Recently, the National Recording Registry of the US Library of Congress announced the inclusion of the soundtrack from the legendary shooter DOOM in its list. This is the third time a video game OST has been added to this list; previously, music from Minecraft and Super Mario Bros. was included.
The soundtrack for DOOM (1993) was created by Bobby Prince:
While working on DOOM, Prince drew inspiration from a stack of CDs borrowed from lead game designer John Romero, including iconic albums by Alice in Chains, Pantera, and Metallica. Despite the limitations of 1993-era sound drivers, Prince created the perfect musical accompaniment with “ripping riffs” for a demon-slaying journey—to hell and back. Using his knowledge of MIDI, he even made sure that sound effects “cut through” the music by assigning them different MIDI frequencies. The DOOM soundtrack subsequently inspired countless remixes and laid the groundwork for future generations of video game composers.
In addition to the music from DOOM, many other compositions were also included in the National Registry in 2026. For example, 1940s-1950s singles — “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” (Paul Anka), “In Other Words (Fly Me to the Moon)” (Kaye Ballard), and “Mambo No. 5” (Pérez Prado). The full list is available at the following link.