Personal Tech
Haters are gonna hate the fact Bobby Prince's demonic dirges rank with Taylor Swift's 1989
The perennial question "Can it run Doom?" has a new answer, of sorts, after the USA's Library of Congress (LOC) added the iconic game's soundtrack to its National Recording Registry.An announcement of this year's new additions to the Registry hails Bobby Prince's 1993 soundtrack as "the perfect riff-shredding accompaniment for the game's demon-slaying journey to hell and back.""Key to Doom's popularity was the adrenaline-fueled soundtrack created by freelance video game music composer Bobby Prince," the LOC asserts, before revealing that the composer took inspiration from "a pile" of CDs loaned by Doom designer John Romero, including "seminal works by Alice in Chains, Pantera and Metallica."
Prince was apparently "fascinated" by MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and used his knowledge of the standard "to ensure that the sound effects he created could cut through the music by assigning them to different MIDI frequencies." That approach, the LOC says, saw the Doom soundtrack "go on to inspire countless remixes and lay the foundation for future generations of game composers."
