Talk:Doom music

Dark Side of Phobos
Hmm, perhaps Dark Side of Phobos tracks ought to be mentioned? -- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.98.25.209 (talk • contribs).


 * If you know something about it, please feel free to add something. -- Jdowland 18:29, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that another article, possibly "Remixes and covers of Doom music," would be a great place for that kind of thing, along with artist info and stuff. Would be neat to see. -- 68.81.74.19 04:42, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

"Based off"
Sorry to be a nazi here, but based off doesn't ring true for me (as a Brit). We'd say Based on or derived from with the exception of some regional dialects. What do you think? Jdowland 16:48, 13 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Based on does make much more sense. Bloodshedder 16:50, 13 Apr 2005 (EDT)

E3M8
e3m8 changed to Stormtroopers Of Death's "Sargent D and the SOD", as the main riff in both are practically the same. The only similarity it ever had with Silent Scream was a SLIGHT similarity in the structure of the opening riff in both songs. Check e3m8 with S.O.D's song if you don't believe me. ~ Tom D

E3M8 is nothing like Behind The Crooked Cross. The structure and the riffing have absolutely nothing in common with e3m8, yet SOD's "Sargent D And The SOD" has a lot in common with it when it comes to comparison. Even Silent Scream made more sense. Don't re-edit my edits without checking the information first, because I know I'm right, and you know I'm right if you listen and/or compare the songs Slayer's "Silent Scream", "Behind The Crooked Cross" and SOD's "Sargent D And The SOD", you should know which one is the right choice. ~Tom D
 * I really suggest you chill out. Fraggle 11:13, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You're quite right, I was too quick to revert your edit. It definitely doesn't sound like Crooked Cross, but it does sound like Silent Scream as per linguica's comparisons page. I haven't heard the S.O.D. track. -- Jdowland 17:11, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


 * On second listen it doesn't sound much like Silent Scream, either. Do you have a sample of the S.O.D. track? I expect Linguica would be interested too. -- Jdowland 17:12, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Here you go, http://tomd666.kiwibonga.com/SODthing.mp3 I'd say it has more similarities with e3m8 than Silent Scream. ~Tom D


 * Holy crap. One of the only true rip offs in Doom I -- TheDarkArchon 23:42, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

In my humble opinion E3M8 is more like Silent Scream. I've listened to both. SOD does not sound anything like the E3M8 MIDI. I can guarantee you that it is Silent Scream by Slayer. Romero listened to a lot of Slayer, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Pantera, Metallica, AC/DC, Alice in Chains, Anthrax, Bolt Thrower, a lot of metal. He was and still is a metalhead like me. Trust me, as a metalhead and a DOOM fan I can guarantee you that E3M8 is based off of Silent Scream. User: Corporal Flynn Taggart 3:38 PM, 5 July 2014 (EST)

silent scream
wow that tracck sounds dead on with the doom version

World Eater

 * Could someone please listen to Bolt thrower - World Eater I could swear I heard it before in DooM, but I don't remember which level. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 94.189.186.18 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 3 December 2008.


 * sounds a bit like On the Hunt —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.134.131.116 (talk • contribs) 13:46, 13 January 2012.

D.R.I. - Hooked
I've just noticed that the opening riff to D.R.I. - Hooked is pretty much identical to E1M1. However, that's where the similarities end. It might be worth mentioning as the riff sounds closer to the Doom track than the Master of Puppets riff does in my opinion.

King Diamond - The Family Ghost
If you listen to "The Family Ghost" on Abigail by King Diamond, beginning at about 2 minutes 15 seconds, you will hear the exact melody of e1m1, though it is underneath a lot of guitar work. it is easier to recognize on the rough mix version of the song, also included in the newer version of the cd

Bathory - Total Destruction
This is a classic metal riff - the beginning of "Total Destruction" by Bathory, the Return sounds almost identical. I think this album predated Metallica's Kill Em All

Metallica - Master of Puppets
I have tested the MIDI version of Master of Puppets, and I think At Doom's Gate is based on this song. Fangusu 16:26, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Um, this is already known to be the case. Did you read the article? Fraggle 23:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes he did, and he also removed the speculation about it possibly being based on No Remorse and various songs by other artists. While I tend to agree with Fangusu on the Doom song resembling Master of Puppets the most, many people seem to disagree. Maybe we should consider about reverting Fangusu's changes? -- Janizdreg 23:35, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Metallica - No Remorse
A video by Sonic Clang states and shows that No Remorse is the actual base for E1M1, *not* Master of Puppets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvqC4NFqdBc  Does this help clear up any disputes about E1M1's base...? The Ultimate Doomer 05:11, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It doesn't address "The Family Ghost" (for example), so nope. This is a topic I'm personally rather tired of. I'm happy to just list the eleventy gajillions songs that totally are the base for "At Doom's Gate", and let the reader choose which theory they prefer. --Gez 09:13, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Has no-one contacted Bobby about this? He'd know better than anyone else. --Eris Falling 09:20, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd be amazed if he created liability for himself by answering. (Not that he would be sued for activities in 1993, but check his blog – lots of talk about what songs "inspire" his current projects.  Could be very suspicious.)    Ryan W (talk) 23:30, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Slayer - Read Between The Lies
I think E1M1 bears a resemblance to Read Between The Lies by Slayer especially around the 2:00 mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vMR3SB2l5g Signed: Corporal Flynn Taggart

Speculation about E1M1 (and others)
The speculation on this page about the inspiration for E1M1 has really grown to become quite ridiculous. Among others, we're now listing 7 bands, including some obscure Russian band and others as possible inspirations.

I think the problem here is that the E1M1 is ultimately a pretty generic heavy metal guitar riff. The very fact that it sounds similar to songs by so many bands is evidence of this. With that in mind, I think it would make sense to cut a lot of these bands - if not all of them - out of the article. This goes for some of the other songs listed here as well. We're authoritatively listing songs as "inspiration" when often this just amounts to baseless speculation.

The sources of some of Doom's music can be conclusively proved through the metadata comments in the MIDI files released by John Romero. But for other tracks I think we should be much more skeptical. Fraggle (talk) 01:14, 25 May 2014 (UTC)


 * You definitely removed several that are 100% obvious, however. Like Sergeant D and the S.O.D., which is musically exactly identical to "Facing the Spider." There's no way it wasn't based on it. --Quasar (talk) 01:42, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Listening to it I'm far from convinced. Many of these tracks are mostly guitar riffs and it's inevitable that some heavy metal band out there has made something that sounds similar. Fraggle (talk) 02:00, 25 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Pantera's Mouth of War riff is more or less taken verbatim as well, and we definitely know Romero and Adrian had Pantera in their library. --Quasar (talk) 01:54, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * This sounds more convincing, and "in their library" is good reasoning I think. Maybe as a compromise, that's a good basis for deciding what gets listed here: if a Doom track sounds like a track from an album known to be used in Doom's development, it's a reasonable enough assumption. But if it's an album, or even a band, that isn't known to have been used, it's a much more tenuous suggestion.

For reference these are the track names that appear in the unused MIDI metadata:

AC-DC "Big Gun" [Single, or Last Action Hero soundtrack] Alice In Chains -- Dirt -- "Angry Chair" Alice In Chains -- Dirt -- "Dirt" Alice In Chains -- Dirt -- "God Smack" Alice In Chains -- Dirt -- "JunkHead" Alice In Chains -- Dirt -- "Rain When I Die" Alice In Chains -- Dirt -- "Rooster" Alice In Chains -- Dirt -- "Them Bones" Alice In Chains -- Facelift -- "Man In The Box" Alice In Chains -- Facelift -- "We Die Young" Slayer -- South Of Heaven -- "Behind The Crooked Cross" Soundgarden -- "Outshined" [From "Badmotorfinger" album] Soundgarden -- "Rusty Cage" [From "Badmotorfinger" album] Stone Temple Pilots -- "Dead and Bloated" [from "Core" album] Stone Temple Pilots -- "Sex Type Thing" [from "Core" album]

This might be a useful base for decisions. Fraggle (talk) 02:00, 25 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I could live with that. It's a shame we don't have more first-hand information. --Quasar (talk) 02:15, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

I can't figure out where but the table seems to be broken now, there's an empty column running down the right hand side of it. --Quasar (talk) 02:35, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Fraggle (talk) 02:37, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Just for fun I wrote this based on the information we've figured out here. Fraggle (talk) 03:00, 25 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Nice, thinking about making it an article? --Quasar (talk) 04:04, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I was just doing it for fun, but that might actually be a good idea. Fraggle (talk) 16:41, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

11. Did Judas Priest influence DOOM? Did SLAYER influence DOOM?

The answer is yes. Take a listen to Painkiller by Judas Priest and then a listen to E1M1. You will hear a lot of similarities.

If I remember correctly, one time John Romero told Bobby Prince to make something that sounds like Painkiller.

E3M2 also resembles Leather Rebel, though one can argue that it does sound a heck of a lot like Soundgarden's Outshined.

SLAYER influenced DOOM, it's noticeable in the fact that E3M3 greatly resembles Behind the Crooked Cross, and E3M8 resembles Silent Scream.

Also E1M3 resembles Criminally Insane by Slayer. A lot of the unused MIDI data referenced SLAYER. They were originally going to include Raining Blood on E3M6 and South of Heaven for MAP09. Eventually they were changed or flat out cut due to worries of lawsuits.

Though one question we all have to ask is, do E1M5, E1M7, and E1M8 all have traceable metal roots or influences? Can we find songs that bear resemblances?

Bolt Thrower's World Eater resembles E1M6 as does Believer's Sanity Obscure song.


 * I'm responding to this months late now, but better late than never.
 * I don't find the Judas Priest Painkiller thing to be conclusive. Thing is, E1M1 is clearly a track that sounds like different songs to different people. It's possible that it's inspired by multiple different songs, or maybe it's just a generic heavy metal riff that Bobby Prince made up. Without any evidence it's useless to speculate, and if the article is to be held to a high standard (which I think it should be) then it's best not to include any such speculation.
 * Slayer is certainly an option for inclusion as we know from the metadata comments that it was definitely in the collection. But a lot of these suggestions are really just rather tenuous speculation. I listened to a few and I'm not convinced. If we're to add any more entries to these lists, it should be done by careful analysis and consensus, because the one thing that's become abundantly clear in the history of this article is that people can convince themselves of all kinds of similarities in Doom's music. Fraggle (talk) 00:08, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

E1M5 could be based in part on the beginning of AC/DC's "Are You Ready?" from The Razor's Edge, 1990. Just saying. -CJ

Disputed claims
We need to include alternate possible influences when they're disputed, rather than blindly deleting one and replacing it with the other. Additionally, links to sound file or YouTube comparisons or textual descriptions of similarities should help make the claims be verifiable. Who is like God? 22:12, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that E3M2 has some similarity to Bolt Thrower "World Eater" from 17th second, though it is not clear. As for E1M1, some people believe that (citation): It sounds more like Burzum's "War", which is stolen from Destruction's "Curse the Gods" and they are both pretty much a ripoff of Bathory's "Necromancy" (Though almost exclusively the guitar bit), which I agree... Also consider Black Sabbath "The Writ" (ending part) as a candidate for E1M2. --Beard of prey 23:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Almost forgot.. Joe Satriani "House Full of Bullets" (1998, Crystal Planet) sounds to me like a cover onto E1M2. --Beard of prey 23:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

YouTube links
I decided to remove the links to YouTube, because it is not clear whether people who uploaded the songs to YouTube have the copyright holders' permission. If you believe they could be allowed, state your reasons here. --Xtroose 13:10, December 29, 2009 (UTC)

Reformatting for consistency?
Personally, I think the format on PlayStation Doom music works the best, and since I was considering adding track lengths to each article, I wondered if maybe they'd all benefit by being sorted by name first, then the map listing them, then length, and so on. I wonder if a sortable table would work in this case, allowing people to sort by map if they so wish. Apparently not.

And so on. Thoughts? --Eris Falling 20:54, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
 * What you've presented above looks nice enough, IMO. Do standardize the articles with the format. --Jartapran 18:20, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Bobby Prince interview
The thread on Doomworld has interesting material to fill this article, and especially this quote:
 * In summary, it wasn't inspired by any familiar source as it was actually written before he listened to any of the heavy metal CDs famously given to him by Romero.

--Gez (talk) 19:21, 3 November 2017 (CDT)

I want to say, the way this this is worded as a note in the article should be changed, because it gives people the impression that he says he came up with the riff without having listened to any heavy metal, which sounds odd, and I've seen many people trying to interpret this. Being either an awkward quote/paraphrase from the interview or Bobby himself wording it awkwardly, what he obviously means is that he had heard heavy metal music before, but came up with the riff for At Doom's Gate before John Romero asked him to base the game's music on a bunch of heavy metal and rock albums he lent him. 217.209.145.79 05:04, 2 February 2022 (CST)

Fourth link
It doesn't work. Mrchris (talk) 14:24, 9 March 2018 (CST)

Sign of Evil
It has been suggested on the other wiki that Sign of Evil bears resemblance to Starless by King Crimson, which I agree to

Maybe there should outright be a separate article for determining the inspirations for the music of the games? Maybe even analyzing how the song is transformed into a track for Doom, considering how with even striking similarities, tracks are often very different (Into Sandy's City is supposed to be initially based on Stone Temple Pilots' Sex Type Thing, but it sounds preciously little like it). Some of the origins can be determined by looking at metadata of earlier versions of tracks, but some can also be determined by just listening and comparing. 217.209.145.79 05:12, 2 February 2022 (CST)


 * That was tried, by having this article more or less free to entry of speculation for years. The accumulated results are still visible in the article's history; people added everything from songs that didn't exist when Doom was written, to garage bands only known in small Croatian villages performing in genres that id Software definitely didn't listen to.


 * I find in general that the average person has very little knowledge or intuition of music theory and if they hear a couple of notes in common in a song, that's good enough to them to be convinced of an influence or shared heritage. It just doesn't work out to entertain the general public's input on the subject. We need to stick to factuals. --Quasar (talk) 18:52, 2 February 2022 (CST)

Post-punk references in Doom
Some tracks are based not only on metal songs. Some of them can be inspired by post-punk band songs.

"Suspense" (E1M5 and E4M4) is based on "Placebo Effect" by Siouxsie and the Banshees and "Pornography" by The Cure

"Hiding the Secrets" (E1M9, E3M9 and E4M9) is based on "Down in the Sewer" by The Stranglers

"Nobody Told Me About id" (E2M8) is based on "La Ballade des Pendus" by Little Nemo

Also post-punk references can be in another tracks.

"At Doom's Gate" (E1M1) - The Damned - "We Love You (Radio Session)"

"Dark Halls" (E1M3) - ABC - "If I Ever Thought You'd Be Lonely"

"The Demons from Adrian's Pen" (E2M2) - Joy Division - "Day of the Lords"

--Taw Tulki (talk) 12:30, 27 October 2022 (CDT)