Now would be a good time to assemble that MSPA music lineage chart. Spot every callback and reference in each official album and trace them back to their roots in a dizzying chart that is probably more complex than the relationships in this story.
I could track down posts I've made about that. I have a knack for pointing those out and then posting it with some excuse like "it's for future reference". Dah, I mean... pointing those out and then posting them for future reference. Yeah.
I've also got lists of songs connected to other songs that I've kept to myself. It does get complex when I get to songs that have multiple references in them, which are not always limited to easily recognizable or hard-to-miss tunes like Doctor or Upward Movement. Then there's the subjective references (I'm looking at you, Endless Climb).
One song sometimes contains another song, which contains another, etc.
• Example:
Trial and Execution →
Terezi's Theme,
Crystamanthequins.
Then there are songs that are similar in certain aspects, for example,
Trial and Execution,
Savior of the Dreaming Dead, and even
Warhammer of Zillyhoo would go into a single category because they all have vocals. Or at least, a certain kind. I guess that'd be a subcategory 'cause there are other types of vocals. For instance, in
Hardchorale.
There are songs with:
• similar elements (demonstrated above),
• groups/trails/maps of references (demonstrated above the above),
• songs that sound similar but don't necessarily have the same melody (like
Ballad of Awakening and
Biophosphoradelecrystalluminescence or
Softly and [/i]Ecstasy[/i]),
• remixes (such as
Endless Climb,
Endless Climbing,
Enlightenment, and
Vertical Motion), and
• songs that simply fade into one another (
Descend →
Umbral Ultimatum →
Carefree Victory).
Most of it isn't actually written down, but I could probably do it if I wanted or had a reason to. Songs would lead into many different songs in more than one way (see above 5 bullet points).
Descend contains
Black, and then
Black is a remix (though that type of connection isn't strictly based on which came first) of
Liquid Negrocity, and so on.
...Dammit, brain, stop thinking up words and ideas that I wasn't intending on typing up in the first place.