Scattered Shots: Hunter music
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the hunter podcast uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim or ask him on Google+.
It's well known that hunters have the greatest community in WoW -- a community whose awesomeness is disproportionate to the number of players (which is, of course, larger than any of the support classes). There is something about the hunter class that has a tendency to draw the helpful, generous, and uncommonly good-looking to it.
The extent of the hunter community is more than just some of the best theorycrafters and optimization tools and blogs and news sites. We also have a vast array of original WoW hunter music -- more, I dare say, than any other class can boast.
There is a wealth of hunter songs out there: some original, some parodies. Certainly there will be songs that you hate, given the breadth of genres, but I suspect you're also going to find several that you love. Let's take a look at some of the musical creations of the hunter community.
Hunters Are Just Awesome - Boom De Yada
This video is featured at the top of this post, and it warms my heart. It's based off the Discovery Channel commercial (and Irdeen did a great generic WoW version as well) with sound design by Balthazar. But the great thing about this one is that the singing is all done by different prominent members of the hunter community. Even Ghostcrawler added his voice to it (he didn't sing, though perhaps I should have asked). It seems like the perfect example of our great community.
I'm a Hunter
Probably the best known hunter song is I'm a Hunter with vocals by Balthazar. The song and video are both Wrath era, so there are occasional references to outdated things, but it appears to remain the primary anthemic song of the hunter class. In fact, while digging up videos for this column I found that the I'm a Hunter song has been stolen and reposted all over the place with others claiming credit for it.
See Warcraft Hunters Union's YouTube channel for all the songs and videos by Balthazar and I that are listed here. Or visit Balthazar's composer website.
Hunter Open Collab
In this great musical piece Sharm (Tainted Lore) created the music and sang lyrics for only the first half of the song. The second half was left without vocals and Sharm invited the community to create their own second half. Embedded here is the version with Balthazar singing (and I'm certainly biased, but it's my favorite).
See Sharm's YouTube channel for a huge array of great WoW music.
Many other fans of the hunter class contributed their own completions to Sharm's Hunter Open Collab. Here's a bunch of variations:
The Moves of the Hunter
This funny song by Dr Heckle is one of the oldest hunter-specific songs out there, and is filled with references to all kinds of hunter abilities that we don't have anymore.
This video and many others are hosted on the WoW Outcast Network.
If I Was a Hunter
This original song by TimelessMotion focuses more on the PvP aspect of huntering.
See TimelessMotion's YouTube channel.
The Life of a Hunter
This Cataclysm-era song by Cracklewow is a rare example of WoW rap that I actually don't hate -- so give it a listen even if you can't stand the typical Bloodelf rap genre. Like all WoW rap it seems, it focuses on PvP. I was also delighted to see a screenshot of a graph I made from one of my DPS analysis articles in there.
See Cracklewow's YouTube channel.
I Won't Miss You
This original song with music and vocals by Balthazar was created for BlizzCon 2010 movie contest (and did not win anything) and was made during the Cataclysm beta, with some video footage from live, and some from the beta, including a great capture of the epic shark-with-lasers/dinosaur/electric guitar that once circled the Maelstrom.
The Hunter Song
I'm particularly fond of this song by Lilydruid, which is a very different musical style from most of the WoW music you hear, focuses on the delight of taming hunter pets with an exhaustive list of all the pets she wants to tame. So many, in fact, that she wants to start another character just to collect more.
See Lilydruid's YouTube channel.
'Til the Servers Shut Down
Another homage to the undying love of hunter for their pet, this original song with music and vocals by Balthazar is accompanied by something better than awesome machinima: the video is a series of hunter community-submitted screenshots of their hunter with their favorite pets, including some absolutely stunning ones. It's worth noting that I actually had this video idea at the last second (throwing out the video that was nearly complete) and these are just the screenshots that were submitted in a mere two day period. Happily, some months after this song was released, Blizzard increased our stable slots.
Ninja Raiders
This classic WoW parody by Ember Isolte and Roninhobbit focuses on the less stellar reputation of hunters from a time when we shared melee weapons with rogues and feral druids. Or even further back, from vanilla days when gold farmers farmed for their gold (rather than hacking accounts to steal it) and most of them were hunters who would ninja BoE blues from dungeon runs. Nevertheless it's a fun song.
See Ember Isolte's YouTube channel. She has many awesome WoW songs.
Fun to be a Hunter
This song by Gigi and Demineon is a bit more of the standard WoW rap that I'm not a big fan of, but others might enjoy. Beware there is some NSFW language.
See Gigi's YouTube channel for vast amounts of WoW songs.
The Hunter
This parody song is by Foolish Frost and the country song provides a nice change of pace from many of the others.
See Foolish Frost's YouTube channel.
Lions
This song by Lights (interviewed on 15 Minutes of Fame) isn't strictly a hunter song, but is influenced by WoW and includes hunter lyrics like "I'm not the hunter / I'm not the marked" (which they seem to have cut out for this video). This particular video by JoeyGracelfa features some hunter cosplay to go with the song, which seemed appropriate.
See Lights' YouTube channel.
Big Red Pet
This original song with music and vocals by Balthazar is all about what has become the quintessential hunter ability: Bestial Wrath. The video is a collection of screenshots and messages from the backers of the Kickstarter that funded it (Balthazar doesn't actually play WoW -- he gets paid to make music).
What are your favorites?
Let's do the internet a favor and not talk about the songs that your don't like -- after all this is a bunch of non-professional (mostly) fans just trying to spread their love of the class as best they can. Let's instead focus on which ones you do like. What are your favorites?
And are there any great hunter songs out there that I've missed?
Scattered Shots is dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. From leveling your hunter to learning the DPS value of skill, we've got you covered. If you're stuck in one of the nine support classes, why not move up to the big league and play a hunter?
