Phils Game/Pop Music Similarities #174 - Cleanout of the Lions

[PhilsPhindings]

Featuring Final Fantasy Tactics and several.


Greetings fellow game music lovers,


as a closure to this Final Fantasy season I decided to make another entry about Final Fantasy Tactics (1997).


First we have the song "Attack Team" which has a vaguely irish sounding military jingle:

which in comparable form exists in some pop music songs and several military ones:


Mama's Boys - Lettin' Go (1985):

Mary Black - Men of Worth (1984):

Then we have the Ovelia theme, a multi-sample song where at one point

something resembling the traditional jewish cradle song "Vigele Lidele" pops up:

Finally we have this sample from the St. Ajora leitmotif:

that appears in a very similar fashion in Final Fantasy V (1992) in the Exdeath theme:

And so the second Final Fantasy season comes to its end. I can already announce that there will be another one later in the year, but I still need some more research to make it feel "wholesome".


For the coming weeks, I have planned a potpurri of several Nintendo and Sega songs, also some Mario. We probably won't get bored.


Phil out.

 

[Dionysos]

Yeah the military-style fanfare part near the beginning of 'Attack Team' (before the main marching beat drops) does sound similar to the highlighted aspect of the track ‘Lettin’ Go’. I can’t hear it as clearly in 'Men of Worth', but I agree that it has the same general vibes.

I haven’t really taken the time to listen to Ovelia’s theme outside of the context of the game before, so thanks for highlighting it. I can appreciate its beauty where I hadn’t before. It is a lovely (albeit slightly mysterious) track, and it does vibe well with the Jewish 'Vigele Lidele' track cited which is similarly mysterious mixed with hope.

As for St. Ajora’s leitmotif, you’re right it does (in the highlighted part) resemble the ExDeath track (with all of its funk and demonic laughter removed, befitting the generally more serious tone of Tactics). This is quite fitting, since the two villains do share things in common (both being evil, ancient spirits which take possession of a vessel – in Exdeath’s case a whole host of spirits merge into one body).