With the Top 25 Brony Songs of 2022 polls closed and the video due to be premiered at HarmonyCon later this month, we’ve got a bit of a wait before we find out those results. In the meantime, why not consider voting for January’s songs? The form is available here for you to fill – back to the usual monthly rules this time – and if you need a reminder of the songs released, Luck’s monthly playlist has you covered!
Author: Spectra
7 Years of the Horse Music Herald
I was a little late to realise, but we recently reached the 7th anniversary of our launch date! We turned 7 on 27 January, and we’re still waiting on that pony we asked for last year…
I’ve been reflecting on the past year – my first back at HMH after a few years of reduced involvement – and am just amazed at the incredible resilience and continued creativity of the people in and around the music community of this fandom. In 2022, we have:
- Posted around 360 individual songs, meaning someone wrote a nice article promoting brony music roughly once a day. And we’re well aware this is only a fraction of all the music created by the fandom!
- Posted 30 albums, both compilation albums and releases from individual artists.
- Covered the monthly Top Tens, several compilation album release parties and multiple charity concerts.
- Reworked parts of the website, including a new way to submit music to us and an updated staff page that honours the work of everyone who’s ever been on our team.
- Brought several new writers onto the team to help share the love for horse music.
Thank you so much to everyone in the fandom producers and musicians for giving us wonderful music to enjoy, to everyone on the HMH staff for helping keep this passion project alive, and to all our followers for all the moral support. Here’s to another 7 years 🥂
Nugget – Connections | Orchestral Album
Nugget’s been slowly feeding us individual orchestral pieces over the last few months, leading up to this – the release of his debut album. Connections features 12 of Nugget’s original songs (plus 1 with further ‘layers’ to it), many of which we’ve previously featured already. There’s a very ambient feel for many of the songs on this album, but we also get to see some of Nugget’s metal influence on Resistance! A lot of these pieces also creatively explore music modes that create tension – perfect for some of the dark and mysterious settings.
You can check out our previous articles for Midnight Sonata, Serenity, Sisters Castle, The Winter Gala, Sad to See You Go and The Winter Gathering.
Tw3Lv3 – One Small Thing (feat. Drummershy, Koa & MC-Arch) (Midnight Wave’s 2nd Remix) | House / Drum & Bass
Not content with just one small remix, Midnight Wave has taken another spin on Tw3Lv3’s super collab from 2020. And clearly one genre wasn’t enough either! As it transitions from verse to drop, this remix picks up the pace from a perky house beat and falls into a supercharged drum & bass section. It’s a great use of tempo changes and worth a listen if you typically enjoy either genre!
SDreamExplorerS – Neversleep | Black Metal
Soul’s back again! Similar to another release from 2022, Neversleep sees her revisiting an older composition, reviving it with new life and the added expertise of nearly another decade of musicianship! The slow-burning atmospheric introduction brings in new elements and harmonies one by one, like a descent into a sleepless night where further, heavier riffs await you…
Sparklight Productions – Paradox | Electronic EP
8 months in the making, Sparklight Productions presents their debut EP! This collection of 7 songs flows together with a unifying soundscape blending chillout, trap and lo-fi elements. Each one of the songs also represents a different aspect of mental health, and Sparklight’s goal with this project has been not only to document and express their own progression and stages of their journey, but also to break the stigma that still surrounds mental illness for many people.
You can find our previous articles on some of these songs here: Eclipse, Find Yourself, Opening My Wounds and Through The Night all feature.
Voting opens for the Top 25 Brony Songs of 2022
Hey, I was just talking about this yesterday! It’s here – the big vote is upon us! The rules are slightly different this time in that you must for between 5 and 25 songs this time round, but everything else remains the same. Only songs released in the year 2022 will count, and you can use any of Luck Rock’s monthly playlists from 2022 to search for potential selections. You can also look through our archives to get an idea of what to vote for (we’re almost caught up with 2022 songs!). You can find the voting form here, which is open for 2 weeks instead of the usual 1 (closes 29 Jan at 3pm Eastern). Happy voting and see you in a couple of weeks for the results! 👀
Top 10 Brony Songs of December 2022
Such honse. The final monthly Top 10 for 2022 is here! I’m sure nobody would be surprised to hear that plenty of P@D: Wanderlust releases made the cut, but you gotta check it out to see which ones came out on top…
And keep an eye out for the Top 25 of 2022, the voting for that should be opening up any day now 👀
EveryDayDashie – Mane Melody Nightclub 2.0 | Trance
When one version of a song isn’t enough pony, pony gotta pony some more! This rework of Dashie’s nightclub theme sees him bring together several different styles and influences; not just the electronic sounds of trance and electro, but pianos and saxes playing solos with jazz harmony. Didn’t think I’d ever see that combination, but it works really well to create a lively and danceable piece!
Writers wanted: volunteer for HMH today!
Are you a brony music enjoyer looking for a way to contribute to the fandom this new year? We’re looking for more people to join our staff as writers to help us keep posting about new fandom music as it’s released!
We’re looking for people who:
- Enjoy a variety of musical genres and willing to learn how to write about a range of music – being able to write about different genres will give you greater flexibility in the role, and it means there should always be something from our list you can write up.
- Can dedicate at least 1 hour per week – our number 1 rule is that real life comes first, but in the long term we would like new writers to be able to write a couple of posts per week, each of which should hopefully take up less than 30 mins of your time.
- Are proficient in English – you don’t need to be a native speaker, but good English makes things easier for you to write posts and for editors to edit them.
- Use Discord – we run all operations on a staff Discord server, so this is a must.
We provide training for all new writers on how to write articles for HMH, from WordPress and all its quirks to the best way to describe sounds. If you’re interested, get in touch with me on Discord: Spectra#9057
Horse Music Herald 