Unused Doom music
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In June 2007, John Romero released a collection of unused MIDI music tracks on his website, which were created as part of Doom's development but not used within the game. Some of the tracks were used in the game in a different form. In total 31 .mid files are in the collection, and these are of historical interest, as they give insight into Doom's development process (the tools used by Robert Prince) and also insight into the musical inspirations behind Doom's music.
Many of the tracks are inspired by tracks by popular heavy metal bands and are annotated with metadata that names the song from which they take inspiration. This provided confirmation to some fans who had long noticed musical similarities between certain tracks in Doom's soundtrack and well-known heavy metal songs.
In a 2017 interview, Robert Prince clarified that the "un" prefix for the filenames is an abbreviation for "use not," indicating that these files were specifically not intended to be used in the games for legal reasons.[1]
Additional material from the id development archive revealed two additional unused songs not included in this collection, OPENING1.MID, a different iteration of Opening to Hell, and UN121.MID.
Files[edit]
| File name | Length | Metadata | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| opening.mid | 01:03 | Romero: "this was an idea for the original Doom title screen song."; early version of "Opening to Hell" from Doom II. | |
| opening1.mid | 00:48 | Shorter, earlier version of "Opening to Hell" from Doom II. | |
| un08.mid | 00:48 | Early version of "Facing the Spider" from Doom. Possibly inspired by "Sargent D & the S.O.D." by Stormtroopers of Death. | |
| un09.mid | 00:40 | Likely inspired by "Kill Yourself" by Stormtroopers of Death. | |
| un12.mid | 00:13 | Likely inspired by "Pi Alpha Nu" by Stormtroopers of Death. | |
| un13.mid | 01:13 | Likely inspired by "Milano Mosh" by Stormtroopers of Death. | |
| un14.mid | 01:03 | Created by Power Chords 1.0 (c) 1992, Howling Dog Systems | Likely inspired by "Pi Alpha Nu" by Stormtroopers of Death. |
| un15.mid | 00:54 | Likely inspired by "Let It Ride" by Bachman–Turner Overdrive. A version of this appears in Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold | |
| un16.mid | 00:28 | Likely inspired by "Speak English or Die" by Stormtroopers of Death. | |
| un17.mid | 01:16 | Romero: "Would have actually fit in the game". Likely inspired by "Raining Blood" by Slayer. | |
| un18.mid | 00:57 | Likely inspired by "Silent Scream" by Slayer. | |
| un19.mid | 01:36 | Alice in Chains -- Facelift -- "We Die Young" | Early version of "Hiding the Secrets" from Doom. |
| un20.mid | 02:06 | Alice in Chains -- Facelift -- "Man In The Box" | |
| un21-f.mid | 02:42 | Stone Temple Pilots -- "Dead and Bloated" | |
| un23.mid | 01:39 | Stone Temple Pilots -- "Sex Type Thing" | A version of this appeared in DemonStar, for which Robert Prince also composed the music. |
| un28.mid | 01:38 | Alice in Chains -- Dirt -- "Them Bones" | Early version of "Bye Bye American Pie" from Doom II. |
| un30.mid | 01:16 | Romero: "I like it’s funkiness. Reminds me of Wolfy." | |
| un31.mid | 00:52 | Soundgarden -- "Rusty Cage" | |
| un32.mid | 02:38 | Soundgarden -- "Outshined" | |
| un36.mid | 01:16 | Soundgarden -- "Outshined" | Romero: "I hated this song. I assigned it to e3m6 originally and everytime I ran that level I just cringed. I eventually removed it." Likely inspired by "Slaves & Bulldozers" by Soundgarden. |
| un37.mid | 00:58 | Soundgarden -- "Outshined" | Early version of "Donna to the Rescue" from Doom. Likely inspired by "Body Count's in the House" by Body Count. |
| un39.mid | 00:23 | Alice in Chains -- Dirt -- "Rain When I Die" | Romero: "Would have been a cool intermission screen." |
| un41.mid | 01:27 | Alice in Chains -- Dirt -- "Rooster" | |
| un42.mid | 01:49 | Alice in Chains -- Dirt -- "JunkHead" | |
| un43.mid | 02:19 | Alice in Chains -- Dirt -- "Dirt" | |
| un44.mid | 01:47 | AC-DC "Big Gun" | Early version of "I Sawed the Demons" from Doom. |
| un45.mid | 02:07 | Alice in Chains -- Dirt -- "God Smack" | |
| un46.mid | 01:55 | Alice in Chains -- Dirt -- "Angry Chair" | Early version of "Adrian's Asleep" from Doom II. |
| un48.mid | 02:02 | Slayer -- South of Heaven -- "Behind The Crooked Cross" | Early version of "Deep into the Code" from Doom. |
| un49.mid | 04:32 | Created by Power Chords 1.0 (c) 1992, Howling Dog Systems | Early version of "Dark Halls" from Doom. |
| un51.mid | 01:19 | Likely inspired by "Walk" by Pantera. | |
| un52.mid | 02:04 | Created by Power Chords 1.0 (c) 1992, Howling Dog Systems | Romero: "A better version of this song was in the game". He is probably referring to MAP07: Dead Simple (Doom II). The track is likely inspired by "South of Heaven" by Slayer. |
| un121.mid | 00:41 | Likely inspired by "March of the S.O.D." by Stormtroopers of Death. |
External links[edit]
- "Doom Archaeology" (archived 🏛) - Blog post by John Romero where he released the tracks.
References[edit]
- ↑ Jake The Voice (15 October 2017). "Bobby Prince Interview (DOOM Composer) - The Cyber Den." YouTube. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
