HootOwlStar

feel free to approach me to say hi!
i'm also able to help with mapping-related stuff.
modding, metadata, bg image search etc.

also please poke me if you want to rush a guest diff I promised.
or else i'm just gonna put it aside first and work on other stuff.
and sorry for the delay aaa

as someone who discovers music partially through osu in the early years, it's kinda interesting to observe the shift in music choices over time, since it not only shows the warping of preferences in the mapping community but also how certain genres emerge or evolve in parallel with the pop culture at the time. i'm gonna share some observations, but do take note that my viewpoints are definitely not comprehensive at all so just take this as a pinch of salt. also I joined the game around May 2014, and it's the time where my love and flaklypa were fresh from the oven, so uhh take that in mind I guess. p.s. while the idea of featured artists could be interesting to discuss on considering its humble beginnings and the significance in the long run, it's neither here nor there for the topic considering its unreflectiveness on the timeline progression so it wouldn't be discussed much here in this writing.

as introductory background knowledge, I think that most of the shifts can often be rooted back to certain mapsets or even mappers that really made an impact at the time, although there might be some bits that are already lurking albeit quietly in the underground. any introduction requires something to properly initiate the chain reactions with enough momentum, before the progression necessitates a significant collective effort that acticely pushes things forward. it's like how pishifat brings more attention to the western rock/punk/metal scene, or how artcore becomes a spotlight if not for artcore jinja probably. nonetheless I do believe that every mapper leaves their footprints in the history of evolution, so a quick note of appreciation to every mapper for expanding the collection of music for everyone to discover and enjoy.

anyway, a lot of things are significantly different around 2014 compared to now: ranking policies, mapping styles, even the website and forum design. music choices at the time is also rather different - it's more limited in the genres explored and are generally quite mainstream. anime and touhou music is the normality because the primary player base is attracted to those kinds of music, which eventually gives rise to the complaints about too much so-called anime music in the ranked section. j-pop/rock outside of the aforementioned realms don't appear as frequent but still has a fair share of popularity nonetheless, while edm is relatively common-ish with dnb and monstercat music dominating the scene. other types of music doesn't have quite enough attention, and the only major ones sprinkled within the sea of ranked mapsets at the time that come to mind include vocaloid music (it's classified as novelty music, which looking back now is rather infuriating), as well as western pop/rock thanks to efforts mostly from a handful of renowned mappers.

as a rhythm game it's to be expected that rhythm game music from other games will always be around, and often times they're some of the most popular mapsets in the player base. while the increasing accessibility and prominence of notable rhythm games eg. deemo and cytus played their roles in propagating exposure, their sonic nature amongst other parameters are the main contributors to their longevity in presence. their music qualities such as exciting rhythms and upbeat tempos etc. not only make them engaging to play and map; it frequently extends to enabling very interesting visuals or storyboarding which further popularize the music, and so it keeps up a continuous cycle. sets like freedom dive or anhedonia are too early for me - i'm in the era to witness far east nightbird remix and eos, where the rhythm complexity are always prominent inspiration points and encourage mappers to keep looking for interesting music. eventually it leads to neuronecia which is very distinct because of its underlying neurofunk structure, with its unorthodox off-beat rhythms and slider-heavy representation. considering the mapping styles at the time are either the standard organized style or stream-based, it just stands out as a cool outlier and marks a stepping stone for what is to become techical mapping. a rather detailed explanation on the topic can be found in pishi's informative video.

so it's 2015 and neuronecia's ranked for a month. tech mapping starts to kick off with camellia's music and other melodic wubs, but the exploration for interesting music keeps going on. eventually people struck gold with neurofunk, which lands on the extremity comparatively due to its percussion-heavy nature, but their heavy rhythmic focus consequently paves new grounds for more buckwild ideas. while there's already a handful of neurofunk sets in the underground, it only starts to truly pick up with the introduction of billain's music, especially with amber's love was like a marble remix and boogie ranked in 2016. it's rather interesting to witness how entwined the development of tech-mapping is with neurofunk at the initial stages, before it starts to unravel again and branch out to other territories of drum and bass or eventually outside the edm sphere, but the neurofunk influences are always there from the get go since neuronecia. in retrospect, the popularization of the genre might be considered to be rooted from a collective effort since tech was a brand-new concept that plenty of notable mappers would like to try their hands on. some of the major contributors (amongst many other mappers) that help establish the neurofunk scene would be aiceo that have generally ventured on dnb grounds before setting foot into neurofunk, and shiirn with introduction of sakuraburst's music amongst other efforts.

now with the fully laid footwork, tech mapping is truly on the rise and more challenging electronic music are introduced, but it doesn't really explain the music variety outside the scene. the looser ranking criteria starting since around 2018+ was probably the main reason why mappers could try out more interesting songs without past restraints on mapping structure. however I do think there's some early contributions that help promote and push forward the idea of trying out with music outside the normality. one notable example would be dsco's early ranked maps, such as pitch fucker which introduces unorthodox music choices (really loud shoegaze in this case) as well as taiyou to kurashite kita bringing in math rock, with both maps ranked in 2017. squirrelpascals' mapset for lazy eye that's ranked later that year might also be another turning point as an introduction to western rym-core music maybe - i'm not too sure about this. what i'm trying to say is that they set excellent examples to encourage people to explore the whole wide plethora of music out there, instead of just following the limited range of popular genres in the game. and while the outlier music might not get too much attention even if they reach ranked status, there's always something refreshing sprinkled here and there nowadays, and I think witnessing the slow yet steady change is really rewarding to me.

in a general viewscope, the shift in pop culture is also reflected, with occasional appearances of hyperpop and modern trap music as an example. anime music is still thriving as expected though the dominance of yakousei in the j-pop scene is also really obvious. but looking for the sprinkles is still the most fun part to discuss on. the reason I decided to write this wall of text is because of mapsets for maison book girl and soushi sakiyama - they really took me by surprise, i'd never thought they'd appear here. a lot of weird time signatures are happening too, as well as unorthodox genres for rhythm games like fuckign jazz. as much as I despise this game due to its mindless nature and the mental tolls, i'm always grateful for being introduced some cool music that encourage me to explore outwards the wild. now it's time for me to quit w