Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Doomkid

The REAL source for Donna to the Rescue + other MIDIs (Video)

Recommended Posts

Nice find. The similarity of "Body Count's In the House" is definitely too close to be coincidental.

 

Donna to the Rescue is also special in that it has an extended version on one particular Doom music CD, with a runtime of 3:46.

 

There was also a Twitter user recently that claimed to have an even longer rendition of the track, given to him by Bobby Prince himself. No idea if there's any truth behind that, but it seems plausible considering that the aforementioned extended track does not loop properly on the CD. In particular, you can still hear the drums and the cymbal at the very end, indicating that there was another section of the track that was cut off:

 

 

Share this post


Link to post

Hm, indeed, rather interesting find.

 

In some cases coincidences can occur, but the similarities between Body Count and Donna are just far too striking, it's essentially a rip-off. I find Bobby's statement that he never listened to metal before composing Doom's soundtrack equally dubious - indeed, how exactly do you accurately create something that fits a specific genre/style you're never listened before?

 

As about Chopping Mall... that sounds pretty similar as well, but still nowhere near as striking as Body Count.

Share this post


Link to post
25 minutes ago, seed said:

indeed, how exactly do you accurately create something that fits a specific genre/style you're never listened before?

By copying it first, hence all the "use not" tracks?

 

I think for At Doom's Gate, someone needs to make a video compilation of all the purported inspirations. On the talk page alone, we have:

  • DRI - Hooked
  • King Diamond - The Family Ghost
  • Bathory - Total Destruction
  • Metallica - Master of Puppets
  • Metallica - No Remorse
  • Slayer - Read Between The Lies

And we even had some more suggestions in the article's history, such as:

  • Slayer - Behind the Crooked Cross
  • Aria - Это рок
  • Blackmayne - Twilight Of Lear

I mean, if it's ripping off all these songs simultaneously, including some that tbqh Bobby Prince likely never had the opportunity to even hear about back in 1993, then maybe it really is just that generic a riff.

Share this post


Link to post
36 minutes ago, Gez said:

 

  • Bathory - Total Destruction

 

Now this actually triggered me a little. It sounds nothing like Total Destruction...

 

Got even more triggered when whoever wrote that part said "The Return... " might predate "Kill 'em All", an '85 album predating an '83 one, yeah that seems totally legit, even Bathory's self-titled album came later, in '84. Someone has done zero research. I think I'm gonna delete that part myself.

 

Kind Diamond, Destruction, Slayer, Metallica, I can easily believe. Bathory is just nonsense to me.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post

I'm in the camp that doesn't particularly buy the "use not" story, it makes a lot more sense that "un" was short for "untitled", and that Bobby's just covering his ass years after the fact now that people (at least in the Doom community) are talking a lot about his influences, but it's kind of a one word against another thing by now.

 

On the other hand, for people who do generally believe the "use not" idea but ask why bother making a bunch of copied tracks that weren't meant to be used, there's a simple answer: to learn.  I'm not an expert on Bobby Prince's story but the impression I get is that he was a guy with little to no prior musical experience who decided doing music for games would be a fun side job and learned as he went.  Even if he did start with more experience than that, he's been pretty open about not being that familiar with the metal genre prior to Doom.  One of the best ways to learn to do a creative thing (and other things for that matter) is to copy some work you like, take it apart, analyze and tweak it with remixes and such to figure out how it works.  But that's an inconvenient fact for the reigning Cult of Originality so they like to sweep it under the rug.  Why he'd send his learning experiments to id is a bit shakier to explain from that though.

 

I also feel like there's a lot said about the Doom soundtrack but not a lot about Bobby Prince's other stuff which I'm fairly sure contains a bunch of other covers/tributes/ripoffs.  The Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure/ZZ Top one is well known but I feel like there are some others.  Particularly I'd like a look at the Major Stryker soundtrack.  In particular, I feel like "Handsome Tom" is reminiscent of... something, but I can't place my finger on it offhand.  Maybe it's just another one of those "generic metal riffs", I dunno.

 

The Heretic/Hexen fan in me is always curious about digging up the few mentioned influences from Kevin Schilder that never really seem to get investigated.  https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Hexen_music mentions a couple, voidr being inspired off of Escape from New York I can kind of hear, but after listening to like an hour of Level 42 nothing jumped out at me as sounding remotely like levelr or anything else from Hexen.  I think we can assume that Schilder was a lot more subtle about his influences to say the least.

 

I'll also mention this again, it was far from just a Bobby Prince thing.

 

Share this post


Link to post
3 hours ago, Gez said:

By copying it first, hence all the "use not" tracks?

 

I think for At Doom's Gate, someone needs to make a video compilation of all the purported inspirations. On the talk page alone, we have:

  • DRI - Hooked
  • King Diamond - The Family Ghost
  • Bathory - Total Destruction
  • Metallica - Master of Puppets
  • Metallica - No Remorse
  • Slayer - Read Between The Lies

And we even had some more suggestions in the article's history, such as:

  • Slayer - Behind the Crooked Cross
  • Aria - Это рок
  • Blackmayne - Twilight Of Lear

I mean, if it's ripping off all these songs simultaneously, including some that tbqh Bobby Prince likely never had the opportunity to even hear about back in 1993, then maybe it really is just that generic a riff.

Well, see, to copy metal, that inherently means he had to listen to it first - the claim is specifically that e1m1 was written “before having listened to any metal” - that’s the one I find hard to believe. e1m1 just being a generic riff based on the genre as a whole is much easier to believe, of course.

 

Also - I could be wrong on this, but - I seem to recall an (incomplete) listing of “known” albums that id software had at the time. Of all the stuff mentioned above, the only known albums at the id office circa 1993 were by Slayer and Metallica. This is a crucial piece of evidence I ought to have included but simply forgot while making the video.

 

I’m all about evidence - The man wrote his metal MIDIs based on what he had access to. When we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Metallica was among the collection he listened to, the case for Metallica having inspired him (even if only in a general sense) becomes a lot stronger. Doubly so when you compare the riffs and see that they’re using the same notes in a very similar structure - the similarity to songs from albums that Prince likely didn’t have access to is almost always a lot more fleeting (for example, there are about 4 notes shared between the intro of “Hooked” and e1m1 before they fork into completely different directions, and some of the others mentioned have even less in common, looking completely unrecognisable when transcribed). 

 

I haven’t seen any proof that King Diamond or more obscure stuff like DRI was among the stack of reference albums, and given album sales figures I think it’s safe to assume all Bobby had access to was in the region of “mainstream” metal, stuff that sold well and was common circulated, a criteria not met by bands like DRI and some of the others if were being brutally honest.

 

I’d never call it a No Remorse ripoff because it simply isn’t. Heck, I find it easy to believe the riff was just inspired by metal in general. But having created a bona-fide metal MIDI before even having listened to metal?

 

I do think a lot of the unused MIDIs were probably just created for practice and learning more about the genre before trying to make his own unique pieces. That point in particular makes more sense than simply doing it for fun. Although making MIDIs is fun, most definitely! (Well imo anyway, and Bobby has said multiple times that he had a good time making tunes for SoftDisk and id)

Share this post


Link to post
3 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I’d never call it a No Remorse ripoff because it simply isn’t. Heck, I find it easy to believe the riff was just inspired by metal in general. But having created a bona-fide metal MIDI before even having listened to metal?

If I remember the gist of the quote correctly, it was "before having listened to the pile of metal albums from Romero", which isn't the same thing as claiming to have never ever heard metal music at all.

7 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I seem to recall an (incomplete) listing of “known” albums that id software had at the time.

It's on the wiki: Musical inspirations behind Doom's music

 

Amusingly, Metallica is absent.

 

And to bring in my two cents from ca. 1994, the first time I heard "Deep Into the Code" I was persuaded it was a reprise of the E1M1 theme, told that to my brother, who then called me stupid and wrong 'cuz they're completely different. "Nuh-uh, it's the same riff." "Nuh-uh, it's not." Neither of us had ever heard any Slayer or Metallica at this point. :p

Share this post


Link to post
43 minutes ago, Gez said:

If I remember the gist of the quote correctly, it was "before having listened to the pile of metal albums from Romero", which isn't the same thing as claiming to have never ever heard metal music at all.

Heck, that makes way more sense. What’s stated on the wiki is very misleading in that case:

 4U410GS.jpg

 

Also, just to add even more to your second point - as a kid I felt so damn sure that Deep into the Code was an early, less refined version of At Doom’s Gate.. This was before I knew anything about music theory, but the similarity in the general structure is easy to notice! When I heard Behind the Crooked Cross, I was like “ah, well now I know the source for e3m3 and e1m1”.

 

... then a few more years went by and I was shown the No Remorse riff! Learning that they (possibly) didn’t even have a Metallica album among the bunch is just convincing me even further of the “generic metal riff” stance, not that I wasn’t already convinced.

 

edit: I also find it hilarious that Donna to the Rescue is on the list of “definites” rather than “speculative” all because of that line in the metadata that may well have been a simple labelling error. I know the author himself having labeled the MIDI “Outshined” seems like strong evidence.. but surely the sound of the music itself has to be taken into consideration. Regardless of all the other theories floating around, it can be demonstrated that there is not one riff in common between Outshined and Donna - Hell, even the key and time signature are different!

 

I don’t even think it should be moved from “definite” to “speculative” - it’s more like “mislabeled”. Even if the similarity to Body Count is a pure coincidence and it was written as an original, I still can’t see the Outshined connection as anything more than an error. Or maybe it was remixed time and time again until it was unrecognisable, but that also seems super unlikely because of how far removed it is.

 

Also, this is getting kind of tangential, but is there any citation for D_BETWEE being based on Zero Hour?! I only just now actually paid attention to that claim on the wiki and I have to say it also strikes me as strange. It seems to be the only tune that doesn’t provide any citation for the claim. Other than being roughly the same tempo, they seem pretty different..

Edited by Doomkid

Share this post


Link to post

Interesting find.

I'd like to share my opinion on doom music inspiration sources but I'm not sure it's ok to do that in this topic.

Share this post


Link to post
4 hours ago, Vadim said:

Interesting find.

I'd like to share my opinion on doom music inspiration sources but I'm not sure it's ok to do that in this topic.

Of course, fire away

Share this post


Link to post

I thought "Donna to the Rescue" was a new vanilla wad with a new character in the Doomkid cinematic universe. Erm... I was a bit disappointed but this will do.

Share this post


Link to post
5 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Of course, fire away

 

Alright, thanks, but it's about doom 2


Map 01 to me sounds like it was inspired not just by megadeth's hangar 18 but also Nailbomb's wasting away in the beginning

Map 02 reminds me of rhythmic structure of "King Crimson - The Sheltering Sky" but with bass and Atheist - Samba Briza in the end/
Map 08 reminds me of The Orb - Perpetual Dawn percussion so much, listen to the beginning of those two tracks and also when melodic part comes to play in doom 2 it also has a vibe of the orb's song.

Share this post


Link to post

Just because no one's posted it, here's (the non-midi) Body Count's in the House. I assume Doomkid only used the midi version because of potential copyright strikes.

 

 

Anyhow nice find @Doomkid! Also for some reason I thought you were Australian lol.

 

About At Doom's Gate: I don't think it's a direct rip-off of No Remorse. The Bobby Prince method of making songs for Doom (and other games) is to have a riff, vary the riff through some 12-bar-blues chord changes, then repeat the whole thing with the riff having a harmony in 3rds. It's the harmony for the At Doom's Gate riff that is extremely similar to the Metallica riff, but that's not something Bobby Prince does anywhere else -- he always just copies the main riff directly. All of that's not to say that No Remorse didn't influence At Doom's Gate, intentionally or subconsciously, but I don't think it was a deliberate lifting of the riff the way his other songs were.

Share this post


Link to post

You’re right - the main reason I didn’t use the album versions of any songs was to avoid bogus claims. I also thought the similarity would be easier to hear in MIDI format, but it was mainly due to copyright fears.

 

Also I’ve lived here for 12 years and am a citizen by birth, but I’m only half Australian :)

Share this post


Link to post

Is there any music that wasn't inspired by something?
btw. E3M2 is definitely one of my favorite maps in doom, maybe I'll do episode remake as soon as I finish my work on Hell Renaissance.

Edited by Vadim

Share this post


Link to post
18 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I’m only half Australian :)

That's good enough for me.... I always thought you were too suspiciously cool to be a regular Yank Doom guy :-)

I also got a theory, that Alice In Chains (or at least their drummer Sean Kinney) was influenced by the drum break in the E2M8 song for the intro to their song No Excuses. Were they Doom fans? Did they ever talk about it in interviews?

Share this post


Link to post

Even if it’s a coincidence, I definitely hear the similarity in the drums!

Share this post


Link to post
7 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

That's good enough for me.... I always thought you were too suspiciously cool to be a regular Yank Doom guy :-)

I also got a theory, that Alice In Chains (or at least their drummer Sean Kinney) was influenced by the drum break in the E2M8 song for the intro to their song No Excuses. Were they Doom fans? Did they ever talk about it in interviews?

I've definitely had moments when listening to other bands that I've wondered the same thing.

Good example being the wailing guitar intro to Christ's Cage by Immolation bearing a passing resemblance to the riff from Sign of Evil. I also noticed that Christ's Cage is the eighth and last song on the album, while Sign of Evil appears on the eighth and last map of E1.

 

Edited by Revved

Share this post


Link to post
2 hours ago, Revved said:

I've definitely had moments when listening to other bands that I've wondered the same thing.

Good example being the wailing guitar intro to Christ's Cage by Immolation bearing a passing resemblance to the riff from Sign of Evil. I also noticed that Christ's Cage is the eighth and last song on the album, while Sign of Evil appears on the eighth and last map of E1.

 

And we're going back to the lack of research part again it seems... We have another problem here:

 

First of all being that Shareware Doom came out in December '93 and Immolation's Here in After album came out in '96, making this impossible. Granted, Christ's Cage originally appeared on Immolation's '94 promo tape, where it was the third and last song on the record, but the point still stands. This is nonsense, because both the album and the song came after Doom was finished.

Share this post


Link to post
5 minutes ago, seed said:

 

And we're going back to the lack of research part again it seems... We have another problem here:

 

First of all being that Shareware Doom came out in December '93 and Immolation's Here in After album came out in '96, making this impossible. Granted, Christ's Cage originally appeared on Immolation's '94 promo tape, where it was the third and last song on the record, but the point still stands. This is nonsense.

By that, I meant bands that were INFLUENCED by the Doom soundtrack, not the other way around. Like the person I quoted, about how seed had speculated how Alice in Chains was influenced by a song from Doom.

Share this post


Link to post
2 minutes ago, Revved said:

By that, I meant bands that were INFLUENCED by the Doom soundtrack, not the other way around. Like the person I quoted, about how seed had speculated how Alice in Chains was influenced by the a song on in Doom.

 

Ah, okay.

 

I don't doubt they've heard of and maybe even played Doom themselves, but I think this borders more on coincidence territory rather than influenced by tbh.

Share this post


Link to post
On 3/5/2020 at 7:27 PM, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

  In particular, I feel like "Handsome Tom" is reminiscent of... something, but I can't place my finger on it offhand.  Maybe it's just another one of those "generic metal riffs", I dunno.

 

To my ears, the riff in that tune is a slightly modified and sped up version of the riff used in Doom's E1M6/E3M6 track "On the Hunt", but Doom came out almost a year later, so it seems likely that "On the Hunt" lifted and tweaked the riff from "Handsome Tom" rather than vice-versa.  As far as I know the music isn't derived significantly from any source other than Bobby Prince himself.

 

As for the "use not", I have doubts about that argument as well, but I do think it's plausible that Bobby Prince created a lot of 12 bar blues based rip-offs of metal songs as part of learning the style and didn't intend to allow the more blatant rip-offs to make it into the actual game.  Certainly there are some good original compositions in the Ultimate Doom in particular, "Suspense" and "Sign of Evil" spring to mind as well as the famous "At Doom's Gate" which, although having a similarity with "Kill Em All", is not clearly derived from anything.

Edited by ENEMY!!!

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×