Friday 28 July 2017

MandoLessPonyNow

I was surprised and disappointed recently to discover that MandoPony has apparently scrubbed the majority of his pony-related songs from his YouTube account. He hasn't just made them unlisted as some others have, but has made them private and entirely inaccessible. It doesn't seem just to be a "Please buy my music instead" thing, as "Harmony" (to take just one example) is not available from his BandCamp page either.

A few of the really big songs ("Loyalty" and "Horse Famous", for example) are still available, but out of 42 songs in his "Pony Music" playlists (one and two) just 11 remain available at the time of writing. Some of the others can still be found via other people's re-uploads, but I doubt all can.

As the owner of these songs, it's MandoPony's right to take them away from public display – but I think it's really sad to see significant parts of fandom history just disappear like this, especially with no apparent notice or explanation being given. I really wish musicians wouldn't do this sort of thing.

9 comments:

  1. I should be upset, but he did this with his furry music on FurAffinity 7 years ago, so it really should come as no surprise. :/ Dude's got no integrity.

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    1. I never really got into the furry music scene (beyond a few exchanges of PMs with Chama C. Fox) so I have to admit that I don't recall any of the guy's work in that fandom. Sorry to hear it happened there too, though.

      As for MandoPony's MLP stuff, the songs of his I really like tend to be those he did with Acoustic Brony, and those are still up. ("I'll Fly Higher" being my favourite, and the only song I heard AB play live twice!) I knew about "Harmony" and a few others, but I'd be hard pressed to remember everything on those playlists I mentioned.

      Now, if (say) Aviators was to suddenly zap all his old pony music now he's largely moved on from that, then I'd be upset. But he hasn't – he even re-used a line from "Friendship" in a non-pony song years later. Possibly some people could learn from him.

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  2. That is a real shame and I can't really understand why someone would simply wipe most of their work. As I think I said elsewhere a while ago, one of the synthwave guys did that with his entire discography and asked the fans to delete their copies. Not surprisingly it was a case of "good luck with that." But I can't pretend to understand why someone would do that.

    Okay, I've got a miniscule following compared to what Mandopony must have, but I rather like having almost every song I've written on my site, and a good selection on Bandcamp. I don't know... I just like to see them there and have them available for people to go back through, if they're at all interested to see how the music has changed.

    I've no doubt Mandopony's songs are around elsewhere, if you know where to look, but I'd rather know they were on the original artist's page, where they belong, and that they want you to find them. I can understand that sometimes (as with Aviators) an artist might want to move on, but deleting a big part of their history? I don't get that at all.

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    1. one of the synthwave guys did that with his entire discography and asked the fans to delete their copies.

      The second bit of that is ludicrous. Although it didn't affect me, I'm pretty sure I'd need spectacularly good reasons to go that far. I'd respect it if they wanted people to stop posting their stuff, but not even listening to it privately? Sheesh.

      I've got a miniscule following compared to what Mandopony must have

      I'll remind you of that when U2 are supporting you in a few years' time. ;)

      I've no doubt Mandopony's songs are around elsewhere

      Yeah, I poked around and discovered that some of them are still up on his official Bandcamp. However, a few of the songs I know best (eg "Harmony" and "Shimmer On") don't seem to be anywhere at all, other than in third-party YT uploads.

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  3. And on top of that, if someone insisted they wanted the people who owned copies to delete them, what if (as was the case) people have paid for the downloads? I would hope they dropped their insistances pretty fast because it was never going to work.

    I wonder if I could get Bono to be the tea boy. Hmmm....

    Well that's certainly very surprising considering how often things get reuploaded, paticularly when the original goes missing. Then again, the video for the "Safety Dance" song by Men Without Hats was removed a few months ago, and (last time I checked) hasn't resurfaced. Ah, it's all very mysterious and a darn shame.

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    1. I guess they're leaving their friends behind. :(

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    2. Then, I'm afraid, they could stuff it. Unless, as I said, they had a fantastically good reason and explained it properly. "I don't want to" would not qualify!

      Not sure if you know of Peak Freak, but he was a German musician who made some interesting pony music years ago. He ended up in trouble with GEMA (the control-freakish German musicians' body) for making "unauthorised songs" or some such silliness. So he was actually in danger of being sued for some stupid amount of euros. Yet he still said he was okay with people keeping his songs to listen to privately, as long as they weren't posted online. If he can do it...

      The "Safety Dance" video is still there... it's just not accessible from the UK. However, Dailymotion to the rescue!

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    3. I think I may have heard Peak Freak mentioned at some point, but yes, that's the perfect example. Ah well, some people make strange decisions at times!

      Ooooh blimey! Thanks very much for that link - I'll have to see if a copy will fall off the servers and onto my hard-drive, totally by accident.

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    4. Also, Present Perfect's comment above is brilliant. :D

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