A Very Pretentious Analysis of the (2016) DOOM Soundtrack by Mick Gordon
In case you didn’t hear from the avalanche of praise gamers and critics heaped onto ID and Bethesda’s newest dive into the Doom universe, this year’s DOOM reboot was amazing. But in this article I’ll be much less talking about the gameplay itself, and more about the sonic chariot you’ll be riding into hell: the amazing original soundtrack by Mick Gordon.
Now, Doom is not the first soundtrack Mick did for Bethesda. His previous work with the famed publisher includes Wolfenstein: the New Order and Wolfenstein’s The Old Blood DLC; and he’ll be doing the score for Bethesda and Arkane’s upcoming Prey reboot in 2017.
Video games, like film, television, and theatre, are an art form unto themselves. But unlike painting, sculpture, or movement, it is an art form that incorporates many different art forms. A well-crafted game is the culmination of gameplay, art design, vocal and physical performance, writing, and music. And in Doom, none of these were overlooked.
Music in games, much like music in film, is there to accentuate the player’s experience. And in Doom, the music is just as much a part of the combat as your guns. For each Imp, Hellknight, and Baron you send back to Hell, the music is right there with you, feeding off your adrenaline as you rip and tear across the Martian surface.
But the greatness of Mick Gordon’s soundtrack comes not only from the driving aggression of the 9 string Schecters and Soviet synthesizers that dominate the bulk of the score (or the 8 string Mayones that ravage “The BFG Division”), but also from the quieter moments dotted amongst the sonic swells. Tracks like “Impure Spectrum” and “Authorization; Olivia Pierce” give the player and the listener’s heart a much needed break from the frantic energy of the rest of the soundtrack.
Even apart from the masterful craftsmanship of Doom as a whole, the soundtrack stands on its own as a cohesive musical experience. And this is partly the reason it took so long to get released after the game came out. In an interview with Gary Steinman, Mick Gordon talked about needing time to go back over the bits and pieces of the soundtrack used in the game, and rework them into cohesive bits of a standalone album; even going so far as to incorporate portions of the in game dialogue to give the soundtrack some 70s prog album flair.
And much like his prog rock brethren before him, Mick Gordon has no trouble abandoning traditional musical meters to deliver a more compelling musical experience. At various points in the soundtrack, the sound becomes less of a driving force and more of a percussive hammer, as all logical meter is cast aside to make way for the visceral force of nature that is Doomguy.
And where would any game be without some Easter eggs? Doom is full of them. From fun Fallout and Skyrim references to John Romero’s head on a pike, Doom has no shortage of neat stuff to keep an eye out for; but the soundtrack has some nice little nods of its own.
Obviously, there is the almost obligatory inclusion of Robert Prince’s E1M1 (At Doom’s Gate) theme from the 1993’s Doom, as well as the nicely beefed up version of 2004’s Doom 3 theme in the form of “Harbinger” (which is track 14 on the 2016 soundtrack for those of you keeping track at home).
There are subtler nods to the original games as well. For example, track 21 of Mick Gordon’s soundtrack “III. Dakhma” borrows from Robert Prince’s guitar lead on “Sign of Evil”, and track 7, “Authorization; Olivia Pierce” borrows several melodic lines from Robert Prince’s “Suspense”. “Authorization; Olivia Pierce” has an even subtler Easter egg buried in it, as discovered by Brian Skeel on Youtube. When run through a spectrograph, the number ‘36’ can be seen deep within the song. I have no idea what that’s about, and Mick Gordon is being pretty tight lipped about it.
And as far as spectrographic Easter eggs go, this isn’t even the best one. Reddit user Tomcb found that when run through a spectrograph, the track “Cyberdemon” reveals a repeating 666 and an inverted pentagram. “Cyberdemon” also borrows some of the melodic lines from the Robert Prince’s 1993 track of the same name. A comprehensive list of these specific melodic Easter eggs can be found in this video from “Hey Poor Player TV”.
Put all these parts together and the end result is flawless. If you haven’t picked up a copy of Doom yet, I’d highly advise you do so. Your eyes, ears, and inner demonslayer will thank you. And if you’ve played the game but haven’t picked up the soundtrack, it’s $9.99 on iTunes, for 31 songs. If you’ve already bought Doom and something to play it on, you can surely spare ten bucks for one of the most awesome soundtracks of 2016.
