Rule 1: Still available in the same or (1b) similar form direct from the/an original 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.
As with my first post, I'll be featuring five tracks today. No skips needed once again, yay!
95: Ponyphonic – Love is in Bloom (cover)
94: General Mumble – Devil in Me
93: Canapplejack ft. Pencil Eraser – Pieces of Me
92: Aviators – Between Fairytales and Happy Endings (remix)
91: PrinceWhateverer – Promises (2013)
As before, after the jump break you get a YouTube video of the relevant song, plus some waffling from me, including where possible a link to Bandcamp or similar to allow you to obtain the track in high quality.
Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 19 Aug 2013
Another 2013-released song that stayed in the chart into 2014, but when it's by Ponyphonic can you really be surprised? This cover of the FiM S2 finale song features brother-and-sister team Dane and Christina with a really nice pop interpretation that features a brand new additional verse. I think this is one of the best covers of "Love is in Bloom" out there, and so I'm quite sad that Ponyphonic's apparently very long-standing policy of only providing download links for their original songs means that this doesn't exist on Bandcamp, Soundcloud etc and so there's no way of picking it up in high quality.
Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 29 Oct 2013
A song from 2013 again. Hay, I did warn you at the top that this chart didn't work on a publication-date basis! Anyway, General Mumble (now found at Mumble etc. along with his wife, fellow musician Koa) is one of the really big names in MLP music. This track also features vocals from Tellab, about whom I know nothing. As you'd expect from a General Mumble track, there's darkness and distortion aplenty here, though it's a little softer and lower-tempo than some of his music. It's a Nightmare Moon song, and one with a Nightmare Night theme – note that upload date! Pick it up for a quid from Mumble's Bandcamp.
Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 19 Aug 2013
This one is from 2013 as well! I promise you there will be more 2014-released songs in this series... but you know, if this was popular into 2014 then it's earned its place in this chart. Canapplejack was well known back in the day but has rather faded from the fandom's consciousness with no releases in a decade. Not often we get a hard rock song about Derpy, but this proves that they do exist! Very much a pro-Derpy song, too, as seen by the lyrics. I'm less fond of the metalllish bits, but the rock is good. The track was made with Pencil Eraser, who hasn't been active for eight years bar the odd comment. There's a 320k MP3 download link in the YouTube video description, while there's an apparently unofficial Soundcloud upload too.
Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 31 Aug 2013
Four songs so far this week and every single one was released in 2013. This Aviators remix of PrinceWhateverer's even earlier (2012) classic softens the original quite a bit, especially in the rather beautiful instrumental intro, though that seems to make it a little more melancholy too. Although it's easy to forget nowadays, PrinceWhateverer wrote this song as a response to Derpygate. You don't have to bear that in mind as you listen to Aviators' interpretation, though, as it's strong enough to stand by itself. HQ version included on the name-your-price Equestrian Revolution III album filled with Aviators covers and remixes.
NB: The link to this in the YouTube description is broken; use the one provided above.
Rule 1b: "Promises (2013)" uploaded to YouTube 17 Aug 2021 [sic]
This one probably completes the "no 2014-published songs" clean sweep for the week, but this time it's a little more complicated. The chart gives "Promises (2014)" as the song name – but while I can find several versions of PrinceWhateverer's rocker about Scootaloo's determination to succeed, none of them are dated 2014. As such, included here is the 2013 version that I suspect was actually meant. Those who know the same artist's very early Dash song "Rainbow Thrash" will quickly twig that this is clearly meant as a companion piece. The 2013 version of "Promises" wasn't the original, which came out way back in February 2012 to mark PrinceW's 1,000 subscribers! (He now has 90 times that many...) In truth I'd probably recommend you picked up the 2021 redo, which demonstrates how the musician has developed, but nobody knew about that one in 2014 and so it's the 2013 production embedded above. Get the 2021 version in HQ (including instrumental and a capella track) for £1 on PrinceWhateverer's Bandcamp, though the 2013 one is also available for the same price.
I'm surprised Pieces of Me isn't higher on the list, it's such a good song. :O Then again, the acoustic version might actually be the superior one. Of course, having it right behind another sad Derpy song is perfectly agreeable, they're both awesome for the same reasons. :D
ReplyDeleteAlso, funny you should mention Koa. To my recollection, she didn't show up en scene until very late in the fandom's tenure, possibly after the show's run had ended, only to become one of if not the best fandom musician imo. Any idea what her first appearance was?
The earliest song credited to her that I can find is Take Off (Confidence), which is dated 6th March 2019. So before FiM ended, but not by much!
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