Tuesday, 21 January 2025

Sounds of 2015, nos. 70 to 66

Apologies for the lack of activity on this blog over the last few days. Something else has been on my mind a fair amount, so Louder Yay has been a lower priority than usual. However, here we go again with another look back at the Equestrian Trot 100 music chart for the now decade-ago year 2015. The rules I use for deciding whether a song can be included remain unchanged:

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. 

We've had a couple of weeks now when I've been able to feature all five of the songs in the relevant portion of the chart. And now, we do the treble! Here's the list for this edition:

70: Archie – Back Again
69: WoodLore – Let the Magic Fill Your Soul
68: SquareHead – Let's Have a Battle (remix)
67: MiatriSs We'll Make Our Mark (remix)
66: Aviators – Crash

Here endeth the intro section. Beyond this point beginneth the non-intro section. Thou hast been warnèd!

 
Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 26 Jul 2015
Another of the big names from the early days of the fandom, Russian electronica maestro Archie was still releasing Pony music in 2015. By this time in his career, the production values were high and the sounds were smooth. Admittedly other than the equine OC in the video thumbnail, I'm not altogether sure what's MLP about this track – there's not a lot in the little snippets of lyrics to suggest a particular Pony subject – though it's apparently somewhat inspired by "Slice of Life". Whatever, it's a great clubby song that makes excellent background music for boring typing jobs. At least, I find it so! Pick up the HQ version (in a slightly extended "Original Mix" version) for $1.50 on Archie's Bancamp.

Rule 2: uploaded to "WoodLore Archive" YouTube 3 Apr 2018
One of Pony's great lost artists, WoodLore disappeared one day some years ago and has never been back – that we know of, at any rate. Thankfully he left permission for his music to be used elsewhere, and for that we should all be grateful. This particular song celebrates that, well, friendship is magic. Another gravelly-voiced folk number, executed as perfectly as one would hope from WoodLore, this track has some of my favourite lyrics: "Follow your story, follow your song / But follow your friends when your days get long", for example. WoodLore's Bandcamp is long gone, but

 
Rule 1: Uploaded to YouTube 7 Oct 2014
Yes indeed, it's time for another remix of this particular Rainbow Rocks song. Although it came out in 2014, SquareHead's drum and bass version didn't make last year's charts. It managed it in 2015, though! Interestingly, the tempo of the actual vocals is kept at the original film pace, but the instrumentation surrounding it is much more rapid during the chorus than in the really quite leisurely verses. I appreciate that the vocals are kept clean and audible for all three girls, which isn't always the case in these remixes. I can't find a Bandcamp for this artist (there are others called SquareHead, but they're different) but there are both 320k MP3 and FLAC download links in the YouTube video description.
 
 
Rule 1: Re-uploaded to YouTube 6 Oct 2016
Russian (I think) musician MiatriSs (no, I don't know why that capital S) went on to make a very large number of songs both original and fandom, but this was her very first remix. The song is dated 2016 on her YouTube, but EQD featured it in October 2015, as you might expect given the subject episode. For a debut it's really pretty good, perhaps a little on the short side (2:14) but keeping up a good beat and pace throughout. Perhaps a few places (such as during Rarity's vocals) aren't quite as smooth as MiatriSs would later become, but it's always perfectly listenable. You can get it in high quality for a mere 50¢ from MiatriS's Bandcamp.

 
Rule 1: Re-uploaded to YouTube 12 Sep 2014
As was the case last week, our final song today is a repeat appearance of a song that the 2014 chart. This time, it came in over 20 places higher. Anyone who knows anything about my music tastes knows I'm a great Aviators fan, so I'm not complaining! Although he's generally known for synthpop, synthwave and similar, this is a fairly hard rock song. Since the subject is Discord and the way he struggles with dark inner thoughts even after his reformation, that seems perfectly appropriate. As with a number of Aviators songs, there's an interesting instrumental interlude (innit) late on in the song. Easy enough to grab this in high quality audio: just lob $1 the way of Aviators' Bandcamp.

1 comment:

  1. I've actually bought several Aviators' non-pony songs over on Bandcamp.

    ReplyDelete