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The metal-inspired MIDI soundtrack to hit 1993 videogame Doom has been added to the US Library Of Congress’ National Recording Registry, alongside music by alt-rock idols Weezer and pop hitmakers Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.
The registry contains more than 700 audio recordings which have been deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically important, and/or informs or reflects life in the United States”. 25 recordings are added per year, though the only metal album to make the annals so far is Metallica’s 1986 masterpiece Master Of Puppets.
Other recordings to have been inducted include exhibition pieces by Thomas Edison, Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s I Have A Dream speech, Bob Dylan’s second studio album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the description of the crash of the Hindenburg blimp by American journalist Herbert Morrison.
Doom, where the player controls nameless protagonist ‘Doomguy’ and kills hordes of demons and the undead on the moons of Mars and in Hell, was a monumental critical and commercial hit upon its release in 1993. The soundtrack, composed by American sound designer Bobby Prince, received particular praise, and in later years was celebrated by many players as a gateway into metal music.
It entered the registry last weekend, as did Weezer’s self-titled debut album (AKA The Blue Album) and Taylor Swift’s 2014 album 1989. Beyoncé’s 2008 single Single Ladies (Put On A Ring On It) was inducted, alongside José Feliciano’s iconic 1970 Christmas single Feliz Navidad and others. See the full list of what was admitted this year via the Library of Congress website.
In 2024, John Romero, co-founder of Doom developer id Software, told Metal Hammer that the game was rooted in his love for metal music.
“We were all total metalheads, and that attitude really started coming through,” he said. “There wasn’t a game that was that violent, the crazy speed… it was genuinely shocking.”
He added: “I used to be in the back of the bus going to high school, and they’d have a giant boombox. I’d crank it all the way up and play Accept until everyone’s head was banging!”
Romero gave Prince, who wasn’t a metal fan, a broad array of metal albums to study before composing Doom’s soundtrack.
“We sat him down and said, ‘Right, let’s talk about metal,’” he explained. “Between us, we had all the bases covered – prog metal, thrash, etc. We gave him CDs from Pantera, Slayer – different groups that had certain sounds that would be really cool to translate to MIDI. Alice In Chains, too. Even though that was kind of grunge, Jerry Cantrell was a badass metal guitarist.”
Bury Tomorrow bassist Davyd Winter-Bates was one of the metal musicians inspired by the soundtrack.
“I played Doom before I was even properly into metal,” he told Hammer. “I was listening to all those 8-bit riffs, like, ‘This isn’t pop music!’ I think a lot of my love of real heavy thrash riffs comes from slaying beasts in Doom.”
Other rock and metal musicians to have reportedly been fans were the members of Gwar and Nine Inch Nails leader Trent Reznor.
The success of Doom spawned a multimedia franchise, including a 2005 film starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Karl Urban. The eighth and latest instalment in the game series, Doom: The Dark Ages, was released by Bethesda last year.
