Soundtrack Saturday: Doom

In this weekly feature, I recommend game soundtracks. I share a few of my favorite tracks, talk about why everyone should listen to the soundtrack, and a little bit about the composer. This week's choice is Doom by id Software.

THE STATS

Name: Doom
Developer: id Software
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Release Date: May 13, 2016
Genres: First-person shooter
Composer: Mick Gordon

MY FAVORITE TRACKS

(The titles link to YouTube videos... and I highly recommend some good headphones to best enjoy all of the subtle elements of the music!)

This is a MUCH heavier soundtrack than I normally talk about, so for that reason I'm just going to list my top 5, in order of preference:

1. Harbinger
2. VEGA Core
3. Hellwalker
4. Rust, Dust & Guts
5. Rip & Tear

They're all fairly similar in sound -- heavy, thrashing metal. This is a soundtrack perfect for a game about shooting everything that moves!

You can listen to the full soundtrack on YouTube:

Doom OST

WHY I RECOMMEND IT

This one's actually recommended by my husband! He got the game in 2016, played some of it, traded it in... and then a year later he bought it again. Both times he told me the music was great, and he's rarely wrong. (We're gonna have to agree to disagree about some Meatloaf and KISS songs.)

Having taken a closer listen to it on my own, this is definitely music to play when you want to drown out other things. When you're angry, when you're seeking catharsis, when you want to be creative. It all works! For myself, this gets filed away to "Must Be In The Right Mood To Listen."

THE COMPOSER: MICK GORDON

I don't really get the good vibes about Mr. Gordon the way I do when reading about other composers, and part of that may stem from the controversy over the Doom Eternal soundtrack and a parting of ways between Mick and id Software. You can read about that on your own time!

But as for Mick himself, it doesn't seem like he's been at this for too terribly long, but he's got some great titles in his list of credits: Destroy All Humans! 2, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, Project CARS, Prey, and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.