A Survey of the Work of Vinyl Scratch (Abbreviated)

by Meta Four

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Slice of Life, DJ P0N-3
Length: 6984

“Make no mistake: DJ PON-3 is the most important dance musician—and perhaps the most important musician—working today. But first, let me tell you about my childhood …”

Vinyl Scratch, the mare behind DJ PON-3’s purple shades, is boldly exploring new frontiers of electronic dance music. Meanwhile, Spilt Ink, music critic for Sound on Sound magazine, is just as boldly exploring how far he can stick his head up his own rectum.

Trace the trajectory of one mare’s career—and one stallion’s sanity—through this peek into the music world’s sordid underbelly: the album reviews.

“If you want to see a pure distillation of the most conceited reviewership possible, look no further!” —Chris
“Overimportant pretentiousness ...” —Present Perfect
“The complete verbal destruction evoked from this critic is so outstandingly cruel, it feels like I’m viewing a different kind of art.” —Tired Old Man
“Enough WUT in it to potentially scare away some readers.” — PaulAsaran

Sold out on 31 Jan 2017.

This story can be enjoyed on its own, or as a companion piece to Octaves, by JapaneseTeeth. Basically, JT asked me to help with the music reviews in one chapter of his story. I enjoyed writing in the voice of a stuck-up indie music critic so much, I couldn’t stop myself from writing more, and then this story happened.

Big thanks to my pre-readers/editors:
JapaneseTeeth
KuroiTsubasaTenshi
War877
EQD Pre-reader 63.546

Cover art kludged together by yours truly. Vinyl Scratch vector by hfbn2. Sound on Sound logo is a parody of the Consequence of Sound logo.

Published 2017-01-17 03:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-01-21 03:05:33 UTC

2. Fall

From Sound on Sound, 2 August, 1000 issue:

DJ PON-3
The Scratch Files

Label: Canterlot Records
Release date: 08/07/00

By Spilt Ink (staff writer)

The instruments need to work together to make a proper groove, not compete to be heard like this.

“So, Mr. Ink, how are you doing?”

“Life has no meaning anymore. My existence is a trudge through neck-deep sewage, to a destination that burned down years ago.”

“Ah, the sewage is only neck-deep, now. A big improvement!”

“Doc, will I ever be able to love again?”

“That is entirely up to you. After all, I’m just a figment of your imagination. But if you’re to get better, we must confront the source of your pain. We must talk about … The Scratch Files.”

—————

Dear Princess Luna,

Thank you for raising and lowering the moon every night. It’s so much better than that dumb sun.

I hear that you walk the realm of slumber to defend ponykind against their own bad dreams. Well, then, welcome to my nightmare: Last month, in the wake of DJ PON-3 releasing “Gillosophy” to promote her upcoming album (and yes, I know now that DJ PON-3 is just Vinyl Scratch’s stage name; you can all stop writing me angry letters about that) fear arose that this heralded some kind of bid for mainstream acceptance.

And then that’s exactly what happened! On tracks like “GGGrand GGGalloping GGGala,” “Purple Sun,” and “The Birb is the Worb,” she abandons her single-minded pursuit of dubtrot fury to make limp-wristed passes at trance, disco, and even ska. Rutting ska! Isn’t that kind of cultural appropriation illegal? It should be.

And regardless of legality, it’s just rotten to leave all the dancers and true fans in the lurch like that. Really, is this how you repay a guy who gave such a glowing recommendation for your debut EP—by putting out an album that barely even sounds like it? That hurts even more than the restraining order.

Your faithful music critic,
Spilt Ink

dear inky,

lol synthesizers

try listenin to real music u scrub

ur welcome 4 th moon

XOXOXO
best princess

—————

“Now, this is a simple ink-blot test. I’m going to hold up a card, and I want you to say the very first thing that comes to mind. Understood?”

I nod.

He holds up a perfect visual representation of “Space Feather” by DJ PON-3.

“A promising opening, all synthesizer arpeggios tumbling down glowing marble blocks of bass, that takes a sudden left turn into tough-guy-bravado electric guitars and a rhythm section sludgier than concrete, but slightly less interesting to listen to. Even the turntable gymnastics in the final third can’t rescue the track from mediocrity.”

He looks at me skeptically. “Really? All of that popped into your head, fully formed?”

“Shouldn’t you already know? Since you’re a figment of my imagination and all.”

He shrugs and jots down a few notes, then holds up a perfect visual representation of “Ruby Tree”.

“There will come a day when the strength of equines will fail, when ponies will forsake that which they hold most dear. Sister will abandon sister. Parents will eat their own children. There will come a day when the bell will toll one last time, to bring down the final curtain on our civilization.”

I pause for a second, then add, “This is that day.”

—————

Items recovered from Spilt Ink’s apartment, Exhibit F: twenty-three (23) index cards, each bearing text that matches Mr. Ink’s writing. The cards are in no discernible order.

The text on card one is as follows:

Day 65—Still no end in sight. This song just goes on and on. The liner notes are filthy lies. 7 minutes, 28 seconds, my ass. It seems the undulating Sauerkrautrock rhythm of “Marantha” will haunt me to my dying day.

NOTHING IS HAPPENING! WHY IS THIS SONG SO LONG? WHAT COULD POSSIBLY JUSTIFY

The text on card two is as follows:

Day 212—

All wibble wobble and no oomph makes Spilt Ink a dull colt. All wibble wobble and no oomph makes Spilt Ink a dull colt. All wibble wobble and no oomph makes Spilt Ink a dull colt. All wibble wobble and no oomph makes Spilt Ink a dull colt. All wibble wobble and no oomph makes

THEY’RE IN THE WALLS

I CAN HEAR THEM

The text on card three is as follows:

Which brings me to “Fleep Street” and “303 Madsnacks Yo.” They sound just like the tunes from the Electroconcerto EP. Too much, in fact. What was a bracing lungful of fresh air just a few months ago, now sounds far more calculated: a crass attempt to placate her established fanbase, to say she still cares about them. One suspects she’s trying to convince herself just as much as she’s trying to convince us.

Well, it’s not working, Sweet Cheeks! Your declarations of undying love don’t mean jack after the third or fourth time I catch you “making beautiful music” with some hot-flank floozy genre! Yes, I’m kicking you out! Or was throwing all your things out the window and changing the locks too subtle, you stupid

—————

Spilt Ink’s stage play idea (DO NOT STEAL):

Star Power plays the role of Daring Do the Third in a thrilling sci-fi adventure. A thousand years in the future, the cybernetic archeologist-adventurer desperately searches the ruins that had once been Equestria’s capital. She rappels into the former archives of Canterlot Records, only to find her arch-nemesis Ahuizotl has already beaten her to the prize.

“Ah, Daring Do! So nice of you to drop in. Please, have a seat.” He sits down in a plush armchair himself, and turns on the laser phonograph at his side.

Daring approaches, warily, and says, “What’s your game, Ahuizotl?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I have none, this time? Well, whether or not you believe, it’s the truth. No apocalypse, no grand scheme to conquer the world—I even gave my robot minions some vacation time. I’m just feeling a bit nostalgic at the moment.”

He gestures towards the turntable and continues, “I made that album, you know. Recorded it a thousand years ago with some pony named DJ PON-3. What do you think?”

“You want my honest opinion?” Daring furrows her brow as she listens to the rest of the song. “It sounds as half-assed as all your attempts to take over the world.”

“I thought you liked ancient music from dead civilizations.”

“Yes, I like music! But this is some kind of prefabricated music product. It’s okay for listening to, if you don’t listen too closely, but you can’t dance to it unless your soul is dead.”

“But, but, what about that funky bass on ‘Gnaratab’? The wacka-chicka-wacka-chicka on ‘Purple Sun’?”

“Masturbatory nonsense. The instruments need to work together to make a proper groove, not compete to be heard like this. Trust me, if you’re dancing at the club, making your move on some hot mare or stallion, and then the DJ plays the bass solo from ‘Gnaratab,’ you’re not going to admire the technical skill on display. You’re going to curse the bassist for mucking up your rhythm.”

Daring snorts and steps closer to continue her tirade. “Really, I’m half expecting you to tell me that this album was somehow responsible for the collapse of Canterlot, and now you’re going to unleash it on the world again, unless—”

Ahuizotl pulls a lever. A trapdoor opens beneath Daring Do, dropping her into a pit full of cyborg alligators.

Staff rating: 5.5

4. Watching the Detectives

From The Canterlot Vidalia (“Keeping journalists honest since 987”), 6 March, 1003 issue:

The Week in Music

By Rip Fork

Artist: DJ PON-3
Album: My Height in Squirrels

Critic: Spilt Ink
Publication: Sound on Sound, March 2, 1003

How many times has Spilt Ink graced this column again? Certainly this will provide more fodder for astute readers to accuse me of being personally obsessed with him, an accusation I can’t completely deny. But in my defense, I’m not as obsessed with him as he is with DJ PON-3. Prior to reading Spilt Ink, I didn’t think it was possible for anypony to be this obsessed with anything. But more on that later.

Where to begin? Not at the beginning, of course, where Spilt Ink wastes four hundred words rambling about the history of house music. He name-drops eighteen other musicians, with asides about the play Mane and his favorite gazpacho recipe, before even mentioning the actual topic of the review.

But once he does, the claws come out! “Her latest and worst batch of electronic flailings,” he writes. “Twelve aural atrocities, each more horrifying than the last … an assault on intelligence, taste, and civilization itself … Why hasn’t she been arrested yet?” Wow. Are we reviewing a music album or a war crime? Credit where it’s due: I’m impressed at Spilt Ink’s restraint in not using the phrase “literally worse than King Sombra,” even though he was clearly thinking it.

And when Spilt Ink isn’t hyperbolizing, he’s obfuscating. To wit: he calls one song “pizzamoshbro garbage,” as if those combinations of letters mean anything outside his own brain. “Soulless Draftwerk worship”—here’s an idea, Mr. Ink: try to describe the music with words, not references to fifty other artists and genres. Ponies actually pay you for your words, so don’t you dare tell me that’s too much to ask. “A fleeting poignancy ground to dust under the digital hoof of this monolithic temptress”—in my nightmares of the future, I see a paragraph of prose like that, stamping on an equine face … forever.

But if one lets that impenetrable writing scare them away, then they’ll miss the most revealing moment at the very end of the review: “I’ve listened to this album dozens of times, and every time, some brand new flaw jumps out at me, and I finish even more offended and disappointed than before.” You know, most ponies, when confronted with an album that distresses them so much, stop listening to it. And don’t tell me that you had to do it for your job, Mr. Ink—I only had to read your review three times to write this column, so there’s no reason a professional like you would need more exposure. Besides, there’s no point in suffering for your art if the result is witticisms like “pizzamoshbro garbage.”

Look, Mr. Ink, I understand DJ PON-3’s fans have been giving you grief over your reviews, and that must be very frustrating. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t care at all about her. Never even listened to any of her albums. So you know that I’m being honest and impartial when I tell you that your review just sucks. Because it really does.

5. The Face of the Enemy

From Sound on Sound, 12 July, 1006 issue:

DJ PON-3
Spacetrawler EP

Label: Forty Records
Release date: 7/20/06

By Spilt Ink (staff writer)

DJ PON-3 coaxes a million different sounds out of her 303 bass synth. Only a tenth of them actually sound good.

Once upon a time, on the western border of the old earth pony nation, there stood a vast, dark forest. In the middle of the forest, there was a steep, deep canyon. And at the bottom of the canyon, there was a cave.

One fine midsummer’s day, a wealthy tradesmare set off on a journey. She hiked all the way to the heart of the vast, dark forest. She climbed all the way to the bottom of the steep, deep canyon. She marched up to the entrance of the cave, then rapped three times upon the threshold.

“Who disturbs my slumber?” a voice called from inside the cave.

“My name would mean naught to you, but I am a wealthy tradesmare, who would pay handsomely for your services.”

“And who do you think I am?”

“Are you not the rage goblin? The choleric creature who lives by drinking the tears of insulted musicians?”

“Nay. I am but a pony, and my tear-drinking has been greatly exaggerated of late.” At this, the owner of the voice stepped forth from the cave. His body was twisted from years of his own rage, but he was still merely a unicorn pony.

“Well, that’s a pity.” The tradesmare pulled a 10” vinyl from her saddlebag. “Because DJ PON-3 just put out a new EP, and the few ponies who’ve heard it won’t stop gushing. I was hoping the rage goblin could give everyone a little perspective. But if he’s not available, I guess the critical consensus will just have to be overwhelmingly positive …”

The unicorn grumbled and took the EP. “Very well. Return after three days and three nights, and you will have your review.”

The tradesmare bowed and departed. The unicorn retreated into his cave and listened to the EP. When it ended, he immediately listened to it again. And again. And again. He did not pause to eat or sleep, but listened to the EP nonstop for three full days and nights.

Finally, the unicorn heard the tradesmare rapping upon his threshold again. So he emerged from the cave and stood before her. Dark storm clouds filled the sky above as the unicorn delivered his judgment:

“Twenty miles directly east of here, there is a mountain. Near the peak, there are grassy clearings in which grow a rare blue flower, found nowhere else on Earth. On the night of the full moon, at midnight, pluck a single petal from one of these flowers and release it upon the wind. The petal will show you the way to the secret tomb of Deathstalker the Dauntless. His mighty warhammer is entombed with him.

“Bash yourself in the head with that hammer once or twice. The ringing inside your skull will be better music than anything on the Spacetrawler EP.

“DJ PON-3 has passed the point in her career where most ponies start running out of ideas and rehashing themselves—but she’s done nothing of the sort, because there’s no justice in the world. Instead, she keeps discovering new, never-before-imagined-by-ponykind ways to make us all curse the invention of music. Allow me to list a few of them:

“One. Those backmasked vocals sound like a cat choking to death on a kazoo. Or is Red Tape from the Equine Resources office a guest singer on this album?

“Two. The drum machines and live breakbeats mix together almost as well as the ingredients in that disgusting chili that Dubplate brings to every damned office potluck lunch.

“Three. Orchestra hits? Seriously? Did we accidentally time warp back to 997? Are Off Beat’s goatee and Mersey’s dumb paisley ties coming back into fashion, too?

“Four. DJ PON-3 coaxes a million different sounds out of her 303 bass synth. Only a tenth of them actually sound good, and she’s stingier with those than Bottom Line is with reimbursing me for business-related travel expenses.

“Five. Why is the low end so thin? Whose brilliant idea was it to tune the bass synth so high? High Fidelity, your review of Dial M for Magic made me want to vomit.

“Six. This flute solo is a ripoff of ‘7 Kilograms’. Hey, remember seven years ago, when we declared Stereotype A the Album Of The Year? I tried to sell my copy of Stereotype A five years ago, but the used music store wouldn’t take it, because they already had too many. Why are you still reading this magazine?

“Seven. Oh, for the love of Luna! I haven’t even gotten through the first song yet!”

The unicorn slumped to the ground, exhausted. The tradesmare smiled and reached into her saddlebag for her money. “You did good, kiddo.”

“But!” The unicorn rose again, his legs shaking. “But when you think about it, this EP is almost inspiring in its terribleness. These ‘songs’ are the ramblings of a pony following her own muse, unconstrained by anything that might hold her back: record label meddling, editorial gatekeeping, logic, good taste, etc. She doesn’t give two figs about this review, either—even though I know she’s reading it. (Well, there’s one part she cares about, and here it is: Yes, I kept my half of our bargain.) Vinyl Scratch is free as an eagle, soaring high in the sky and pooping on all our heads.

“It’s such a pity that 9.8 OUT OF 10 ponies can’t appreciate that. Aside from her actual songs, her example is really the BEST one anypony could aspire to. I wish I kNEW more competent MUSICians who did.”

As he finished his monologue, the storm clouds broke overhead. Beautiful, golden sunlight shone down upon the unicorn and the tradesmare. Then a sudden landslide buried both of them under a ton of rocks.

P.S. To everypony else at Sound on Sound magazine: Was my two weeks’ notice too subtle for you?

Staff rating: 5.7

Three weeks before ...

Vinyl Scratch shook her mane out of her face yet again—flinging purple beads of sweat onto the dancers around her. If they noticed at all, they didn’t seem to mind. She ceased dancing, becoming a still rock in the churning, purple sea of moving bodies.

It was almost time. Vinyl briefly considered waiting for a song transition, then shook her head and made for the edge of the dance floor. She dodged and weaved between other ponies, taking advantage of gaps that appeared and disappeared seconds later—like a fish beneath the waves, moving closer and closer to her target without disturbing the other dancers. She was heading for the bar. Though dim, the bar’s purple neon nevertheless shone like a beacon across the strobe-lit dance floor.

Arriving a minute later, Vinyl found just one other patron—sitting on a stool, his back to the bar, with a glass of something purple, fizzy, and possibly alcoholic on the counter next to him. He was a unicorn, and certainly easy on the eyes. He had a purple coat, a slender build, and a long horn, and his purple mane was swept to one side in a way that didn’t really match any style, but he owned it, somehow.

Vinyl swept her own sweat-slicked mane up, approximating her favored ’do as best she could, then approached the stallion. “Hey, handsome. You waiting for somepony?”

The stallion stared out at the dance floor. He barely glanced at Vinyl before replying, “You’re not my type.”

“I see.” Vinyl snorted. “And such a winning personality! You must have to fight the ladies off with a stick.”

“Touché.” At that, the stallion finally did face her, a faint smile on his lips. “My apologies. Being a jerk is kind of a hard habit to break. No, I’m not waiting for anypony, I’m doing research for a magazine article.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Thank you.” He extended a hoof. “Name’s Spilt Ink. And you are …?”

Vinyl stared at the offered hoof a few seconds. When she finally bumped it, she wore a wry smile. “I’m the Second Horse of the Electropocalypse. At least, that’s what you called me in your last review.”

“Oh.” Spilt Ink flinched, his eyes widening. “Well, then. If you expect me to rescind any of my statements …” He narrowed his eyes.

“Nah.” Vinyl climbed onto the barstool next to him. “It’s cool. Actually, maybe you can help me with something.”

Spilt Ink floated his drink up from the counter and gulped down half of it. He resumed staring out at the dance floor.

Vinyl continued, “It’s about this thing you wrote in one of your reviews. I can’t make heads or tails of it, and my friends can’t, and all the cats at the label had no clue. So my friend and I made a little bet about what it really means …”

“I don’t make a habit of dumbing down my writing.”

“Puh-lease.” Vinyl waved one hoof in the air and leaned against the counter. “I’m not asking you to spoil the ending of ‘The Pony or the Tiger’ here. I just wanna know why you called me Sweet Cheeks in that one review.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Ink looked at Vinyl again.

She continued, “Soooo, was that supposed to be an insult, or just ironic? Or, like, double-ironic, where everpony thinks you’re joking, but nope, you really are insulting me? Orrrr ...”

Vinyl leaned until she was sprawling, more of her weight on the bar than on the stool. “I think it was a subconscious slip. That you went through a nasty breakup just before you wrote the review, and Sweet Cheeks was the name of your ex.”

“Well … actually …”

“Come on, dude, help a sister out! I got twenty bits riding on this!”

“I honestly don’t recall ever writing that.”

“Really?” Vinyl slid back to a mostly upright position on her stool. “Lame.”

Spilt Ink snorted. “Scoff all you want, but I make a point not to reread my own writing once it’s been published. As a wise philosopher once said, ‘I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.’”

Vinyl snickered. “You never look back? That’s rich.”

With a sharp smile, Ink replied, “Almost as rich as DJ PON-3 coming to this club and dancing to this dreck, am I right? Or should I have seen that one coming?”

That wiped the smile from Vinyl’s face. “What the hay? Are you seriously going there?”

“You’re not defending this music, are you? It’s—”

Vinyl struck the counter with one hoof, cutting him off. “It’s straight-out-of-the-box digital synths, run through exactly the same effects pedals I’ve heard a hundred times before, all arranged in rigid verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure. Literally copied verses, as often as not. The whole set is so homogenous I honestly can’t tell when one song ends and the next begins. You don’t need to tell me that this is mediocre.”

Uncowed, Spilt Ink shot back, “Then why dance to it at all?”

“Because I don’t have a stick up my rear.” Vinyl tried to prod Ink’s chest, but he batted her hoof away. She continued, “And it’s not even my real reason to be here, anyway.”

“And dare I ask your real reason?”

“Last week. Throwback Thursday.” Vinyl bounced in her seat as she recalled that night. “The ads promised a butt-kicking acid house set, so I came. And DJ Subliminal did more than kick everyone’s butts, he surprised me. That beautiful pony played a bunch of white label mixes that even I hadn’t heard before. So I found him afterwards, we got to yapping, and he offered to make me a tape copy of that whole set. Said he’d have it for me in a week. And here I am.”

Vinyl turned to the side, looking at the opposite end of the bar. “Annnnd, speak of the trickster, there he is! Smell ya later, Inkspill.”

Vinyl leaped down from her stool and trotted to the other DJ, another purple unicorn stallion, waiting for her at the far end of the bar. Spilt Ink called after her, but Vinyl couldn’t make out what he said—yet another generic bass drop swallowed the words completely.

The quickest path out of the club took Vinyl once more past the bar. Again, Spilt Ink was the only pony there. But he was no longer watching the dance floor—in fact, he wasn’t watching anything. Instead, he was sprawled face-down upon the counter.

“Uh-oh,” Vinyl muttered. She prodded his cutie mark. “Spilt Ink? How much did you have to drink?”

Ink mumbled something into the bar.

Vinyl continued, “Because the drinks here are way overpriced. Seriously.”

Ink mumbled again, then floated his glass into the air a few inches. It was exactly the same glass Vinyl had last seen him with, and exactly as full as before. He lifted his head and finally said something audible: “You know what my problem is?”

“Aside from being a complete lightweight?”

“I’m a clown!” he cried, slamming his glass against the counter. “I wanted to be a serious music journalist. Challenge ponies’ assumptions, introduce them to bands they’d never heard before. Capture our most ineffable of feelings about music and distill them into ink on a page. But is that what I’m doing?”

“Umm …”

“No! I’m just banging on my typewriter until my editors are happy, then everypony reads my word-barf and laughs.” He spun on his stool to face Vinyl. “Even you! I eviscerated your last album in my review, and you don’t even care!”

“Yeah, of course?” Vinyl rolled her eyes. “Thick skin, dude. You kinda need it to get anywhere in music. As a very wise pony once said, ‘You can please everypony sometimes … or you can fool some ponies all the time … but if you fool me twice, you might just get what you need.’”

Spilt Ink boggled at her for a few seconds, then lifted his drink again and sniffed it. Apparently satisfied at what he smelled, he took a sip. “You’re lucky, you know.”

“Hmm?”

“You’re doing what you want to do. You arrange your own songs, self-produce your albums, and the indie labels are totally hooves-off about it. Most of your music is still garbage, but at least you can say it’s your garbage.”

“And your ridiculous, self-indulgent album reviews aren’t really yours because …?”

“Well… You’re right, they’re me. But they’re only part of me. Do you have any idea how many reviews I write that never see the light of day? A lot. The editors tell me the article is great, then they just sit on it and publish some tripe from a guest writer about the same subject instead.”

Vinyl blinked. “Huh.”

Ink snickered. “News to you? Didn’t you ever wonder why ninety percent of my published reviews are so negative?”

Vinyl shrugged. “I assumed you were some kind of rage goblin who survived by drinking tears and eating bruised egos.”

“Exactly.” Ink slumped back over the counter, in a way that couldn’t have been good for his spine, and looked straight up at the ceiling.

Vinyl climbed back up on the stool next to him. Then, since this was apparently a Moment, or it would soon become one, she removed the tinted shades from her face, resting them above her horn. She blinked at the sudden intrusion of colors besides purple: the neon lights of the bar were a tropical pattern of green, yellow, and pink. And Spilt Ink was a pale sea-foam green—a pity, since he’d looked so good in purple.

“Alright.” Vinyl waited for Ink to return her unshielded gaze before continuing, “If you aren’t the Negative Nelly that your editors make you out to be, prove it. What’s your favorite album?”

Ink opened his mouth.

Vinyl cut him off. “From this year.” Ink shut his mouth, and she continued, “I mean, I like The Pets’ old albums as much as the next pony, but if I have to endure yet another editorial about how great they were back in the glory days, I swear I’m going to scream.”

“From this year, huh?” Ink sat up straight once again. “Well, I was going to say that The Pets’ newest album is literally the second best of their entire career … But if you’re sick of hearing about them, then I’d say it’s a toss-up between Duke Ivory’s East Equestrian Suite, and Pepper Delight’s Queen of the Wind.” He gave a bitter snort. “Both of which Sound on Sound deemed ‘mediocre’, I must add.”

“Pepper Delight?” Vinyl smirked. “They’re still making music? I thought they fell off the face of the Earth. I thought their whole genre fell off the face of the Earth.”

“Well, it still did. Pepper Delight switched to playing psychedelic rock.”

“No way.”

“I’m one hundred percent serious. Queen of the Wind is all fuzzed-out guitars with brass and flute solos.”

“Wow.” Vinyl scratched her forehead. “That is … wow. You know, I’ve never really listened to much psychedelic rock. Or any, I guess.”

Ink quirked one eyebrow and leaned in his stool, closer to Vinyl. “Very curious. And whyever not?”

“It’s pretty silly.” Vinyl sat up straighter as she began her story. “I was in high school. I was head-over-heels in love with acid house at the time.”

“You? In love with acid house? I never would have imagined.”

Vinyl batted his shoulder. “Hey, who’s telling this story, you or me? Anyway, I was cruising along, happy as could be with my little record collection. Then I got to chatting with some of my classmates who wore their manes in dreadlocks and smelled kinda funny. And I learned that their favorite genre was psychedelic rock. Only they didn’t call it that at the time. They called it … acid rock.”

“Oh no.”

“So I hear that name and get really excited. One of them lets me borrow his favorite LP. I take it home and pop it on my turntable, expecting some of that squelchy bass-synth goodness.”

“Oh no …”

Vinyl gave him a wry smile. “Yeah, you can imagine how I reacted. Forced myself to listen through side A, then immediately returned the record. And I never listened to acid rock ever again.”

“Well, I say you’re depriving yourself for no good reason.” Now it was Ink’s turn to bat Vinyl’s shoulder. “No matter how good an album is, a pony can wind up hating it if they come in with the wrong expectations.”

Vinyl’s smile grew a bit wider. “Oh, really?”

“I’ve seen it happen to other ponies all the time.”

At that, Vinyl burst into laughter, rocking back and forth on her seat.

“Anyway …” Ink resumed as Vinyl’s laughter subsided. “You really should give the genre another chance. Now that you know what to expect, you might enjoy it on its own terms.”

“Sure, I’ll try that. But on one condition.” Vinyl popped her shades back over her face, plunging the world once more into a purple haze. “Leave Sound on Sound.”

Spilt Ink blinked.

Vinyl continued. “Go write for some other magazine. Find some way to get your unpublished articles out there.” She reared back, balancing atop the stool, and threw her forelegs wide open as she proclaimed, “Set your impenetrable mixed metaphors free! Let your doofy gonzo reviews soar like eagles in the sky! Show the world—whoa!”

Vinyl lost her balance, falling onto Spilt Ink. He caught her—then both unicorns tumbled to the floor. As Vinyl untangled herself from Ink’s green legs, she realized: “Hey, where’d my shades go?”

“Here.” Spilt Ink floated Vinyl’s purple eyewear off the floor and back to her. “And, you know, that’s a really hard bargain you’re suggesting there. But what the hay, sure.”

6. Retrospective

From Bandoneon Times & Music Express, 5 October, 1015 issue:

The 100 Best Albums of the ’00s

… chaos in beauty (and vice versa), and their anarchic rock embodies this perfectly. —Blueprint Dance

13. DJ PON-3: The Scratch Files
Vinyl Scratch’s debut LP was a slap in the face of the entire electronic music scene; naturally enough, the industry slapped back. Small-minded critics gave it middling reviews, and Canterlot Records dropped her, citing mediocre sales. But Vinyl had the last laugh: now you can’t go to a dance club or turn on a radio without hearing a dozen new songs awkwardly copying some effect or gimmick that The Scratch Files had already perfected.

But historical interest (as a portent of music to come, and as a waypoint in Vinyl’s journey to cult electronic stardom) isn’t enough to earn a rank this high. No, aside from all that, The Scratch Files is a roller coaster ride that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let you go until the room stops spinning. Reportedly, Vinyl fought with her producer, Auto Tune, over every detail of this album (and that’s why she self-produced every album since), but as iron sharpens iron, their clashes brought out the best in each other. Vinyl Scratch would never again sound this accessible, and none of Auto Tune’s other production credits from the decade sound this timeless. Under their tempestuous guidance, even the major-label-mandated silliness (a wubby cover of a Beat Hoofs deep cut, a guest appearance by Sapphire Shores, a song about the Grand Galloping Gala, etc.) transcends its banal roots and approaches the sublime.

In any case, this is a hell of a lot better than DJ PON-3’s most recent albums. —Spilt Ink

12. Demilitarized Dairy Dwelling: In the Airship over the Ocean
(In)famous for Magnum’s anguished cry of, “I loooooove you, Celestiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” …

Author's Note

This is possibly the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written.

If you'd like to see even more self-indulgence, here is a blog post with my research notes.

1. Pedestal

From Sound on Sound, 9 April, 1000 issue:

DJ PON-3
Electroconcerto EP

Label: Canterlot Records
Release date: 04/12/00

By Spilt Ink (staff writer)

It would be easy enough to attribute her success to the ongoing “white ponies are best ponies” narrative. Easy, and wrong.

When I was but a lad, years away from my own awakening to the joys of music, sex, and journalism, my mother saw fit to subject me to that stupefying convulsion of civic pride, the great Summer Sun Celebration in Canterlot. While “Opportunity (Let’s Make Lots of Bits)” and “What Time Is Friendship?” blared from every jukebox and dancehall soundsystem across the country, simultaneously embodying electronic music at its creative peak and foreshadowing the utter ruin that would befall the genre in the decades to follow, I likewise approached my own personal apocalypse at our nation’s capital. I still thought my hometown of Baltimare a mighty metropolis, so the sheer scale of our capital city—the overwhelming masses of ponies, those phallic minarets that so inspired Mic Drop and DJ Nasty, the vertiginous panorama just beyond the city walls—had a profound effect on my eight-year-old psyche, and not a positive one.

But the most precipitous shock was yet to come, and with it a revelation—not one my mother intended, doubtless—for which I count that whole trip a felix culpa. It manifested when that great throng gathered to behold Princess Celestia raising the sun, and cheer her on. As Tenner sang, “What did I do to deserve this?”—to me, the sun was just that thing that made my summer vacations hot and miserable, and gave me sunburn if I stayed outside too long (I suppose I was pining for Princess Luna’s return all along, though I couldn’t have known it at that time. Praise the moon!)—but everypony around me was shouting their lungs out, stomping enough to provide percussion for a Cut Hooves concert, so excited were they to see our tall, white, subconscious dam-archetype doing her thing. Contemplating this discrepancy between my ambivalence and their enthusiasm eventually uncovered the simple formula behind the thought process of those great unwashed herds:

(Pony doing a job successfully) x (white pony) = cause for perversely overblown celebration.

Once this truth crystallizes in your mind, further evidence is everywhere you turn. Why else did the tabloids go gaga over that Captain of the Guard romancing Princess Mi Amore Cadenza? Why did the sports pages follow First Down’s hoofball career so obsessively? Why does the fashion world lose its collective mind over every half-baked idea Rarity tosses off?

In a world that’s growing increasingly hectic, increasingly depersonalized—where, thanks to our programming from the mass media, simple pleasures are denigrated if they’re thought of at all—things like gardening or cloudscaping or writing 100-page overviews of the gender dynamics of bicycle pop songs—where the dignity and self-respect of so many ponies are ground underhoof in the never-ending quest to earn a few more bits … what makes those white ponies so damn special?

And with that in mind, what of Vinyl Scratch? She’s the paler half of DJ PON-3, the ironically named dance music duo whose debut EP has so utterly dominated the music discourse of late. It would be easy enough to attribute her success to the ongoing “white ponies are best ponies” narrative. Easy, and wrong. I don’t say this lightly, but both members of DJ PON-3 deserve every bit of praise that’s been slathered on them, and an extra helping on top of that. Their goal is nothing less than to save dance music from its self-imposed march to chthonic oblivion—and all evidence suggests they actually have the know-how to pull it off.

The aforementioned Vinyl Scratch—turntablist, synthesizer maestro, sample manipulator, and songwriter—brings a lifetime’s worth of proletariat passion, frustration, and lust to this EP. She doesn’t need to brag that she’s spilled more sweat and blood on the dancefloor than a DJ like Squirrellex or Modulator has in their whole body, because these four songs embody that sentiment louder than words ever could. And Vinyl’s partner in crime, Octavia Melody—songwriter and cellist—is the dark horse of this ensemble. Her cello only graces the unforgettable title track, but the hoof marks of her formal training in modern classical are all over the EP; in the dance club she’s conjured up, you can’t swing a conductor’s baton without hitting a clever reference to the compositions of, say, Counterpoint or Half Glass.

On “Electroconcerto”, Octavia saws at her cello with both fastidious precision and the fury of the insane; the track would sail upwards and light the sky on fire if not for the army of silver frogs that Vinyl summons from her synthesizers. This digital immediacy gives way to analogue expectancy on “Komfowler,” as a trail of neon breadcrumbs leads the listener deeper and deeper into a strobe-lit forest, where the bass and sub-bass manifest a cyclopean predator that pursues you relentlessly while also hiding from you in fear. Taken back-to-back, the overall effect of these tracks is like Brass Valve from an alternate universe where he took up the keyboard rather than the trombone, and also he played anything besides dirges, and he didn’t hate his audience.

Side 2 begins with “Syde Tooo,” which brings to mind nothing less than that vision from Wild Drummer (dance music’s last true philosopher and all-around cheeky bastard) of a future in which all music consists of identical drum machines playing identical four-on-the-floor bass drum hits at identical BPM—yet the critics and listeners still argue over which umph-umph-umph-umph is better. Not because DJ PON-3 literally go that minimalistic—quite the opposite, in fact; one suspects that a complete list of all the synthesizers and effects pedals on this track would have turned the liner notes into a short novel—but because on a superficial level this is indistinguishable from the pablum that DJ Snufflepuff and Groove Grove are cranking out, except that Vinyl’s and Octavia’s big, beautiful souls shine through every bass wobble, and that makes all the difference. If their love doesn’t save your soul, it’s because you have none.

Finally, on “Halcyoff,” belongingness transcends into becomingness, manifested not in the fractured half-beats or the almost ersatz Joy Order-esque bassline or the robot mountain goat climbing a mile-high trail of exploding synthesizers, but in the gestalt in the nonexistent space between. It’s the most transcendent affirmation of life since “(Come on, Colt) Do Ya Wanna Ride?”—without the crutch of lyrics to seduce your head, Vinyl and Octavia invite your heart and stomach into an alternate universe where every molecule is a slice of delicious key lime pie. There’s a party in your brain, and your ass is invited.

Everyone’s asses are invited. The mares of DJ PON-3 have stared into the abyss of modernity’s industrial-magical-sexual-psychological nexus, and they’re here to light the path to a saner existence, and for that they deserve more than our respect. Music will save us all, and these two are the great white (and gray) heroes we didn’t know we were waiting for.

Staff rating: 9.7
Best New Music

3. Third Time’s the Charm

From Sound on Sound, 13 January, 1001 issue:

DJ PON-3
Blacklight/Whitenoise

Label: Forty Records
Release date: 1/23/01

By Spilt Ink (staff writer)

Staff rating: 2.3