Bizarrely, a Genius.com account named "officialmlp" has appeared to reveal a future MLP album, Tell Your Tale - Vol. 4, to be released on February 16, 2024. This information has not been confirmed by any other source, and it remains unclear if this account is actually controlled by Hasbro.
The five track titles are "Is This A Dream?", "Let Your Magic Run Wild", "Your Number One", "Bestie Life" and "Feel The Magic". "Bestie Life" first appeared in a My Little Pony: Tell Your Tale episode on January 11, and "Your Number One" was revealed in yesterday's new episode. The other three track titles are not corroborated elsewhere, and no new lyrics have been revealed. Not included is the one remaining song from Tell Your Tale season 1, "Every New Day is the Best Day Ever", which still has not been released in any albums.
Well… actually, it has been. Sort of. Forgive me for taking this article down a rabbit hole, but there's quite a lot of weird stuff here to be discussed.
The Genius.com account isn't the only "official My Little Pony" account out there going rogue. For some time, a group of "official My Little Pony" accounts have been posting My Little Pony music and lyrics on various sites, regardless of what's been formally digitally released on normal music streaming services. It's unclear if they have permission to do this, what their intentions are, or if Hasbro has any idea of what's going on.
The "officialmylittlepony" SoundCloud account is the oldest one and has existed for years. It seemed normal, but on December 9, 2023, it suddenly started uploading a lot more tracks, including music that's never been available on normal music streaming services. This is very weird, since if Hasbro actually has the rights to do this, they could just put the songs on normal streaming services and on YouTube, which would surely be much more effective for increasing revenue or exposure. Almost nobody's listening to their SoundCloud anyway!
- On December 28, 2023, the SoundCloud account uploaded 6 tracks of the G3 soundtrack The Princess Promenade, with the 2022 MLP logo slapped on the album cover. This album was originally released as a 15-track CD in 2006, so 9 tracks are missing.
- On January 11, 2024, it uploaded "Every New Day is the Best Day Ever", with the album cover of Tell Your Tale Vol. 2, which the track was not originally part of.
- On January 23, 2024, it uploaded 4 tracks of the G3 soundtrack A Very Minty Christmas. This album was originally released as a 15-track CD in 2005, so 11 tracks are missing.
The four newer accounts were all created in 2023, and their profiles all contain the same generic marketing text (which is different from the generic marketing text used on the main official accounts). Similar to the SoundCloud account's newer uploads, they have each published different selections of songs from the MLP discography, uploaded at seemingly random times in the past few months.
On December 3, 2023, the "officialmylittlepony" Bandcamp account was created. This account has also uploaded music that isn't available on streaming services: on December 31, 2023, it uploaded the same 4 tracks from A Very Minty Christmas; on January 7, 2024, it uploaded a soundtrack for the G4 special Best Gift Ever (this soundtrack has never been released elsewhere); and the next day, it uploaded the same 6 tracks from The Princess Promenade (with its normal album cover).
On October 23, 2023, the "mlpfriendshipismagic" Audiomack account was created. Unusually, this account has a listed location: Abaetetuba, Brazil. In spite of its URL, it has not uploaded G4 music, and has uploaded only the 10 aforementioned G3 tracks, all on December 26–28, 2023.
On December 11, 2023, the "mylittlepony" Soundclick account was created. This account's location is also listed as Abaetetuba, and it says it's managed by someone called "Nanda Silva (@NandaMLP123)". It has also uploaded music that isn't available on streaming services, including all 15 tracks of A Very Minty Christmas between December 11, 2023, and January 30, 2024; and the 6 tracks from The Princess Promenade on January 30, 2024. Also on January 30, it uploaded 6 instrumentals from My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, as well as three more tracks ("This Strange World", "Ending Credits" and "MLP Friends") that were not part of its 2014 soundtrack album.
On August 14, 2023, the "officialmlp" Genius account made its first contribution, which was to transcribe the Mandarin version of "Fit Right In" from My Little Pony: A New Generation. Its activity suddenly increased on October 26, when it added an animated profile picture and a profile description, and began transcribing more lyrics from the 2023 album My Little Pony Theme Song - The Remixes. Unusually, it has posted Brazilian Portuguese translations of 10 songs from the A New Generation and Secrets of Starlight soundtracks, and an English translation of the Mandarin version of "Fit Right In", but no other translations. It has also posted the lyrics of "Every New Day is the Best Day Ever" (with the lyric video's YouTube thumbnail as the "album cover"), and lyrics for various G3 songs that were never released on CD. Some of the G3 "album covers" have also had the 2022 MLP logo anachronistically pasted on top.
The SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Audiomack and Soundclick accounts are linked by having uploaded the exact same G3 tracks (instead of just uploading both albums in their entirety), and it would have been unlikely for this to be a coincidence. Furthermore, three of the accounts are apparently linked to Brazil, and both the Bandcamp account and the Genius account have plagiarized text from the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Wiki without attribution. (The Genius account has also copied text from the My Little Pony G3 Wiki.)
Hasbro's never promoted the existence of these accounts. We don't even know if they're actually official, and it's possible that Hasbro doesn't know either! My Little Pony music is currently supposed to be managed by Magic Star Kids, which is part of Sony Music Entertainment UK. Hasbro stopped managing it themselves either in 2021, when they sold off Entertainment One's music management business to a private equity firm; or in 2022, when the management of MLP music was transferred to Magic Star Kids. (Sony also seems to have previously managed MLP music between 2016 and 2019.)
If those five accounts are all official, it doesn't seem like Hasbro has much of a handle on how the MLP discography is being distributed and presented, which is weird since they're supposed to own the rights to most or all of it. It's superficially good that they appear to have remembered that G3 music exists, but it's weird that the music isn't officially available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music or Tidal, and it's confounding that they've uploaded albums in bits and pieces without any kind of visible plan. It's even more confusing that they haven't done anything with music that would have more impact if released on streaming services. For instance, none of the songs from seasons 8 and 9 of Friendship Is Magic are officially available, even though they're the only ones to have full orchestral accompaniment; I'm sure a lot of people would be happy to see those released properly, but instead Hasbro or their sub-subcontractor is doing whatever this is.
If those accounts aren't official, it looks like someone's spent an awful lot of time to reupload MLP music on multiple fringe platforms where almost no one will be able to find it. They've also put up some lyrics, though, which is nice.
