ReMix:Final Fantasy VII "The Crossroads" 4:50

Man, this is just pure awesomeness! It's certainly one of my personal highlights of VotL. Every little thing is incredibly polished - the vocals are brutal yet light and even soulful, the guitar chops are killer, the usage of scratches is very creative and neat and the orchestral stuff works pretty as well! Very good song, definitely worth a listen

Just wanted to say it's fantastic.

Decided to revisit the VotL album the other day. I figured its been a while since it came out and my taste in remixes has expanded since then. Ran across this one.

Dude... Epic!

This song has made me want to play FF7 so much! (I have not, yet!)

Let me begin by saying that this song is absolutely incredible, and I've never heard a version of Cid's Theme that comes even close to being this good. That being said, I can't fully describe just how much I hate the vocals. Not the specific lyrics, or even your singing voice (which is also really good), but simply the fact that they exist. If I had the money, I would gladly commission an instrumental version of this song, money's tight, so for now I'll just have to say that I think it's... Arrogant? Presumptuous? Just plain wrong to put vocals to music like this.

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...

An excellent track, The ending is spectacularly anthemic, and the ending finishes it off perfectly.

Really solid work, I love it.

I absolutely love this mix. It brings back so many memories from FF7 and sends chills down your spine. It's beautiful and serious in its own nonsensical way.

I made an AMV for this afterall:

This is a very fun track to listen to and so are the lyrics.

I can no longer listen to the original song without singing to myself the lyrics of Rivera's remix. They're just that good, not to mention the singing which is also superb. One of my all-time favourite remixes.

My god, I can't believe I hadn't posted a review on this one yet!

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.

Man I loved this song. This is one of my favourite OC remixes. The short bit at the beginning which sounded very epic reminded me instantly of Metroid Prime 3. After that, the very rock type music was really well introduced from the intro. Hearing you're proper voice in the chorus drew me in each and everytime. I will say I didn't like the 2nd verse, but I'm saying that compared to the rest of the song. I loved the way Cid's Theme was used in this song, both in an epic and rock sort of way. But man, at 3:10, that's some of the best stuff I've ever heard. I cranked the volume way up high, something I don't do for many songs, even my favourites. I don't need my songs on high volume, that bit from 3:10 till the end was a complete necessity. When I hear an OC remix or even the original song like The Skies Above for To Zanarkand in Final Fantasy X, when I hear the ingame music, it makes me want to sing to it, and this song is gonna be one of them. One of the best OC remixes I've ever heard.

The man makes great music. I'll write a proper review someday, just wanted to post the actual lyrics:

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.

Am I the only one who took "crossroads" too literally here? I thought this was a suicide song at first, especially given Cid's troubled story...

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...

This remix is downright awesome! As a couple others have said, I can put this track on loop and keep listening to it forever without getting bored. I also like how Dusky Ferret put it in regards to the lyrics:

they're INFECTIOUS in the best way possible.

Amazing stuff

Put it this way... I define my "very favourite music" as those which I can play on a loop pretty much indefinitely (until interrupted by external factors) without getting fed up with listening to it. "The Crossroads" is only the second track ever to pass this test, and at the time of writing only a few more have passed since. Indeed, this is the track that first inspired my "very favourite music" system, and only retrospect made the first track to pass... well, the first to pass.

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.