It’s been a long ten months since "Game of Thrones" fans last had a new episode to enjoy, but the wickedly popular and feels-causing HBO series is finally back. Season four premieres this Sunday, April 6.
A lot has happened in those ten months. Obsessive television watches got about as close to the acceptance stage of Red Wedding grief as we ever will. We endured a brutal and seemingly endless winter that made us feel like we truly understood the people of Westeros and those years-long winters that Ned Stark spent most of the first season (and, therefore, most of his televised life) warning everyone about. And a group of hip hop stars released a "Game of Thrones"-themed mixtape.
"Catch The Throne," featuring the likes of Big Boi, Common, Daddy Yankee, Wale, and Kilo Kish rapping about Westeros' characters, schemes, slaughters and dragons, is an almost unparalleled work of fandom art. The songs are both genuinely good and genuinely geeky, displaying equal amounts of musical prowess and serious knowledge of the source material.
It's a hard balance to strike. While most major cult TV shows have their fandom-famous acts (heck, "Firefly" music is practically its own genre at this point) and novelty songs, only a select few have crossed over into the music world proper. There are a select few shows like "Twin Peaks," "Doctor Who," and "The X-Files," though, who have made obsessive fans out of a wide range of musicians and inspired them to write some pretty fantastic (or at least perversely fascinating) songs.
We'd like to take this opportunity to celebrate fourteen of our favourites.