MLP:FiM, of course, being My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. This is the thread I really ought to have done right from the beginning, because this is what I am ultimately trying to get out of promoting the show and its music so frequently here.
There is a market out there to warrant releasing a soundtrack CD for the show: not only the kids and their parents who watch it with them, but also the hundreds of thousands of "bronies" (adults who watch MLP - the majority of them care only for Generation 4 aka Friendship is Magic) who have a presence just about everywhere on the internet. "It's for girls" is not a valid excuse to not look into it, and the show's music certainly does not reflect anything "girly" most of the time.
Here are a few reasons why MLP:FiM needs a soundtrack release.
I started this petition nearly a year ago and as of this posting it has accumulated 5,670 signatures. That number only increases daily as more and more fans stumble upon it.
To Hasbro Studios and soundtrack record labels
"My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" is a 2010 animated TV series developed by Lauren Faust, and it has amassed an unexpectedly large fan base. The show's music, written by Daniel Ingram and William Anderson, has captured the hearts of many people around the world.
We feel that the achievements of Mr. Ingram and Mr. Anderson are of outstanding significance in the history of music composed for animation; a diverse variety of musical genres are incorporated into the songs and the instrumental score written for this series.
We hereby request that Hasbro Studios, as well as any participating soundtrack record labels, publish and preserve this music on compact disc for our generation and future generations to enjoy. Ideally, we wish to see a final product that encompasses both Mr. Ingram and Mr. Anderson's work across the show's first and second seasons in either a single CD or a 2CD package.
REASON 2
The American Federation of Musicians would not be involved.
Because of a limited music budget, neither Daniel nor Will has contracted a real, live orchestra for MLP:FiM (unlike Transformers: Prime, another Hasbro Studios property with a soundtrack CD forthcoming). All of the songs and underscore written for the series are produced with digital music libraries (ProTools, Cubase, etc.) and custom sample templates that replicate the sound of an orchestra. Chances are it would not be very costly to license MLP:FiM for a CD release.
Equestria Daily, the most popular website for MLP:FiM news and fan-generated content, has nearly 135 million page views (EDIT 3/18: now 142 million) accumulated over a time span of just over one year - the blog was founded on January 19th, 2011. http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/3857/eqdpageviews.png
The fanbase for MLP:FiM is substantially larger than the film score fanbase.
Obviously the film score community does not have 15 million people, nor does the MLP:FiM community have 135 million. To put this in perspective: I sent an e-mail to Sethisto (founder and head manager) to inquire about how many people actually visit EqD. According to Google Analytics, an average of 700,000 people visit the site every month. http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/3877/700kuniques.png
Let's just now say that, at the absolute worst, only 0.8% (700,000 times 0.008) of these unique visitors wants to buy a soundtrack release, and at the absolute best, 5% (700,000 times 0.05) would buy it. (I am using 0.8% based on the number of signatures received on the soundtrack CD petition - see reason 1)
This brings in a number between 5,600 and 35,000 people interested in a soundtrack CD.
That is ONLY Equestria Daily, by the way. This is not including the other websites founded on the roots of MLP:FiM, which includes, but is not limited to:
PonyChan.net MLPForums.com (founded October 2011; nearly 3,250,000 total page views; 82,000 unique visitors (40,000 in February alone)) DerpyHoovesNews.com (founded April 2011; 1,060,000 page views) EquestriaGaming.com (1,055,000 page views) Rainbow Dash Network Everfree Radio Bronyville
William Anderson, Daniel Ingram, and Steffan Andrews all have their own fan pages, consisting primarily of fans of MLP:FiM and created because of fans of the series and its music. Daniel Ingram has expressed interest in re-recording his Cutie Mark Crusaders Song for a future soundtrack album. Kristopher Gee also wants a soundtrack album produced.
You are looking at a gold mine of an opportunity. You can make money by releasing this music! Hasbro would make money as well, and if an album is assembled and mastered properly, the fans will buy it too! It's a win-win scenario!
Now with that all said... I don't honestly expect an album to materialize this year. Perhaps not even in 2013 - I fully understand that producing a CD takes many months to do and it is a very slow process to undertake. But hey, if this somehow manages to happen much sooner, fantastic! I've been in personal contact with several members of the music crew on far more than one occasion and they are all fantastic people. I want to respect their wishes, the wishes of Hasbro, and the wishes of whichever record label may want to pursue getting this out.
I have no intention of backing down and I will continue to push for a soundtrack release - even in the face of misinformed social stereotypes and gender/age discrimination. Anyone who thinks that this music does not deserve to be heard on its own simply because it's attached to a children's show is just flat out wrong (and need I remind those who think so that the creator of the show aimed it at kids and their parents?http://bit.ly/woswo6). It's exactly this type of backwards, outdated thinking that has prevented scores and soundtrack albums for other animated TV shows from ever being made.
And really now - how are my wishes any more different than those who wanted Back to the Future, The Goonies, Spartacus, Predator, Die Hard, The Black Hole released? All of those got albums, and I am certain MLP:FiM will get an album too. It's only a matter of time.
Now if you'll excuse me, I am off to send this thread to Hasbro's PR.
I hope you get your wish on this. We all have those favorites we wish would get released, but given this shows popularity I would be surprised if it didn't happen.
Interesting read... however, I don't see anywhere the composers wants and needs for the soundtrack release. Wouldn't it help your cause to have some sort of testimonial from the composers themselves? That should really be reason number one!
You forgot the reason that more than just bronies would buy a soundtrack. Parents with kids who watch the show - who may know nothing about bronies - would also buy a soundtrack CD if they saw it among all the other kids' CDs at the store.
To Basil/Pinkie Pie: you said My Little Pony has more viewers in a certain period than this site ever has. I may have put "per episode" as a mistake but you seem to be overstating the popularity.
My Little Pony is a lot like Joss Whedon's Firefly and Serenity: the fandom is loud and proud, but not really that big (Firefly was canceled midway through the series and the film was a flop).
A song soundtrack seems likely to me, given time. This is very common for kids shows. (And before you object, Basil, I know that the show is made to also appeal to adults. There are many shows like this. I'm always pleased when my kids want to watch "Phineas & Ferb," because I think that show is legitimately funny on an adult level. Nevertheless, it is a kids show.) Parents are one of the last demographics that actually purchases CDs for their kids, rather than downloads pirated music files from music blogs.
Going by a search on Amazon, there've been various My Little Pony CD albums released over the years. Even back in the days when there wasn't a single note from any of the shows that was worth releasing in any form at all. So eventually, we'll probably see something. The songs, at least; although I'm less sure that any of the BGM would show up on such a release.
Ha! This is a hilarious skewering of obsessive soundtrack fans, their demands to have every obscure scrap of music from their childhoods released on CD, and the extreme over saturation of the speciality soundtrack marketplace -- thanks for the morning laughs!
The real kicker was when you went into all the reasoning and stats about how many copies the release might sell based on website hits and fans of the show... really funny stuff! Particularly when you stack the number of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" fans in the world up against the number of people who actually bought the Ron Jones TNG set. Reminded me a bit of that brilliant "Reasonable Horticulturalist" parody from a month or two back: http://www.movie-wave.net/?p=2016
And you're totally right on: so many obscure titles from the 70s, 80s, and 90s have been put out on expansive CD sets in recent years that pretty soon we'll be down to some _real_ bottom-of-the-barrel material like this! I mean, if KIDCO can get a CD release, why not "Friendship Is Magic," right? Anyway, thanks for the entertainment and bravo!
Well, it won't be an FSM disc, unless Lukas stuns us all.
As far as the film score labels, I could see LaLa actually taking a chance on this. An outside chance.
But , that's the only outlet from this community where it might even be considered. BSX, maybe...Ford is pretty shrewd. Seems like you'd be better off contacting something like Shout Factory, heck even Varese Vintage.
It is odd there is no CD or even MP3 album release for this series. Since all these threads started popping up, I started noticing both friends of mine, and people on other totally unrelated message boards and chat rooms who are fans of the series.
So hang in there, sooner or later some label somewhere will jump on this, and release a collection of songs, if not score.
But...and this is NOT a critique of the series or fandom at all...I really think posting it here won't do you a lick of good whatsoever. But it doesn't bother me in the least
You forgot the reason that more than just bronies would buy a soundtrack. Parents with kids who watch the show - who may know nothing about bronies - would also buy a soundtrack CD if they saw it among all the other kids' CDs at the store.
As much as I would love to have such a thing distributed to actual brick-and-mortar stores, I can't see it happening. The Hub channel is reported to be growing and doing very well, but realistically I don't think MLP:FiM would ever reach enough CD sales as, say, Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga.
The best we can hope for now is a release at all - primarily available online, maybe even through Amazon.
To Basil/Pinkie Pie: you said My Little Pony has more viewers in a certain period than this site ever has. I may have put "per episode" as a mistake but you seem to be overstating the popularity.
I'm not exactly overstating its massive online following when it's written in stone cold, hard facts.
A song soundtrack seems likely to me, given time. This is very common for kids shows. (And before you object, Basil, I know that the show is made to also appeal to adults. There are many shows like this. I'm always pleased when my kids want to watch "Phineas & Ferb," because I think that show is legitimately funny on an adult level. Nevertheless, it is a kids show.) Parents are one of the last demographics that actually purchases CDs for their kids, rather than downloads pirated music files from music blogs.
I'd be happy if anything were released at this point - even a songs-only compilation. I'd be slightly disappointed if there were no score included on a future album, but I've been re-watching every single episode since I got into it, so I can always hear the BGM there. There's also the added bonus that I can isolate most of the score and hear it on its own, thanks to iTunes' 5.1 audio surround encoding, but since it's frequently littered with SFX/dialog bleed, it'll never sound the same as hearing that music mastered properly on CD.
Another point I'd like to mention is that the majority of the show's online presence are "bronies" - adult male fans in the age range of 15 to 40. A songs-only album might be well and good for the kids, but we love and appreciate the background music just as much (and a LOT of fans would complain about no score being included on a CD). Hasbro has our demographic to keep in mind as well as the children, most of whom don't go to popular sites like Equestria Daily, and things like this are a good start: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/02/new-merchandise-recap-post.html
I want to support Hasbro and the show with my money somehow. I'm in Canada, and The Hub doesn't air here; I can't buy the series from iTunes because it's region-restricted to the US. The Treehouse channel here does show MLP:FiM, but they're stuck on season one reruns (season 2 is on its 19th episode currently) and they're a PC bunch who censors any instance of the word "losers" being spoken. I'm not going to pay for that channel just to watch one show, and I already have all 45 (currently) episodes downloaded so I can watch them at my own leisure.
Everyone interested in the series who is not living in the United States is screwed, basically. The international bronies all have to resort to YouTube or other illegal means of watching the show. If an album were to be released, everyone could buy it and support the show.
