I FUCKING LOVE DOOM
I FUCKING LOVE DOOM
The original Doom from 1993 and its sequel from 1994 are some of the best tightly designed FPS games. The games have only continue to age like fine wine of pure demon murder. Everything from the superb weapons like the Super Shotgun which is the best shotgun in any game, to the amazingly designed demons who sihoulletes are easily recognizable to this day. One of the most notable aspects of the games is the music, which is composed by MIDI maestro Bobby Prince and is some kick ass tunes that kinda....sound....familar....
Heres the thing with Doom's music that remains somewhat controversial:
Short Answer: Kinda. Long Answer:
Bobby Prince was handed a bunch of CDs containing a bunch of Tony Martin era Black Sabbath and other bands by John Romero and told Bobby to use them as inspiration for the soundtrack. This is kinda in line with Bobby's work, as he has taken inspiration and liberties with certain popular bands of the time, like Duke Nukem II. The game features a song named "He's Back" for the first level of the game, which takes a riff from the Megadeth song "Angry Again".
Megadeth would weirdly enough return the favor by covering the Duke Nukem 3D theme, "Grabbag".
Point is, taking elements, riffs, and sometimes entire songs is kinda something Bobby Prince does. Heres a couple of examples from Doom, mainly featuring some personal favorite tracks from the game
First track, is "Bye Bye American Pie" in Doom 2, used for the level Barrels O' Fun. It basically is a cover of "Them Bones" by Alice In Chains. This song is actually how I got in to Alice In Chains.
Next Up is "At Doom's Gate" aka the song from the first level in Doom. The riff technically comes from "Master Of Puppets" by Metallica, as it was mentioned specifically in the metadeta that came with the OS/2 port of the game(which we will get to). But honestly the song "Hooked" by Crossover-Thrash Metal Band D.R.I. sounds WAYYYY more like the track in the game. Eitherway Im linking both below.
Last one Im mentioning and this one is more so speculated rather than confirmed but "Donna To The Rescue" shares alot of similarities to Body Count's song "Body Count" off of their self titled album...Body Count. Body Count is Ice T's metal band famous for the song "Cop Killer" which I have referenced once here before. Did I say Body Count too many times already?
The part where it gets interesting is that part of the reason we know which tracks Bobby took "inspiration" was because of the metadata of the MIDI files for the OS/2 port of Doom. It lists many songs that were used as a basis or inspiration for many of the songs. Ill be linking to a Doom Wiki Page about the meta data at the bottom, alongside the Doom Wiki Page about the music as a whole, where honestly Im kinda cribbing off alot of shit from there. Its a good resource....oh my god am I just like Bobby?
Im not a lawyer(unlike Bobby who probably knows what he could get away with legally), but honestly I dont think any of the songs Bobby took riffs and essentially covered for Doom should discredit Bobby's work on Doom, Doom 2, or honestly any of his work. For one, this is literally how music works. Great muscians be stealing shit all the time from other artists. And 2nd, is it fair to give shit to Bobby when Bobby was basically the one who got caught. Like have you heard literally ANY game from the 80s and 90s? Final Fantasy 7 was basically taking shit from Motorhead, Megaman was doing 8 bit covers of Journey and Guns N Roses songs, hell the fucking Super Mario Brothers theme was literally inspired and takes elements from a japanese Jazz band called T Square. None of these song similarities, rips, or covers should really discredit any of the artists because honestly, the interpretations of these songs are different and interesting enough on their own, not to mention the fact the majority of these composers for these games have made other amazing original tracks. Also not to mention, copyright law for music is some fucking bullshit anyway.
Or Maybe Bobby Prince is a plagiarist, who the fuck knows, he made kick ass music for Doom, thats all that matters to me.