Balloon Party is a techno artist collective for charity initiated by the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom. The name is an affectionate parody of the band Knife Party, a techno/DnB duo that many of the fandom consider to have amazing music.

You see, a large amount of the MLP:FiM fandom is fan-content-driven, as half-hour episodes are released only once a week, and this is only during active seasons. Among the various artistic tentacles that this fandom probes the world of art with, one very strong one is the music. Though there is a great—an absolutely fantastic—diversity of genres and styles that pony-inspired tunes are made in, there is a heavy tendency to the techno genres, just as drum and bass, dubstep, house, and the like. Be the music an original, a remix, a remix of a remix, a mashup, or a remixed mashup, there is an enormous number of artists that have risen to fandom fame within these genres. To list them all here, even solely the popular ones, would be suicide.

Another aspect of the fandom—a reverent adherence to the fundamental principles preached by the show, namely friendship, kindness, generosity, etc.—drives it constantly towards charity initiatives. Of these, one of the most ambitious is Balloon Party, a project to create a mega-sized techno album by the MyLittleRemix community, which is exactly what it says on the tin.

100% No Feeble Cheering, parodying the first album by Knife Party, 100% No Modern Talking, features 45 amazing tracks by various artists, as well as a ton of art. It was released on Bandcamp in the summer of 2012, as a pay-what-you-want purchase, and all proceeds raised went to charity. Since it hailed from Knife Party and MLR, the bouncy, seizure-y quality behind it really shows, though it houses many great tracks, ranging from catchy to very deep and dark.

The anticipation of the album, culminating in the final selling of approximately a bazillion copies, was so great that a couple of followup albums were made. The first, After Party, was another enormous compilation of songs, this one of those that didn't make the cut before. Although the tracks here were a little more random, more of an obvious collaboration, there is still some amazing content to be found, especially since there was a specific emphasis on chill out or cool down songs. And the final, encore album, Apple 2012, was a short little ditty—compared to the other two, as it still had nine full tracks—full of mashups, including one that puts together all of the songs found in 100% into one enormous jam.

It can be found at the Bandcamp page, back after a short period of mysteriously disappearing. One of the heads of the project, tumblr user AussieAsher, has made a quiet announcement that, among other things, the My Little Remix Community behind Balloon Party was planning a sequel in the form of another parody album, Rainbow & Rooted (from the name of the Viennese DnB duo Camo & Krooked).

[IN12#28]

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