The Final Charts - 1/11/20 - We Cap Off Right About Where We Started: Brony Polka Leads a Sixth Week

It's quite bittersweet to finally let the chart go. For almost 6 years I've cultivated it, seen so much happen, and it's a shame that circumstances won't allow us to look further. However, I remain happy that we were able to cover a majority of the show's run period and witness so many wonderful acts that have come and gone. One that's always somewhat fascinated me was AnimatedJames. While he shifted away from the pony fandom on unamicable terms, his brief foray into music left quite an impact. Snatching a holiday #1 later, he cut his teeth with a mammoth of a track: Brony Polka, a medley of dozens of the fandom's biggest hits up to that point running at over 9 minutes. Leading the chart for four weeks in its nascence, the song was a monster smash, only being fended off from the year-end crown by the similarly eventful final show remix from The Living Tombstone. 2 years later, major pony animator Viva Reverie announced that they would be doing an animation of the entire project, releasing a teaser covering about a quarter of the song. This segment was substantial enough to count towards the song on the chart, granting it another week at #1 and getting it all the way to #29 on 2016's year-end. The project went through years of trials and tribulations, only to finally get launched at the beginning of the absolute final possible tracking period, ensuring that it would happen; it was just too perfect. Naturally, the release was incredibly hyped, the product of years of expectation along with the nostalgia both the animation (which references famous takes on the medleyed songs from animators both still around and long gone) and song bring, and the song comes in with around 24,000 likes and 138,000 views, pulverizing the points. It did so to such a degree that both Octavia (2019) and Discord were able to be returned their third party and legacy uploads respectively: they're not even the runnerup! Instead, that goes to Heavenbound, which absolutely trumps last week's total by several multiples, racking up about 5,500 likes and 60,000 views. The final big news for the week is a top 10 entry for MrMehster and Tw3Lv3 with Work in Progress, which starts at the #10 spot with 460 likes and 3,300 views. Check out this final weekly past the break!

The Final Charts - 1/4/20 - Foozogz & PrinceWhateverer Top Trot 100, 4everfreebrony Debuts, Frozen Night Lands New Top 5, Toby Macarony Returns to Top 10

Thanks to a certain little event that occurred, this will still be the final full week chart of the Trot 100, but there'll be one last chart tied to a midweek, namely ending on December 31, 2019, the last day before my playlist nukes itself with the upcoming YouTube changes. It'll make sense, trust me. Anyway, check out the full chart past the break!

The Final Charts - 12/28/19 - Marcus Warner Lands Another Topper

Marcus Warner makes up for the little time left to chart and gets a new mega-smash: with the aide of promotion on third party network channels, his remake of Octavia featuring Brione Jackson surges 13-1 with a whopping 26,000 points, nabbing a late spot in the all-time list easily. He also has similar efforts going for lead single Friendship is Magic, which entrenches itself at #2, though with a more modest 4,600 points on its side. The top 10 is also bustling with activity, with BlackIce's new single Space Creature starting at #7 and 4everfreebrony's Super Fan returning at #6 (against a peak of #4) after being featured on the Ponies at Dawn channel. Just outside of the zone, Koa's To the Nines hits a new peak (20-11) thanks in part to a remix done by PegasYs. Check out the full chart past the break!

The Final Charts - 12/21/19 - Discord Returns to #1 for Tenth Week

Check out the chart past the break!

The Final Charts - 12/14/19 - PrinceWhateverer & Jyc Row Debut at #1, Elias Frost & 4everfreebrony Get Top 10 Debuts

Check out the chart past the break!

The Final Charts - 12/7/19 - Discord Returns to #1 for Ninth Week, AnNy Tr3e Hits Top 10

Check out the chart past the break!

The End of the Trot 100

After almost 6 years of charts, I must sadly report that the Equestrian Trot 100 will be ending its run soon. There are several factors at play:

• Overall activity has gone down. While the end of the show has briefly boosted numbers, they are already beginning to regress.
• Incoming COPPA regulations appear to be hitting brony content quite hard with autotags. As of January 1, 2020, Made For Kids content will be unable to added to playlists, which is essential for my tracking system. In addition, other engagement options will be disabled and several channels are pulling or plan to pull their content by the date, meaning the Trot 100 will be rather unrepresentative of what's popular in any case.
• I have more obligations now, namely a day job and a major hobby rhythm game project. Alone that wouldn't be enough, but with the rest, it's the straw breaking the camel's back.

As such, my intent is for the final chart to be the one dated January 4, 2020. After that chart is published, a final version of the all-time list will be published, adding in separately weighted points from 2019 and the stub of 2020.

This won't be the absolute end of everything related to the Trot 100. The CrownNote archives will be completed eventually, and the YouTube channel still has some videos to post (along with a correction for a few months at the beginning of the chart year), but this will be the end of new content. I thank everyone who's followed this chart in all of its avenues and I thank all of the musicians whose works made this chart possible throughout the years, with my best wishes to the ones still going to be able to survive the upcoming YouTube landscape.