Is the Doom series REALLY blessed with good OST's?

[fruity lerlups]

22 minutes ago, jazzmaster9 said:

This is exactly what i loved about Doom Eternal's soundtrack. It had the grit off 2016 but the memorable melodies of the classic soundtracks. 

Also Meathook > The Only thing they Fear is You 

To each their own

I think one or 2 poppy TOTFIY style tracks is good, but the complete lack of anything that conveys just sheer technological savagery, violence and adrenaline horror is what makes me yearn in Doom Eternal, everything in Doom Eternal makes me feel like the doomguy is just having a blast rather than the feeling of 2016, and I think the difference in approach can be summed up with one aesthetic choice, doomguy has his guns out in eternal, and im the last one to complain about men showing off their muscles but it reflects a difference in attitude.

In 2016, the music and atmosphere portray this savagery contained within a technological shell, the brutal ghost in the praetor shell.

In eternal, he's a rockstar, the very freaking level with TOTTFIY has audio clips of a woman frothing over how alpha and dominant the doomguy is. 

[fruity lerlups]

17 hours ago, yakfak said:

don't wanna say whether it's good, bad, classic etc

i just find a fundamental mismatch between midi hard rock and the way classic doom plays. E1M1 is really really funny in particular

i love metal and hard rock but outside of some stuff by oike Knightrider of Doom, most midi metal sounds hilarious to me.. especially like "heres some thrash meral midi for killing 5 zombie men and 2 imps!!!"

[maxmanium]

Meh. The newer stuff isn't bad or anything just never appealed to me. Feels like it's trying too hard sometimes.

 

As for Bobby's work, mixed bag IMO.

[Explorer of Time]

I'll say one thing for Bobby's music; his Doom music is significantly better than his Wolfenstein 3D music. The Doom soundtracks range from masterpieces like At Doom's Gate to mediocre songs, and the only outright bad Doom song I can think of is Bye Bye American Pie.

 

In contrast, most of Wolf 3D's best songs are mediocre and the worst songs include some of the worst video game music I've heard in my entire life. For example, I have no idea how Nazi Anthem got past Bobby Prince's drawing board in the first place, let alone became the games title theme. The melody is complete garbage and worked extremely poorly with the MIDI format on top of that. I'm glad he got a second chance with Doom, but if I were in charge of Id Software at the time and didn't have the benefit of future knowledge, I don't think I'd have given him that second chance in the first place.

[Aaron Blain]

In the 90s my two favorite soundtracks were ROTT and Warcraft 2. I also just realized that I love Joe Abbatti's work.

 

I always thought of Doom's music as a little bit underwhelming, but lately I've been playing with the Arachno soundfont, with the music turned up pretty high, and it's finally really clicking with me.

 

I still prefer more intricate and tuneful compositions, but I think Doom's music is excellent.

[Andromeda]

3 hours ago, Explorer of Time said:

I'll say one thing for Bobby's music; his Doom music is significantly better than his Wolfenstein 3D music. The Doom soundtracks range from masterpieces like At Doom's Gate to mediocre songs, and the only outright bad Doom song I can think of is Bye Bye American Pie.

 

In contrast, most of Wolf 3D's best songs are mediocre and the worst songs include some of the worst video game music I've heard in my entire life. For example, I have no idea how Nazi Anthem got past Bobby Prince's drawing board in the first place, let alone became the games title theme. The melody is complete garbage and worked extremely poorly with the MIDI format on top of that. I'm glad he got a second chance with Doom, but if I were in charge of Id Software at the time and didn't have the benefit of future knowledge, I don't think I'd have given him that second chance in the first place.

Disagree, I think Wolfenstein 3D's OST is (slightly) better than Doom's and definitely more memorable. Nowadays I actually boot up that game from time to time just to listen to the music, as I've become fed up with the harsh gameplay.

[Individualised]

6 hours ago, Explorer of Time said:

I'll say one thing for Bobby's music; his Doom music is significantly better than his Wolfenstein 3D music. The Doom soundtracks range from masterpieces like At Doom's Gate to mediocre songs, and the only outright bad Doom song I can think of is Bye Bye American Pie.

Not an AiC fan I presume?

 

I really doubt Bobby wanted that song to be in Doom 2 though given that it's originally one of the unused placeholder covers. My understanding is that, though id Software did bring him back for Doom 2, he had much less involvement, mainly doing sound effects, and that a good portion of Doom 2's OST was just taken from Doom 1's scraps. In fact the only songs I can confirm were done specifically for Doom 2 are Into Sandy's City (Doomwiki says this is an edited version of un23.mid, however the MIDI does not seem to have anything in common in terms of its channel structure and I think this comparison was only ever made due to having a similar melody) and The Healer Stalks. I'd guess that at least the title jingle was too, but even songs like D_ROMERO, D_DOOM, and D_TENSE were orignally done for Doom 1 despite not being in the unused music release.

Edited January 25 by Individualised

[LadyMistDragon]

On 1/23/2024 at 5:47 PM, roadworx said:

i never said all of his duke stuff was good or even original, just that his best stuff is in there :p

 

besides, his stuff for duke nukem 2 is better than 3d anyways

My thoughts exactly! Duke Nukem Ii's ost is really fun to listen to, besides the many repeats of course.

[Murdoch]

For the original games, I think the music did the job. I wouldn't put the soundtracks as a whole on any top ten list. There's a few classics though whether they owe more to Bobby's talent or his errr.... "source material" I am unsure. There's better from the time period (and before) and certainly much better since.

 

EDIT: Refreshing my memory, listening to some of the tracks versus the tracks he supposedly ripped off, yeah there's some pretty blatant ones but I think some of the comparisons are reaching a bit. There might be some indirect inspiration there but certainly a lot of originality too.

Edited January 25 by Murdoch

[Maximum Matt]

On 1/23/2024 at 10:24 AM, LadyMistDragon said:

crap like "In the Dark"

Hey man that song kicks ass

[Explorer of Time]

2 hours ago, Individualised said:

Not an AiC fan I presume? 

No, I've never even listened to their music (not a fan of non-instrumental rock), and I didn't even know that this was one of Bobby's covers until today. I certainly won't start listening to them now, though.

 

As a side note, I wish Prince would've credited the original artists that he remixed. Even if what he's doing is allowed under copyright, not naming his source material is still plagiarism and something I strongly object to. (This also applies just as well to the songs I hate as the ones I love. I want to properly insult whoever came up with the melody for Wolf 3D's title theme, and I can't do that if I don't know who actually wrote it.)

Edited January 25 by Explorer of Time

[Murdoch]

18 minutes ago, Explorer of Time said:

I want to properly insult whoever came up with the melody for Wolf 3D's title theme, and I can't do that if I don't know who actually wrote it.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst-Wessel-Lied#Melody

[Explorer of Time]

7 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst-Wessel-Lied#Melody

 

Wait, he actually used the actual anthem of the actual Nazi Party as the Wolfenstein title theme? No wonder the song is total garbage!

[Mr. Freeze]

This thread is giving me a migraine. Prince's soundtrack is legendary, and perfectly sets the mood for nearly every level. For instance to this day, I have yet to find a single Sign of Evil remix that doesn't completely butcher the atmosphere and overscore it. 

[bLUEbYTE]

Compositionally, the tracks aren't really that original. They are heavily inspired by e.g. Slayer and Iron Maiden's music at the time.

Also subjectively, in terms of instrumentation, I find the overuse of the distorted electric guitar MIDI sound distateful. Sure by definition, the genre calls for it but it is one of the worst sounding instruments in MIDI context.

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

3 hours ago, Explorer of Time said:

As a side note, I wish Prince would've credited the original artists that he remixed. Even if what he's doing is allowed under copyright, not naming his source material is still plagiarism and something I strongly object to.

To be fair, Bobby Prince already credited the original artists in the actual MIDI files. It's also how some of the inspirations were identified in the first place. That metadata was simply lost in the conversion to MUS.

 

Similarly, the filename for the title music from Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure is MZZTOP, as the game's song is a cover of a ZZ Top song.

Edited January 25 by TheUltimateDoomer666

[roadworx]

3 hours ago, Explorer of Time said:

As a side note, I wish Prince would've credited the original artists that he remixed. Even if what he's doing is allowed under copyright, not naming his source material is still plagiarism and something I strongly object to. (This also applies just as well to the songs I hate as the ones I love. I want to properly insult whoever came up with the melody for Wolf 3D's title theme, and I can't do that if I don't know who actually wrote it.)

plagiarism was rampant in the pc gaming industry back then, so much so that it was kind of the norm. it's really not even the most egregious example in doom - if you want something really bad, try the entirety of maximum doom.

 

i can't blame him for sticking to what everyone else in the industry was doing at the time.

[Individualised]

4 hours ago, Explorer of Time said:

As a side note, I wish Prince would've credited the original artists that he remixed. Even if what he's doing is allowed under copyright, not naming his source material is still plagiarism and something I strongly object to. (This also applies just as well to the songs I hate as the ones I love. I want to properly insult whoever came up with the melody for Wolf 3D's title theme, and I can't do that if I don't know who actually wrote it.)

He only really did this for Doom (sure he might have been inspired by real songs for some other games he composed for; but so was pretty much every VGM artist back then), and he was literally told to do so by id Software under the assumption they wouldn't be used in the final product. I think he's fine. If you want an actual example of "plagiarism" (technically more ghostwriting hence the quotes; but I think it's just as if not more immoral in the way it was done, even if it's technically legal) from back then, see Tommy Tallarico. That man has been accused of not composing ANY of the video game soundtracks he is credited as working on, and he's a huge fucking asshole in every way possible too.

Edited January 25 by Individualised

[Individualised]

6 hours ago, Individualised said:

He only really did this for Doom (sure he might have been inspired by real songs for some other games he composed for; but so was pretty much every VGM artist back then), and he was literally told to do so by id Software under the assumption they wouldn't be used in the final product. I think he's fine. If you want an actual example of "plagiarism" (technically more ghostwriting hence the quotes; but I think it's just as if not more immoral in the way it was done, even if it's technically legal) from back then, see Tommy Tallarico. That man has been accused of not composing ANY of the video game soundtracks he is credited as working on, and he's a huge fucking asshole in every way possible too.

 

...oh, huh. This is Angry Again by Megadeth. Not really a fan of Megadeth so I never noticed the similarity until it was pointed out.

 

I wonder if this was actually made for Doom, because Bobby Prince was scoring both games at the same time, and the theme "Kick Butt" appears in Doom 0.5 (it's not in the .WAD but the game tries to play it and fails)

 

E2M4's theme also uses the Duke Nukem 2 main motif that's present in a lot of its OST. I think there may have been a lot of overlap going on and I'm surprised it hasn't really been brought up before. Someone pointed out that one of the DN2 songs has it, but it's much more than just one.

Edited January 25 by Individualised

[Kwisior]

Great insight man! I never thought Bobby was THAT much of an ""inspired"" guy.

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

The opening chords from Megadeth's Hangar 18 are also a recurring theme in Duke II's music, such as the loading and ending tracks. These chords are also used in Running from Evil.

 

 

[ENEMY!!!]

That sort of chord sequence is pretty commonplace and has a history of not being the kind of thing that gets copyrighted. It often reminds me of the chord sequence in the James Bond Theme, the difference being that after perfect 5th-minor 6th-major 6th it goes up to a 7th instead of back down to the minor 6th. On a related note, I have tried playing James Bond OSTs in the background while playing Doom and in my view the earlier ones by John Barry are often a good fit. I reckon that the Bond similarities are probably coincidental, as Bobby Prince is well known to have been influenced mainly by the likes of Slayer, Metallica, Alice in Chains etc, but it's possible that some of these bands might have been influenced a bit by John Barry and vice-versa.

Edited January 26 by ENEMY!!!

[Varis Alpha]

if you don't like doom music then you're not a real doomer

 

i think i like doom 1's music more than doom 2 but they're both pretty good. tnt is good but some of the tracks are extremely loud and kind of drown out everything else. aubrey hodges music is some of the best dark ambient music ever conceived. doom 3 lol. doom 2016 is fantastic, eternal is kind of mid, i like some of the ambient pieces a lot but the heavier tracks aren't really as heavy as 2016's were.

[Kwisior]

9 hours ago, Varis Alpha said:

doom 3 lol.

found the fake doomer

Edited January 27 by Kwisior

[realjohnmadden]

Yes, absolutely. Doom 1 and 2 have good music, and the only song I don't really like is Opening to Evil. Doom 64 and Doom PSX have moody tracks that fit the tone well and Wolf3D/SOD get a lot of flack for their music, but it's all good stuff, like Evil Incarnate or Around the Corner, whatever the Read This/E1M10 song was called. (Except the two renditions of the Nazi anthem, obviously. What the hell, id?)

[LuciferSam86]

I really like classic doom OST , but I found very annoying and ripetitive nu doom OST. 

[DoomGuy999]

On 1/23/2024 at 7:09 AM, mrthejoshmon said:

Interesting, please elaborate.

Elaborate? 

All I was trying to say is let's not bring them up, they are far from a blessing. 

Well, that is just my opinion.

[mrthejoshmon]

42 minutes ago, DoomGuy999 said:

Elaborate? 

All I was trying to say is let's not bring them up, they are far from a blessing. 

Well, that is just my opinion.

That's great.

I was hoping for you to explain the point rather than brashly say it and refuse to divulge further.

[DoomGuy999]

24 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

That's great.

I was hoping for you to explain the point rather than brashly say it and refuse to divulge further.

Oh... 

 

Doom64 music and PSDoom were composed by Aubrey Hodges and those tracks are far from metal. I think doom, I think metal. Not dumb sounds to scare people. Screeching doesn't sound like the most badass action music.

[SilverHurling]

Imo the OST is really THAT good, more than once i play Doom I just to listen some of the music