Mick Gordon unlikely to work on another Doom game after Eternal’s OST release

[mrthejoshmon]

I think Andrew Hulshult has it way under control, seeing as though this legitimate genius has been making the music for almost every other "boomer shooter" out there and been doing it well I think we are fine.

[Man of Doom]

Yeah, I guess I admit I’ve been too pessimistic about how the DLC soundtrack will go forward, especially after the really messy split between id and Mick and what it means going forward.

 

Like I said, I have no doubts that Andrew will knock it out of the park and it’s intriguing to hear his take on nuDoom.

 

Quote

Yeah, id's games have went through numerous takes and changes throughout the years, and while sure music was an integral part of the experience, change is not the end of the world. We've had Bobby, we've had Aubrey, Trent, Sonic Mayhem, Mick, and now we have Hulshut & co., we'll survive this change and more.

@seed (sorry, I didn’t want to end up double-posting)

Well, here’s the thing; Mick is pretty much the only confirmed case where id and a musical composer split on less-than-amiable differences. Not helping is that there’s the matter of the singleplayer DLCs and the fact that we still have yet to see a truly official release of the soundtrack even to this day.

The relationships with Bobby, Audrey, and Sonic Mayhem ran their courses especially considering how Audrey only really did music for a Doom title that wasn’t even developed by id (as well as a Doom port) and Sonic Mayhem didn’t even compose for a Doom title. As for Trent, he was going through some unrelated issues at the time of Doom 3’s development meaning that he couldn’t do the soundtrack for Doom 3 even if he wanted to (despite claims that they also split due to less-than-amiable differences).

Edited August 31, 2020 by Man of Doom

[Eurisko]

Andrew has my 100% support. Just read his back catalogue and no doubt he gets the genre and what the fans will be looking for. 

Good luck to him.

[TakenStew22]

Can't believe I missed this thread. Is Mick gonna really be gone for good?

[Faceman2000]

On 8/31/2020 at 10:33 AM, TakenStew22 said:

Can't believe I missed this thread. Is Mick gonna really be gone for good?

Indeed my good sir, Mick is Gor-Done with Doom it seems.

[whatup876]

The thing about Hulshult is if id is ever going to do something about the fact he was known for fan remasters of classic Doom music.

Like, either for some classic Doom related project or if Doom ever gets represented in something like a crossover.

[Eurisko]

 

15 hours ago, whatup876 said:

The thing about Hulshult is if id is ever going to do something about the fact he was known for fan remasters of classic Doom music. 

Like, either for some classic Doom related project or if Doom ever gets represented in something like a crossover.

 

 

I would say that is what has got him this gig but I see what you're saying. No doubt then that he would be the man if id ever decides to do some sort of official new classic content themselves.

[ZeroTheEro]

17 hours ago, Faceman2000 said:

Indeed my good sir, Mick is Gor-Done with Doom it seems.

It's mean but I have to admit it's hilarious.

[Gez]

1 hour ago, Eurisko said:

I would say that is what has got him this gig

Not necessarily, since he worked on Quake Champions' soundtrack.

 

Also there's the David Levy factor. I hadn't heard about him before, and he's got a very generic name (there are thousands of people named David Levy out there), but I guess he's this guy?

https://www.youtube.com/user/davidlevymusic

 

[Eurisko]

48 minutes ago, Gez said:

Not necessarily, since he worked on Quake Champions' soundtrack

 

That's a good point.

 

 

[ZeroTheEro]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

Not necessarily, since he worked on Quake Champions' soundtrack.

 

One of his track is also included in Doom Eternal as a collectible too

So it's kinda perfect.

 

[BoxY]

As much as I'm dreading the almost inevitable wave of haters saying that the new soundtrack either sounds too much like off-brand Mick and therefore is sux, or that it doesn't sound enough like Mick's work and therefore is sux (probably both), I'm really happy for Andrew getting this major gig despite the unpleasant circumstances and I'm sure he'll produce something extremely awesome.

[Man of Doom]

On 8/28/2020 at 12:17 PM, seed said:

I'm sorry but this is a bit too dismissive of the fact that people simply have preferences.

 

That some may be using such a dismissive attitude just to shove this off as if nothing happened at all is a bit ignorant, sure, I agree with that, but some people genuinely feel that way. I've personally felt that way ever since 2016 came out and it hasn't changed since, Mick's style just isn't my cup of coffee.

Even though I wasn’t exactly in the best of moods at the time of that post, I completely understand what you’re saying.

I get that Mick’s work is not for everyone, and I do recall that you were wishing for something more in line with Aubrey Hodges’s work (that is, something more ambient). But as you said, that hasn’t been quite the direction the Doom franchise is currently going.

 

I was referring specifically to those who were posting things like “I’m glad Mick is gone” and “They should have brought on Andrew from the start of 2016’s development instead”; basically those who were shit-talking Mick the person, not just his body of work. It’s mainly been relegated to r/Doom but I have seen things like that here as well.

 

On 8/31/2020 at 12:04 AM, AtimZarr1 said:

I don't follow. How does arsenal choice relate to the "brand" aspect? In any case, 7 of 10 of those weapon types were established in Doom II.

 

Barring how Doom II was well before they truly established the “id Arsenal” as a standard especially in the 7 out of 10 weapon types, that was meant purely as an example as well as a framing device of how id had been becoming a brand.

 

On 8/31/2020 at 12:04 AM, AtimZarr1 said:

According to id Software at the Gamescom panel, Andrew and David were told to make their own style of music and not copy Mick.

Oh, I did miss that somehow. Yeah, that one’s definitely on me.

 

On 8/31/2020 at 12:04 AM, AtimZarr1 said:

Why do you presume that there won't be a "soul of the creator" in the making of the new soundtrack?

This is actually a concern that quite a few people share, not just me. The thing here is that once the final soundtrack for the DLC comes out, people will inevitably compare Andrew to Mick.

 

And to be completely honest, it’s not just that Andrew’s take will be compared to Mick’s take. It’s that Mick’s take has become so influential that tracks like “BFG Division” and “Meathook” have become outright memes, and I’m legitimately afraid that people won’t take to Andrew’s take as warmly.

 

As for the “soul of the creator” thing in particular, it ties back to how influential Mick’s work is on 2016/Eternal purely from an objective standpoint. For 2016, he was asked to create music that sounded unlike anything anyone’s ever heard before, and he did exactly that. For Eternal, he simply just expanded on 2016, experimenting with things like the Heavy Metal Choir, creating an unmistakable identity for nuDoom.

 

And none of this is me talking, this is the internet in general talking, to the point where BFG Division has its own KnowYourMeme page and is used in countless AMVs/trailers/various compilations, and where various bits of Eternal’s soundtrack is even used in non-Doom memes like this:

I mean, yeah, @BoxY pretty much summed it all up perfectly.
 

On 8/31/2020 at 12:04 AM, AtimZarr1 said:

(1) What does Mick Gordon have to do with the length of the DLC?

 

(2) It's a DLC, those are most commonly shorter than the base game.

I never said that Mick had anything to do with the DLC’s length, just that there wouldn’t be as much composing work involved if the DLC turned out to be shorter than expected.

 

And speaking of the DLC, it honestly feels unfair to call it that as not only has it been confirmed to be playable standalone, The Ancient Gods: Part One would be more in line with an expansion pack akin to Resurrection of Evil than say, a map pack with a few weapon skins here and there.

[whatup876]

3 hours ago, Gez said:

Not necessarily, since he worked on Quake Champions' soundtrack.

 

True but i believe a lot more people know about him through fan Doom music remasters than QC, at least depending on how QC is performing.

[Gez]

Technically Hulshult started with remasters of Duke Nukem 3D's soundtrack that he volunteered for Interceptor's canceled remake project. Interceptor (now known as Slipgate Ironworks) instead hired him to work on the Rise of the Triad remake, and that was his first professional project. Then he worked on the remastered soundtracks in 3D Realms Anthology. Then he worked on Bombshell (the top-down game to which Ion Fury serves as a prequel, and which bombed), and he made the IDKFA remastered Doom music as a fanwork. After that he was hired to work on nearly every single retro shooter out there (Dusk, Amid Evil, Wrath, Prodeus, Nightmare Reaper), and Id hired him to work on Quake Champions alongside Chris Vrenna.

[Taurus Daggerknight]

Was listening to some of his stuff again earlier today. In general, I'm pretty psyched. Gordon was good, but here's the thing; there are a lot of Doom 2016/ Eternal tracks I like just listening to, but there's also stuff that's just.... there. The earlier accusation about Hulshult's stuff being insane "Chugga chugga chugga" is also a bit misplaced, as there are tons of Doom 2016/ Eternal tracks that can be accused of much the same (more so of the former than the latter). 

 

I expect the stuff coming will certainly have callbacks to Micks' tunes. After all, much of Eternal and 2016 has callbacks to the classic Doom, Doom 3 and Doom 64, so going forward will likely continue that trend. 

 

In any case, the IDKFA album, Quake Champions stuff and Dusk all indicate that we're in for a treat. 

 

The one thing that does surprise me a tad; no Sonic Mayhem. Surprised because I was almost certain that their appearance alongside Gordon during a performance some years back meant that something was coming. 

 

[D4NUK1]

Reading about how this expansion may have more story focus, they will need more ambient style of music for that kinda of exposition. And im pretty sure Andrew got this covered too. You can imaginate a un-natural space with this song.
 

 

[TheRedTide]

8 hours ago, Gez said:

Technically Hulshult started with remasters of Duke Nukem 3D's soundtrack that he volunteered for Interceptor's canceled remake project. Interceptor (now known as Slipgate Ironworks) instead hired him to work on the Rise of the Triad remake, and that was his first professional project. Then he worked on the remastered soundtracks in 3D Realms Anthology. Then he worked on Bombshell (the top-down game to which Ion Fury serves as a prequel, and which bombed), and he made the IDKFA remastered Doom music as a fanwork. After that he was hired to work on nearly every single retro shooter out there (Dusk, Amid Evil, Wrath, Prodeus, Nightmare Reaper), and Id hired him to work on Quake Champions alongside Chris Vrenna.

I don't know where he finds time to work on so many things. The dude probably subsists on caffeine pills and bang, 24hrs, all week. Every few months he just crashes into a coma for a weeks and then he repeats the creative process.

[Man of Doom]

So I went through Mick’s quarantine stream in its entirety (I’ve previously only seen snippets of it), and… hoo boy, I have some observations.

 

1. This pretty much can be heard throughout the entire video, but Mick obviously sounds extremely passionate about his work on Doom Eternal, and not once does he sound like he’s full of himself or anything like that (if anything, he actually sounds quite humble).

I bring this up because it seems to put his post-launch social media comments in a new light, namely because they sound less like someone throwing a fit over lack of freedom and more like someone who got lowballed at the last minute.

(And yes, I know that Marty’s open letter is kind of the closest thing we have to the truth, but it’s always felt very damage control-ey and PR-esque, like there’s something else behind the scenes that all parties failed to mention. Case in point, why would id only contract Mick for just 12 tracks?)

 

2. At the very beginning of the stream, Mick mentions that during that time of the stream itself, he was actually in the process of moving all his equipment to a larger studio setting, which may explain why he repeatedly kept asking for deadline extensions; he couldn’t really work as fast without his entire suite of equipment and that’s why him mastering the tracks took much longer than normal.

 

3. This screencap taken from the stream itself is very telling of a whole new development (and I’ll leave a spoiler below for those who might not be as eagle-eyed):

 

 

Spoiler

For those of you who didn’t quite catch it:

Not only does Mick browse Doomworld (seemingly every now and then), he’s also a member here as told by the “New Post” heading.

 

And yes, I’m absolutely more than certain that he saw this entire thread.

 

At this point, it’s pretty much a matter of who Mick is on these very forums.

 

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

3 minutes ago, Man of Doom said:

So I went through Mick’s quarantine stream in its entirety (I’ve previously only seen snippets of it), and… hoo boy, I have some observations.

 

1. This pretty much can be heard throughout the entire video, but Mick obviously sounds extremely passionate about his work on Doom Eternal, and not once does he sound like he’s full of himself or anything like that (if anything, he actually sounds quite humble).

I bring this up because it seems to put his post-launch social media comments in a new light, namely because they sound less like someone throwing a fit over lack of freedom and more like someone who got lowballed at the last minute.

(And yes, I know that Marty’s open letter is kind of the closest thing we have to the truth, but it’s always felt very damage control-ey and PR-esque, like there’s something else behind the scenes that all parties failed to mention. Case in point, why would id only contract Mick for just 12 tracks?)

 

2. At the very beginning of the stream, Mick mentions that during that time of the stream itself, he was actually in the process of moving all his equipment to a larger studio setting, which may explain why he repeatedly kept asking for deadline extensions; he couldn’t really work as fast without his entire suite of equipment and that’s why him mastering the tracks took much longer than normal.

 

3. This screencap taken from the stream itself is very telling of a whole new development (and I’ll leave a spoiler below for those who might not be as eagle-eyed):

 

 

  Hide contents

For those of you who didn’t quite catch it:

Not only does Mick browse Doomworld (seemingly every now and then), he’s also a member here as told by the “New Post” heading.

 

And yes, I’m absolutely more than certain that he saw this entire thread.

 

Everybody say Hi Mick 👋

[Terrcraft]

Hi Mick 👋

Figuring who he is on this fourm in a nutshell

 

[taufan99]

Hi Mick! 👋

[D4NUK1]

Hello Mick! We are very greateful of your Work 👋

Hope success goes with you on future projects!

[Hunting4r2d2]

Hello Mick! Thank you for your incredible work on the Doom 2016 and Eternal soundtrack. Hope the future has a bright path for you.

[TakenStew22]

Hi Mick.

 

Very sad you're leaving. I don't know how anyone can replace your soundtrack.

[TheRedTide]

Henlo Mick.

[MrYellowDude]

We'll miss ya mick

[Biodegradable]

We love your work, Mick! Thank you for making Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal's scores unbelievably awesome!  

[Man of Doom]

So I kind of want to expand on a point I made in that boomer shooter thread before it went off the rails:

Namely on how Mick Gordon was essentially screwed out of scoring what would become The Ancient Gods due to overzealous fans destroying his relationship with id Software, potentially beyond repair.

And before you start with your points on how “Mick is an unprofessional bellend that deserved to be sacked”, hear me out.

 

So remember that time that id/Bethesda employees were getting harassed online after the news initially broke out, only for those same fans to turn on Mick once Marty’s letter came out?

 

Well, it kind of goes a little further than that. Namely, that:

• people were imbuing meaning into Mick’s words that might’ve not even been there in the first place; not helping is that Mick himself tends to be as deliberately vague on social media as possible (don’t ask me why, he’s always been like that). For all we know, Mick’s comments might’ve not been necessarily out of disdain for id.
• there was the whole id/Bethesda employees getting harassed on social media to the point where Chad Mossholder was getting death threats (even though Mick didn’t even ask people to go after them, though he didn’t outright tell people to stop either). Though him deleting his comments soon after all of this after might possibly indicate he never intended for all of this to happen in the first place (though I could be completely wrong).
• there was the whole “Bethesda as the whipping boy” thing where people placed all the blame on Bethesda even when it turned out to not be the case, to the point where Doom fans were actually clamoring for id to transfer ownership to EA or Ubisoft (yes, seriously).

 

That’s not to say that these overzealous fans are the primary cause of Mick’s exit from the Doom franchise; if anything, they’re more like the final nail in the coffin.

Either way, this was a situation that absolutely got way out of hand.

 

And I count myself among those those who stoked the fires of this OST mess.

 

I’ve long since apologized to Mick, and I’ve been doing quite a bit of self-reflection since. And I should apologize to the guys at id as well.

Obviously, I wasn’t one of those people who harassed Chad or demanded that Bethesda answer for whatever happened, but I still feel responsible for getting people all riled up.

 

And for all of this, I am deeply sorry.

 

 

On a semi-related note, I actually had a dream last night where someone posted a Youtube comment on a Doom Eternal-related vídeo asking about Eternal’s OST on iTunes/Spotify, and Mick actually responded saying that they’re still hard at work on getting the OST out the door on those platforms. Obviously, this led me to assume that this was the fabled “Mick cut” of the soundtrack.

 

And said dream turned out to be particularly relevant as it seems like the copyright trolls are out in force again as I’ve already heard reports of the OST on Youtube getting taken down.

[NoXion]

I would have thought that it would be relatively common knowledge by now that any time there is a controversy concerning anything even slightly popular, it is a statistical inevitability that at least a handful of absolute lunatics will use it as an excuse to start sending off death threats (we really need to increase the penalties for that kind of wretched behaviour, in my opinion). This is especially easy in an age in which almost anyone with some kind of public presence has a social media profile.

 

It seems to me that something kind of like this has happened in many different fandoms in the new century. That and copyright trolling appear to be among the 21st century diseases of modern popular entertainment.