History of Homestuck fan music

Due to the collaborative nature of Homestuck as a multimedia work, all Homestuck music has, technically, been fan sourced. The talent that consisted the first members of the Homestuck Music Team was sourced from talented musicians who were creating Homestuck music work on the MSPA Forums back in the comic's infancy. However, as the comic became more established, a more definite line was drawn between official Homestuck music, consisting of the music produced by he official Homestuck music team under the direction of Andrew Hussie and What Pumpkin to be released on the official Homestuck bandcamp, and unofficial/fan music, consisting music made outside of the music team, or released elsewhere.

When discussing unofficial and fan music in the context of Homestuck, the two concepts are not entirely synonymous. On this wiki, "fan music" is Homestuck music made by anyone who is not a part of the Homestuck Music Team, whereas "unofficial music" is any Homestuck music that swasn't released through an official Homestuck channel, most often the Homestuck bandcamp. Therefore, an album like Homestuck for the Holidays is an unofficial music team album, as it consists entirely of contributions from music team members but was published on the unofficial Homestuck Gaiden bandcamp. Conversely, ColoUrs and mayhem: Universe A, and its sister album, ColoUrs and mayhem: Universe B, are examples of official fan music releases, as they were the results of a fan music competition submissions from non-music team members that was subsequently published on the official Homestuck bandcamp.

While albums such as some of the Gaiden albums are then not "fan albums" technically, their importance to the fan/unofficial Homestuck music community is such that they will be included on this page. As such, this page discusses all Homestuck music that is not both and official and a music team release.

## *Homestuck Gaiden*

The Homestuck Gaiden began as a side project of music team member Robert J! Lake, and served as a hosting platform for unofficial Homestuck albums (sourced from both the Homestuck music team and otherwise), prior to being shut down by What Pumpkin's fanwork policy in 2013, as some of the Gaiden works were initially available as paid-for albums.

The Gaiden was first used to host Homestuck for the Holidays, a Christmas themed Homestuck album released by the Homestuck music team with all profits raised donated to Child's Play Charity. Payment for the album was mandatory for the first week, and was then made available for free with a suggested donation on the new year. This remained the case (with all profits continuing to go to charity) until the album was made free to download in 2012. The release of Homestuck for the Holidays marked the first major non-official Homestuck music release. Following this, the Gaiden served as the home for further unofficial (and even non-Homestuck related) MSPA music projects; Land of Fans and Music was released via the Gaiden in July 2011 as a fan music compendium, starting a legacy of fan music album releases that has long outlasted the lifespan of the Gaiden itself as a platform. This was followed in October by Jailbreak Vol. 1, another unofficial music team release serving as a soundtrack for Jailbreak, the first MSPA, was also released with a suggested donation, as well as individual track sales, comically marked up to ludicrous prices greater than the suggested value of the entire album. Jailbreak Vol. 1 too was made entirely free to download when the MSPA fanworks policy forbid the monetization of unofficial Homestuck music releases, even those produced by the official music team.

## Independent fan music and vocal tracks

During this time period, the Homestuck fan music community, no doubt inspired by the comic's rapidly increasing official soundtrack, as well as fueled by the increasing public popularity of Homestuck itself, was rapidly becoming established in its own right. While many fan tracks were included in the first Land of Fans and Music compilation on the Gaiden, this is only a small sample of the wider landscape of Homestuck fan music that began to be produced by independent musicians from the period around 2011 onward. Some of this content was later included in future fan album compilations (the LoFaM albums have a history of incorporating a backlog fan music from many years prior to their release), some released on individual musician's solo albums, and some simply remaining standalone releases.

This mobilization of independent talent resulted in a lot of variation from the stylistic norms that had been established for Homestuck music by the music team on the official Homestuck soundtrack; whereas most of the soundtrack albums were broadly non-vocal pieces taking inspiration from film and video game OSTs, many independent fan compositions incorporated vocals. One trend that was common during the height of Homestuck's popularity around 2012/2013 (and thus the time period during which a large number of independent music pieces were being produced) was to take the instrumental to a popular song and replace the original lyrics with new, Homestuck themed ones; such works were often published on youtube. Probably the most well known of these, Kylee Henke's "*You Can't Fight the Homestuck**"* (a cover of a karaoke instrumental for Billy Joel's "*We Didn't Start the Fire"*), has more than 3 million views on its YouTube posting, making it one of the most popular Homestuck fanworks ever created. Another well known example, or perhaps infamous, is "*Karkalicious*" by Superspecks! on soundcloud, a cover of the instrumental for "*Fergalicious"* dating from late 2011.

Yet more musicians created entirely original vocal compositions; PhemieC and Totalspiffage were particularly well known during this period for their vocal fan music releases, some of which found their way onto future LoFaM releases (such as Ugly Story and Hymn of the Horrorterrors), but many more of which were released by their artists on their own platforms. Additionally, out of this wealth of independent fan music talent sprung some of the first non-soundtrack based Homestuck fan music projects; projects such as Melodystuck and Broadwaystuck created collectives of fan artists releasing songs from the perspective of particular characters under a single collective label. Longer term projects, such as Homestuck the Musical (later performed in front of a live audience) emerged out of this tradition.