I cannot tolerate how repetitive post-ARR music is

[ddwarbird]

Nobuo does pretty good at capturing the atmosphere of an area I consider Naoshi Mizuta the ff11 composer to also be pretty good at capturing the magic and atmosphere of a zone. I think soken is good and composed good music also but I feel dawntrails music all over the place.

I mean, this is the man who wrote "Aria Di Mezzo Carattere" for a SNES game (FFVI - Opera Scene), the guy more then deserves his acclaim. That opera piece never fails to move me to tears every time I hear it. This may be subjective but FFXIV does not to me, have any music that reaches that level of emotional quality. (With the exception of "Tomorrow and Tomorrow").

Civilizations (La-hee) made me honestly not stop laughing in Shadowbringers, my friends were laughing at my reaction because I was like "Who Greenlit this!?". I can't decide if its one of the best or worst pieces in the game, purely for comedic value. I've never been a fan of semi-yodelling but I think some people are. To me it was just hilarious to listen to. Walking into the Greatwood was like complete tonal whiplash, it didn't really fit the environment either but I'm not sure where in Shadowbringers that piece would fit, it seemed completely random.

I have to say, the waltz theme for Eulmore Daytime (Indulgence), still remains on of my favourite pieces in the game. Shadowbringers had such a good leitmotif in that expansion and the musical team got a lot of milage out of it. For me, that's when the music peaked for this game.

[Hallarem]

... And this is where it all goes wrong.
Because they will listen and now there is a whole swaith of music we will never get at all.
When instead there should be some way that when they do come up with an amazing song like the Tuliyolal jazz, that they should concede maybe an extra song is needed to break it up.
Maybe they need to get a guest in to ease the load on Soken.
But no. They will listen in the wrong way, and now those of us that LOVE the tuliyolal jazz, like those of us that LOVE jobs to be challenging even without having to do ultimates, will lose out. :-(

Whenever we get to Hingashi proper, I bet the capital city won't have Dubstep to signal the "chaotic situation of the continent". It will have traditional theme fitting, Japanese / Asian themed music.

[Carin-Eri]

Mixed feelings about the music in some areas, but I never tire of 'The Ewer Brimmeth' (day) and 'The Nautilus Knoweth' (night) in Old Sharlayan.

[Bekuta]

"But cool tho" is what will destroy this games thematic consistency, the worldbuilding and everything else tbh. They want a second-life simulator, not an actual fantasy world that follows rules.

This is my current biggest gripe with the game that doesn't directly tie into the gameplay. Music not consistent with region theming: "But it's cool so who cares?" More modern street fashion being added into the game: "It looks cool so who cares?" The identity of the game is continually sacrificed because of the crowd who treats this game as a SecondLife-esque ERP session

Regarding the music specifically, Ultima Thule's song was great for the moment in the story that it's a part of but should not be the lasting music for that zone. Any song that has audible lyrics doesn't work as zone music because of how noticeable that looping is. Old Sharlayan does this as well, and it annoys me to be in these areas for any lengthy amount of time. I feel like there was a shift in the music ever since Endwalker that I just can't put my finger on, but it's like they got a really big head about their music and decided to get over-indulgent with it. Smile is also just a bad song

[Nebelheim]

I mean, this is the man who wrote "Aria Di Mezzo Carattere" for a SNES game (FFVI - Opera Scene), the guy more then deserves his acclaim. That opera piece never fails to move me to tears every time I hear it. This may be subjective but FFXIV does not to me, have any music that reaches that level of emotional quality. (With the exception of "Tomorrow and Tomorrow").

Civilizations (La-hee) made me honestly not stop laughing in Shadowbringers, my friends were laughing at my reaction because I was like "Who Greenlit this!?". I can't decide if its one of the best or worst pieces in the game, purely for comedic value. I've never been a fan of semi-yodelling but I think some people are. To me it was just hilarious to listen to. Walking into the Greatwood was like complete tonal whiplash, it didn't really fit the environment either but I'm not sure where in Shadowbringers that piece would fit, it seemed completely random.

I have to say, the waltz theme for Eulmore Daytime (Indulgence), still remains on of my favourite pieces in the game. Shadowbringers had such a good leitmotif in that expansion and the musical team got a lot of milage out of it. For me, that's when the music peaked for this game.

I also think shadowbringers was the last time ff14 music peaked with some decent music in endwalkers but dawntrail I was like why is the music all over the place. And I was like why would soken listen to ishikawa when she commissioned smile and wanting soken to make a musical style song and have it play when building a train bomb. But I also feel soken was covering up for a protege and taking the blame saying he came up with it so that people wouldn't hate on or question the next generation that he is training.

[Daralii]

Whenever we get to Hingashi proper, I bet the capital city won't have Dubstep to signal the "chaotic situation of the continent". It will have traditional theme fitting, Japanese / Asian themed music.

Maybe it'll have hip-hop like the Japanese Assassin's Creed.

[Xieldras]

I don't get why people are picking on Tuliyollal's big band music, when Soken rescored Ul'dah so now there is royal Disney castle music playing for an Islamic city, but I have never seen anyone complain about that. JRPG music is about vibes, not realism. Ul'dah's music gets across the idea of a romantic good kingdom you want to be a part of, and Tuliyollal the idea of a bustling relaxed city.

JRPG is about vibes, I agree, but it's also about immersion. It's the whole "does the music fit the aesthetic" thing.
I could put this one into, say, Legend of Korra and it would feel right at home.

Personally, I don't believe Tuliyollal to be a 'relaxed city' when I hear trumpets blaring in my headset during daytime. I enjoy the theme, but not in the context presented: as the theme of the Turali capital.
The reason I focused so much on it is because it's the most obvious example. I frankly cannot hum nor recall the music from the Dawntrail zones save for 'Depresso' Living Memory.

[Valence]

Ironically the theme seemed fitting with the intro cutscene of the city and the cinematic trailer to me, until it turned out it was actually THE city theme as well. I had a lot of trouble getting past it for immersion during the story at first.

[Hallarem]

Ironically the theme seemed fitting with the intro cutscene of the city and the cinematic trailer to me, until it turned out it was actually THE city theme as well. I had a lot of trouble getting past it for immersion during the story at first.

Yeah, after the confusion, whenever I have it on in Tuliyollal I feel like I'm transported to a smoky jazzbar with round tables, and a cabaret show on stage, with cigar smoking politicians and mafiosos in suits at the tables. It would've fit a nightlife section of Solution 9, or maybe if Garlemald were a thing we could actually visit, like the entertainment section of Garlemald. An old city district with lights and signs, part of the city that never sleeps and gets any natural light.

[Loggos]

I really admire Soken, some of my all-time favourite pieces were written by him but I really dislike FF14's approach to its OST tbh.

They will generally have 2 (or 3) leitmotifs per expansion and then build pretty much everything on them: city music, boss music, dungeon music, field music... at some point it ruins what used to be wonderful tunes because it all feels so same-y.

I think it started back in HW but it has come to bother me a lot in EW and DT in particular. Flow for example is also the foundation for Radz-at-Han and Sharlayan's city BGM. Whereas the renditions themselves are very enjoyable it can also undermine the purpose of a motif. If a piece of music has a certain meaning or is associated with something (like Flow possessing some emotional weight by being Hydaelin's song to us after a lot of hardship) then it being reused over and over again makes you feel like there is really just one or two pieces of music for an entire expansion but not in a good way.
(You can argue that those 1-2 songs are the core of the expac's musical identity or "the sound of the expac" but that's just not doing it for me. It feels less like "identity" and more like having the same song stuck on repeat while the stop button isn't working.)

DT is very egregious to me because they used the motif of the "Dawntrail" song (the one from the trailer) a bit excessively in the first half. There is barely any variation. So much in the early game is based on it:
Both Tuliyolall jazz themes, several Kozama'uka themes, parts of the Varligamanda OST, the dungeon boss music, parts of Yak'Tel's music (Mamook’s forest being an exception), even parts of the Everkeep trial OST. Urqopacha is another exception because it seems to be based on the parts of the Varligamanda soundtrack that are not the DT leitmotif.
Then in the second half Shaaloani, Heritage Found and the Vanguard dungeon share the same motif.
Etc. Etc. There's more.

That's why despite more than a decade I just feel a lot more drawn to ARR's zones because they have their own character. They feel like actual places with individual "personality" and not just like an extension of One Big Thing.

Pieces like Twilight over Thanalan are seeking their match in newer expansions.

I also agree that some music just doesn't work well as ambience tracks. I don't think it's bad across the board. I do enjoy Shaaloani's, Living Memory's, Solution 9's, Elysion's or Elpis' BGM for example. It's interesting enough while not being too obtrusive.

But there are others like Lakeland (as somebody pointed out), Heritage Found or Ultima Thule which just grind my ears after a short time so I have to turn the music off. It's just not pleasant to stay in those areas for long thanks to their BGM.

Utlima Thule in particular is the biggest mystery to me. They should really have stuck with the instrumental version. I know, "narratively" it could be interpreted as "going back to before the victory" because the instrumental version is part of the evolution that leads to the resolution but the song with lyrics just doesn't work as zone music. So here I'd priorities what works over the metaphor.
(I like the very first, subdued version the most and I wish it'd play at least in some parts of the map.)