Here we are at the grand finale! The top five songs, as voted for by users, in the Equestrian Trot 100 chart for 2015. As a reminder, the tracks don't have to have been released in that year; as you'll have seen if you've been following along, plenty of 2014 songs (and one or two from even earlier than that) have been featured in the 2015 list so far. Now, up until now my inclusion criteria have been as 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.
However, the top five of an annual chart open internationally is not just anywhere. At that point, I think a song is famous pretty much by definition. As such, Rule 3 applies across the board today. That means every song will be featured, even if it's no longer available officially. As it happens, though, all the songs are still available officially, so it doesn't matter anyway! :P Here's the list:
5: OhPonyBoy – We Dreamt Our Dream
4: Scratch21 ft. EileMonty – Strangers
3: Black Gryph0n & Baasik – Fighting Back
2: WoodenToaster – Prototype VIP
1: MandoPony & Silva Hound – Wild Fire
Horse fame comes and goes, but of all this year's featured creators, perhaps none has gone from being super-popular to largely forgotten to such a degree as French artist OhPonyBoy. That's all the more noticeable given that he's kept his YouTube username and remains active, albeit not in the MLP world. This one is a Luna song and is much in the vein of his other Pony works, with pleasant instrumental allied to slightly distorted vocals, allied to an animation. (That's not in the official upload, but it's available from a third party.) I can't say it massively sticks in my mind without the animation, so this is probably a song very much of its time. You can get it in HQ for the oddish price of €0.90 on OhPonyBoy's Bandcamp.
Rule 1: uploaded to YouTube 20 Jul 2015
Ah, here we have one of those songs that on the creator's own YouTube channel as a My Little Pony track at all (see that animation? Not a pony¹) but which is irrevocably associated by most of us with MLP thanks to this PMV by MrKupKake. In that, the two characters singing here are an older Button Mash and Sweetie Belle, now far apart but still thinking of each other. Still, it's a very nice and moving song either way. I don't think the Scratch21 account ever featured an out-and-out brony song, but of course EileMonty's did, though she's since deleted pretty much everything but collabs from that era now. You can get the high-quality version for 70p on Scratch21's Bandcamp.
¹ What that animation is, is made by VivziePop, aka Vivienne Medrano, aka the creator of Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss.
At some point, there'll be a week which doesn't have a Black Gryph0n and Baasik song, but this is not that week. In truth this one hasn't stood the test of time as well as some of their other collabs. I don't even remember hearing it for years before now. I'm not entirely sure what the song is about, as all we get in the description is "So you want to start a war..." Okay, sure, an angry-looking Rainbow Dash's face is in the thumbnail, but all I can do is guess that it's about Dash's determination (with her friends) to fight back against evil. It's too old to be a song about the S5 finale war timeline, too. "Fighting Back" is a name-your-price track on Black Gryph0n's Bandcamp.
By 2015, WoodenToaster aka Glaze had been a big name in Pony music for several years. One of his earlier fandom successes was "Awoken" (with H8_Seed) in 2012, and he describes this newer track as "sorta related". The story of a damaged pony who embraces the vision of turning himself into a cyborg, the song definitely has that signature WoodenToaster electronic sound. It's very listenable indeed. According to Aviators in the comments, there are Terraria references in here, but not having played that I don't get them. :P The artist's songs are available officially on various major streaming services, but the simplest place to find this one is on Glaze's Soundcloud.
Is there some rule that the number ones have to disappoint? After what happened last time, I'm starting to wonder. This one sneaked into the 2014 chart near the bottom, yet here it is at the sharp end in 2015. I mean, nothing against Silva Hound, and this progressive house number is very nicely produced. In and of itself, it's a good song. But even without the way many now feel about of a collab with MandoPony, this song just doesn't hit very hard now. I mean, when did you last see Sibsy's OC referenced... well, anywhere? It was a big deal when she appeared in "A Canterlot Wedding"... which was in spring 2012. These days, most people barely recall it. The vocals aren't the most memorable, too. "Wild Fire" is not on Bandcamp,¹ but it is on Silva Hound's Soundcloud.
¹ Though it was a year ago when I did the 2014 chart. It's been deleted from there quite recently, then.
I've sometimes wondered if Sibsy took her pony name from the 1975 country western song about a pony named Wildfire. (Well, it's actually about the pony's unnamed owner who goes looking for her in a blizzard and freezes to death, because freakin' C&W songs, right?)
ReplyDeleteI continue to not understand these top 100 lists XD what a top five! all of these, I can think of songs that were lower on the list that I'd put here instead, my word
ReplyDeleteand oh yeah, that's not a pony because Scratch21's singer is a lion, see also the music for "Ayleeyuns" :)