Dash) too can get lonely and isn't quite as confident inside as she may be outside. Feather sings wonderfully as always, and the synths are glorious. This is a song I'd recommend to just about everyone. Get it in HQ as a name-your-price download on &I's Bandcamp.

22: David Larsen ft. MandoPony – Double Rainboom

Rule 1: original uploaded to YouTube 31 Mar 2013

Ah, this takes me back... here's the theme tune for the animation Double Rainboom – uniquely, a fan-made episode that had Hasbro's official blessing. David Larsen did actually do a little other Pony music, but this is by far his most famous work. Sung by MandoPony, it's a bouncy and cheerful piece which creates an upbeat atmosphere for the episode. While the animation is not as famous now as it once was, the song itself remains pretty popular. I didn't find any HQ downloads, unfortunately.

21: DJ Pon-3 – Vinylicious

Rule 1: reuploaded to YouTube 16 Oct 2017

The creator of this very Vinyl Scratch-style dubstep song is now known as Scraton and, as that date would suggest, they did remove the track from their account for a while. Unusually, if the YT comments are accurate, it really was Hasbro's fault this time. It's back up now, though! This is a bangin' club choon, or whatever the kidzzzz say these days. It does show its age a bit now that the "—licious" meme is half a decade and more in the past, but still. Be warned that there's the odd NSFW lyric in here. Not really my kind of music, but done pretty smoothly for all that. It seems to be available on the Rebrand EP on Scraton's Spotify, but not on Bandcamp. Ah well.

20: Forest Rain – A Summer in the Stars

Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 20 Mar 2013

Here's Forest Rain – and it's always good to hear her! This time she created a rather indie-feeling track about young love by summer starlight. It's a great, happy, upbeat song that's definitely an antidote to much of real life in 2020. This one really is hard to listen to without cracking a smile, and it can't help bring back a flavour of more innocent times in the fandom, in Equestria and in our own world. Hay, the song even makes a truck driver's key change work smoothly. Want the HQ version of this one, together with instrumental, karaoke and a capella versions? You'll need to part with a measly $1 on Forest Rain's Bandcamp.