This compact disc was apparently being handed out as a free promotional item from November 14th to 16th, 2014 at select Walmart stores across Canada, during their “My Little Pony Rainbow Rocks Party” event; I say “apparently” because despite having heard about the existence of this CD through Facebook (and finding this webpage in a Google search: http://forums.redflagdeals.com/ymmv-walmart-free-my-little-pony-equestria-girls-rainbow-rocks-totebag-cd-1601507/), none of my local Walmart stores were handing out free goodies (I live in Saskatchewan), nor were they aware that they were supposed to hold an MLP:EG-themed event even though my local stores were listed on Walmart.ca as participating outlets (I found this out after calling these stores to ask if they had any music CDs left).
Nonetheless, I got one of these CDs from someone in Edmonton who had a couple extra copies. In all honesty, it’s really nothing special, though I guess I shouldn’t have expected much from a free promo item in the first place. The CD only has one track on it (“Time to Come Together” from the first Equestria Girls film), and while that in itself wouldn’t have been so bad, I unfortunately discovered that the song had been mastered too “hot” with clipping present in the high ends, so needless to say I’m glad I only paid $1.26 for this thing (and all of that was to cover the shipping cost).
Reportedly, the Walmart DVD for the Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks movie also includes a music CD inside the package, though I have no idea what its musical contents are or if it’s otherwise identical to this free promo CD.
All in all though, I just wish Hasbro would treat the release of their music better than they have been doing currently (as well as making a case to Shout! Factory to start putting the series out on Blu-Ray, but that’s a different subject altogether). There were a bunch of issues with the first digital download soundtrack album that they put out, and I am not aware of those errors being fixed despite Hasbro’s VP of Development commenting on Twitter saying they’d look into it (at least, I think this happened… I can’t quite remember 100% what the story was. I thought I recalled reading somewhere that the LP record of the soundtrack that Spacelab9 released retains the incomplete “Art of the Dress” as well). I didn’t bother with their subsequent digital download album releases afterward, and my personal preference is to have the music released on CD through an established record label anyhow, such as La-La Land Records, Intrada Records, or even Lakeshore Records, who released Brian Tyler’s music for season one of Transformers Prime in 2012 (another Hasbro property). I wouldn’t mind Hasbro taking the digital-download-only route so much if they would at least offer it in a lossless format at a higher bitrate than 320kbps (the maximum bitrate mp3s can hold), but with the less-than-adequate job I feel they have been doing with these soundtrack releases, I feel it would be better altogether if Hasbro would license out the digital download/CD release rights to one of the aforementioned record labels - at least then we’d (hopefully) get better packaging than cut-and-paste vectors from season one, liner notes/track-by-track details… as well as more songs that still remain unreleased and a good amount of the score by William Anderson, Kristopher Gee, and Kelly Davidson (why none of the latter has been made available yet is still beyond me). None of this will likely happen though unless we start contacting Hasbro and the record labels to give us what we want, and detail to them what we’d like to have on top of that. With a show this groundbreaking it only makes sense to push for and bring out a music release that better represents its quality and legacy, as opposed to the substandard, barely-passable efforts that have come out already.
https://www.change.org/p/hasbro-studios-the-hub-release-a-soundtrack-for-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-2
http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Merchandise#Soundtrack_albums