Sounds of 2015, nos. 15 to 11

You'll doubtless have noticed the lack of a "My Little Repeats" this week. I just haven't had the time, what with various things including the PoniesOnline virtual convention. I might have squeezed it in had it been a normal FiM episode, but as it's the Rollercoaster of Friendship special I thought it best to leave it for a little while. Don't worry, it'll be here before too long!

Back to music, and it's the last edition of this series before we get to the top ten. Exciting, eh! Oh, be like that then. I think it's exciting and it's my blog, so there. Here's the usual reminder of my inclusion criteria; for this week, Rule 3 is still not being automatically applied.

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. 

Last week I managed to feature a full set of five tracks. This week, as happened fairly recently before, I got all the way to the end and then found I needed to skip. It's frustrating, but the track in question just wasn't famous enough for Rule 3. So, here's the list:

15: PrinceWhateverer – Frailty
14: Animated James – Winter's F***ed Up
13: µThunder & FritzyBeat – Sinking Ships (remix)
12: EileMonty & David Larsen – I am a Parasprite
11: skipped

There's your list of songs. Now to see what they actually sound like!

Starlight turns ten

Season 5 of Friendship is Magic began exactly a decade ago, on 4th April 2015, with "The Cutie Map". Widely seen (including by me) as one of the best episodes the series ever produced, this also marked the debut of Starlight Glimmer. Opinions on that vary rather more, although personally I like her even as a reformed character. Whatever your feelings, the double episode itself remains, I think, a classic. Since Hasbro has been nice enough to upload it in full to the official YouTube channel, I can legitimately embed it on Louder Yay, so here it is!

Ponyfic Roundup 533: RNG Choice Edition

Read it Later story count: 89 (nc)

Words read this week: 22,153

I forgot to update this bit earlier – oops! Anyway, this time the stories I read were largely determined by the random number generator. I say "largely" because I did have a slight restriction, over and above my usual ones such as stories needing to be incomplete. For today's edition, I only allowed one Mature fic. Here's the list:

Liable for Content by Sarcasmo
Sentinel by Xenos
The Truth That Lies Within by Ps3luver
We Can't All Be Friends by Awesomo3000
Fear Itself by saarni

★: 0 | ★★: 3 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Sounds of 2015, nos. 20 to 16

We really are getting to the sharp end of things now, as we move into the top 20! As a reminder this chart was decided through votes from people following Equestrian Radio at the time. I'm afraid I'm not entirely certain of the precise voting mechanism, but that doesn't really matter for our purposes. Here's the usual reminder of the inclusion criteria:

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. 

Last week, I had to skip one of the five tracks that made the chart. We're not quite at the point just yet where Rule 3 will apply across the board, but it doesn't matter this time: a full five tracks today!

20: SlyphStorm ft. 4EverfreeBrony & Midnight Melody – Soldiers of the Night
19: PrinceWhateverer – Your Own Sky
18: Silva Hound ft. Odyssey Eurobeat – Come Alive
17: MandoPony & MegabyteBrony – Spitfire (Give It All You Got)
16: ponyphonic – Applejack

So, we've reached the end of the introductory stuff, which means we can get on with the actual point of all this: the music!

My Little Repeats 184: "The Mean 6"

Honestly, I'd be on Starlight's side at this point

S8E13: "The Mean 6"

6 Jun 2018 (in the UK; 9 Jun 2018 in the US)

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 7.8

The one with smelling the roses

Thoughts: This was one of those rare and precious occasions when the UK got an episode before the US – although the scale of early international releases and indeed leaks going on by this point made it all a bit moot. As a mid-season finale, though, this is a bit on the weak side, largely because of all the potential it wastes. Chrysalis here starts out properly villainous, as she should be, but then shows surprisingly little of the intelligence we know she possesses, not least in not nipping Twilight's plotting in the bud sooner. The Mane Six are absurdly – let's face it, unbelievably – dense not to realise that their friends are behaving way out of character, some with very obviously wrong cutie marks, and the one "maybe it's poison joke" reference isn't enough to save that. (Special boo for Twilight "We know each other really well" Sparkle here, given she personally observed something very similar happening to said friends in "The Return of Harmony".) Now, I don't think this is a terrible episode. Even if Starlight's presence is a bit superfluous, she is good value in her part. The voice work, visuals and incidental music are all excellent. Evil Twilight, more than the others, actually has a certain depth of character. The famous "melting faces" scene, even though short and diluted from the draft version, remains memorably unpleasant. The real problem here is that this is an intriguingly ambitious setup that in the end doesn't really deliver the goods. Knocking it down to two stars.

Choice quote: Starlight: "Home has books, tea... fewer bugs... a roof."

New rating: ★★

That brings us to S8's mid-season hiatus. The next Friendship is Magic episode in term of broadcast was "Yakity-Sax", which was pushed up the schedule as part of a Discovery Family promotional event, but it's nevertheless generally considered to be E18 and so I'll review it in that spot. That means next up for FiM will be "A Matter of Principals". However, before then we have the second Equestria Girls special, namely "Rollercoaster of RariJack Friendship". That one was a mixed bag for me first time around.

Ponyfic Roundup 532

Read it Later story count: 89 (-2)

Words read this week: 26,587

I've had quite a busy time this week, not really for any bad reasons but just because several things have come up at the same time. I am therefore rather tired as I write this and could do with sleeping for about 18 hours. As such, I'm pleased to have managed to get this edition of Ponyfic Roundup out on time. The usual five stories on the slate today, so first of all let's see what's coming up:

Remember Vigil by Golden Paw
Interloper by Raugos
One of Them by ThePinkedWonder
Filly à Deux by UmberRose
A Charmed Life by BlazzingInferno

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 2 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Sounds of 2015, nos. 25 to 21

It's time for another look at what was making the Equestrian Trot 100 fandom music chart ten years ago. We've seen quite a bit of variety in the songs featured so far, and I've certainly discovered some forgotten gems among all the more famous tracks. I'd like to think there'll be more of those in this upper quarter of the chart, but we shall see! The usual reminder of my inclusion criteria follows:

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. 

A rather more frustrating week this time, as I've had to skip a song for the first time in a while. Even more annoyingly, it was the very last track I reached for this edition. I looked around, but it wasn't officially available anywhere that I could find, and it wasn't famous enough for Rule 3 to be invoked. Sorry folks!

25: Vylet Pony ft. Strigidae – My Past is Not Today (remix)
24: SlyphStorm – Neverending Strife (redux cover)
23: PrinceWhateverer ft. Dreamchan – Awesome as I Wanna Be (extended cover)
22: oodorato2 – トワイライト Sunshine Remix
21: skipped

That's the intro stuff done with, so on we go to the music, what we have of it at least.