Good news, fans of decades-old video game soundtracks! The soundtrack to the original, 1993 Doom has been added to the National Recording Registry.
This means that it has been selected (after the public are invited to make nominations) as being a musical work of immense cultural importance to the history of the United States of America:
The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and inform or reflect life in the United States". The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, which created the National Recording Preservation Board, whose members are appointed by the librarian of Congress. The recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry form a registry of recordings selected yearly by the National Recording Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress
This is a huge achievement for composer Bobby Prince, and is a wonderful act of recognition from such an important cultural body not only for Prince and Doom, but for video game composition in general. It's only the third piece of video game music to ever be inducted, after the theme for Super Mario Bros. and the first soundtrack album for Minecraft, though it's arguably even more important (and relevant to the brief) since it's the first American game, and Prince the first American games composer, to be listed.
To really put it into perspective, though, you have to look at what else it was inducted alongside, because reading through this list--and then seeing the Doom soundtrack tucked in there--is, while being extremely important, also very funny.
- “Cocktails for Two” – Spike Jones and His City Slickers (1944) (single)
- “Mambo No. 5” – Pérez Prado and His Orchestra (1950) (single)
- “Teardrops from My Eyes” – Ruth Brown (1950) (single)
- “Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)” – Kaye Ballard (1954) (single)
- “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” – Paul Anka (1959) (single)
- “The Blues and the Abstract Truth” – Oliver Nelson (1961) (album)
- “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music” – Ray Charles (1962) (album)
- “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)” – The Byrds (1965) (single)
- “Amen, Brother” – The Winstons (1969) (single)
- “Feliz Navidad” – José Feliciano (1970) (single)
- “The Fight of the Century: Ali vs. Frazier” (March 8, 1971) (broadcast)
- “Midnight Train to Georgia” – Gladys Knight and the Pips (1973) (single)
- “Chicago” Original Cast Album (1975) (album)
- “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” – The Charlie Daniels Band (1979) (single)
- “Beauty and the Beat” – The Go-Go’s (1981) (album)
- “Texas Flood” – Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble (1983) (album)
- “I Feel For You” – Chaka Khan (1984) (single)
- “Your Love” – Jamie Principle (1986) / Jamie Principle/Frankie Knuckles (1987) (singles)
- “Rumor Has It” – Reba McEntire (1990) (album)
- “The Wheel” – Rosanne Cash (1993) (album)
- “Doom” Soundtrack – Bobby Prince, composer (1993)
- “Go Rest High On That Mountain” – Vince Gill (1994) (single)
- “Weezer (The Blue Album)” – Weezer (1994) (album)
- “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” – Beyoncé (2008) (single)
- “1989” – Taylor Swift (2014) (album)
Included above are some of the most world-famous and culturally important songs and albums of the 20th (and 21st) centuries! And then there's this, also world-famous and culturally important, but maybe not for the same reasons as “Fly Me To The Moon”:
I'd just like to close by saying that while Doom has received the official video game honour here, “Texas Flood” was by far the best track (to actually play) on the original Guitar Hero, so I'm going to give it half a nod as well.
