I love the Void Ark music. I love the organ and the melody, and this is my favorite song in the entire raid. The crazed, skittering nature of a lot of the instruments, the choir, and the really cool waltz section: it’s all super cool. I also really love the short intermission before the song loops again, where it has the melody play really quickly with like, evil christmas instruments?? It’s just a really fun song to listen to.

This is probably the strangest pick I have in this list, and I bet not a lot of people ever paid attention to it. This plays exclusively in the top of the Sea of Clouds, in the very small enemy Vanu Vanu area. It’s just, a banger for no reason? Extremely fun rhythm, making the otherwise slower melody really upbeat and bouncy. I love the really strange noises in the backing, as well as the marimba heading the song. Heavy Rain is a really addicting song, and I wish it played in more areas that I was more commonly in so I could hear it more also insert joke about team aqua and kyogre

When I was really starting my XIV fever, I would listen to the soundtrack, seeing what might be ahead; Metal was the standout during that time for sure. I was so excited to reach the Alexander raids to listen to this song alone, and GODDAMN do those raids not disappoint! The entire raid is full of bangers!!!! The intro with the anvil striking noises as well as the rhythmic guitar really giving that machine vibe, and Koji Fox’s voice sounding like a robot as well??? It’s so cool. I love how similar to my previous favorite primal songs, this song sounds like it’s sung by the summoners of the primal, in this case the Goblins, being entirely sung in gobbiespeak, these silly little words threatening to break and maim and end you with various machine onomatopoeia being thrown in? It’s such a cool song, I love singing along to it. A part I really like that I want to point out to other than like, the rest of the song, is “THE END OHHHH THE END Y E S THE ENNND”.

Fiend is something that I would listen to on the radio growing up; this is some fuckin hot topic 2000s edge metal, and I love it (I know the technical genre is nu metal/industrial metal, but I just find it funny calling it hot topic music). This song slaps; it uses a lot of really cool noises, the lyrics are super fun to listen to, especially with that really heavy beating in the background. I absolutely love the chorus, something about how it sounds is addicting to my ears. Lore/meaning wise, it’s really cool how this song gives more character to Sephirot, giving him that corrupting nature to create dependence and a power dynamic, like a devil (even though he’s the fiend and not the demon). Shoutouts to this song also having Powerman 5000 say “you stole our song” (it does sound similar).

As I’ve pretty much said twice now already; The Alexander raids have the best music in this entire expansion. Hell, if it wasn’t for Pandaemonium existing (spoilers for later), it would easily be my favorite raid soundtrack in the entire game. Rise is an absolutely outstanding finale to this amazing raid featuring one of my favorite summons in the entire series. That intro alone: the siren noise as this giant machine shoots a fucking laser at you, and Alexander Prime himself revealing his wings ala FFIX when the lyrics pop in, it’s amazing. Absolute props to Koji Fox for his rapping in this song (“Keep the lightning bottled, throttled, throttle to the finish” in that short time??? holy shit?????). The singing really is my favorite part of this song, especially the chorus with A TO THE L TO THE E-X ANDER it’s so fucking cool! The instrumental isn’t the main star of the song for sure, but it makes a perfect support to the lyrics. The guitar and drums just give that rock that you can bang your head to. I love in the Primals version where they also interrupt the song midway through with Stasis Loop, just like the fight. It’s a final boss song I would have never expected going into this game originally. (SONIC BOOM!)