ReMix: Final Fantasy VII 'The Crossroads'
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- Game: Final Fantasy VII (Sony, 1997, PS1)
- ReMixer(s): Jovette Rivera
- Composer(s): Nobuo Uematsu
- Song(s): 'Cid's Theme'
- Posted: 2007-09-14, evaluated by djpretzel
- Album: Featured on Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream
The Return of... DJ CRONO?? Jovette Rivera, who now goes by his full name (which is rather cool to begin with - good move!), last had a mix posted in March of 2003. He's submitted things since then, but may have gotten discouraged as his personal style was veering away from our site standards and his pieces were not being accepted by the judges panel. All that changes now, with this ReMix. This is Jovette's best work to date, and fully delivers on all the promise his initial FF6 mix showed back in 2002. Way back then, this is EXACTLY the type of track I saw Jovette eventually progressing towards and submitting, and while it's taken a loooong while, his timing couldn't really have been much better, as his magnum opus coincides with Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream, of which this track is part. I'm a huge fan of this track; Jovette's maximalist style, inspired by J-pop and anime music and overflowing with vocal variety, isn't for everyone, but it's definitely for me. The ReMixer writes:
"I knew this song had to be special, an outlet that I hadn't tapped into yet. I wanted to combine the intensity of heavy metal and techno, with the energy of hip hop and breakbeats, with the dramatic and anthemic feelings of classical and oprah. I've always loved Cid's Theme, and unlike some other songs from FFVII, there's more than one consistent melody in this song. I then thought this would make a ideal song for building upon (ie, intro, verse, chorus, bridge) and implementing lyrics, as seems to be my signature. I hope everyone enjoys the song, I know it's been a while. Thank you everyone."
I'll say it again, I'm just really psyched that Jovette could be a part of this album. He's one of those very distinct mixers who fell off the OCR radar awhile back and who I always wished would make a grand return, and... here it is. He's right about Cid's theme having two distinct melodies, and he capitalizes on this to great effect. The traditional, very benign orchestral intro gets abruptly intruded on by a mean guitar riff, there's a screaming, ascending buildup into a vocal refrain that's sung/shouted, followed by some lower, grumbling metal vocal bits, then a vocoded electronica chorus... I mean, from a pure vocal variety perspective, this ReMix suffers from the worst case of multiple personality disorder EVER. Except that it's... beautiful. Jovette is absolutely fearless with trying out vocal ideas, combining singing in multiple octaves, rapping, growling, shouting, vocoding, and lord knows what else into this stew that somewhow works. The whole arrangement is to me an amazing stylistic accomplishment, but in particular it hinges on what Jovette's calling the bridge, which kicks in very anthemically at 3'10" - I always pump the volume knob up at this part, and it's already pretty damn loud. I've listened to this track on repeat half a dozen times in a row. It's very cathartic and therapeutic; it just feels like one big release of musical ideas juxtaposed together with equal parts craft and sheer, brute force enthusiasm. I'd absolutely die to see some quality Advent Children AMVs made using this mix (or for that matter any VotL mixes - come on, AMVers, show us what you're made of!) - it's such an uplifting and energetic piece of music, I think setting it to video would be fun as hell. At any rate, I may be this mix's biggest fan - it's not the most subtle, refined piece of music in the world, that's true, but frankly, that's not always what music has to be about. Jovette's mix is probably the polar opposite of my own Tifa mix, and I absolutely love the fact that they can both come out of the same community and end up on the same album.
Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the Dude... Epic!
- DragnBreth on August 3, 2010
I hate that I have to be so rude and unfriendly about this, and I can't apologize enough for insulting your work (which is still better than anything I could even dream of doing, giving me even less of a right to post this nonsense), but I just can't imagine how someone as brilliantly talented as you could ruin such a great remix by splattering completely unrelated vocals onto it.
Alright, I'm done making an ass out of myself. Again, I'm really sorry for being such a jerk about this, I usually try to be a pretty nice guy. It just really gets to me when people make amazing music like this and then destroy it at the last second. But still, I deserve all the angry comments that I'm sure will come as a response to this post. Here's hoping I'm never this unpleasant again...
- Vostok von Istigkeit on March 25, 2010
Really solid work, I love it. :-)
- OA on March 10, 2010
I made an AMV for this afterall:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmVFYdx1Nc
- Davidrawr on May 28, 2009
- Thompson on May 10, 2009
Well here it is:
IT WAS AWESOME! The lyrics at the end and between the two verses were cool although hard to get out of my head after listening to it. They don't have much to do with Cid, his struggle against Shin-ra or anything like that, but they're still cool.
"You can't believe everything you hear.
And you cannot see everything that's near.
But if I believe you're gone, then you'll disappear.
Still, you reappear, endlessly."
"Each and everyday's the same,
Life has left you nothing new.
Turn around and you
Will see what has become of you.
Your visions of
Immortality or love
Left you at the crossroads of what to choose."
(^ That's some powerful stuff right there.)
I disliked the heavy stuff though.
The main thing I liked about this was in the intro; the snare drums with the choral vocals, they seemed a lot like a militaristic march, which I liked.
- sefirosu on April 2, 2009
- cremdogz on March 30, 2009
Each and every day's the same
Life has left you nothing new
Turn around and you
Will see what has become of you.
Your visions of
Immortality or love
Left you at the crossroads of
What to choose.
I think it's a powerful text right there. Basically, it's about finding or choosing direction in life when it's gotten stale. Dunno how well that applies to the character, haven't played the game.
- Rozovian on November 21, 2008
Each and every day's the same.
Life has left you nothing good.
Turn around and you,
Will see what has begun to you.
Cue your visions of,
Immortality in life,
Has left you on the crossroads of
What to do...
- vgss on November 21, 2008
DuskyFerret;318796 wrote: they're INFECTIOUS in the best way possible.
Amazing stuff :)
- PorscheT1 on November 4, 2008
It's probably my favourite track on the album, although "No Such Thing as the Promised Land", "Mark of the Beatsmith", "Beginning of the End" and "Black Wing Metamorphosis" are all solidly up there too. Then again, to be fair, there are only a couple of tracks on the album that I'm actively not particularly keen on, and none that I outright dislike.
It's one of those ReMixes that listening to the original track, or even another ReMix of it, almost always makes me mentally follow the lyrics, and I can't say I dislike the persistence.
- Sorceror Nobody on August 26, 2008
In any case this song represents so much growth and change from him its pretty amazing what he put together, Not only does this song sound great, its extremely hard to classify it or to compare it to anything else. I think its great from the metal sections to my favorite part the harmonizing at the end. That said to those who think it "sucks" or they hated it thats fine, you are wrong but thats fine.
Why doesn't it suck? Because if you actually have and listen to the FFVII Cids theme original you can fit the lyrics on top without much of an imagination at all and it fits... Also as already stated there are two distinct styles going on in the original, what Jovette did was expand on those and ran with them and blended them together much as they were in the original. When I hear the orginal now I can also hear the lyrics in my head along with it. What Jovette has pulled off is nothing short of masterful.
So while I can understand if its not your cup of tea or you personally not liking it and thats fine thats a perfectly acceptable opinion. Saying that the remixer did a bad job on the original or just saying it sucks however is just absolutely wrong. There really can't be too much debate on it when you listen to the original and the remix. This remix is a great interpretation on the original and it took a lot of talent to pull off which Jovette obviously has a lot of.
And to quote rathoi:
"And that's part of what's missing here. Cid's Theme is probably one of the most memorable in FF7, and I don't believe that this remixer did it justice"
My friend Id like to see you or anyone else do better ^_^ and that is a very steep challenge right there.'
In other news someone did make an amv out of this song: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8M_Z2OjzDDA
- Catullus on February 1, 2008
