Rip & Tear: Deconstructing the Technological and Musical Composition of Mick Gordon's Score for DOOM (2016)
The earliest mainstream examples of the first-person shooter game can be traced to the early to mid 1990s, during which one company above most others cultivated a genre that continues to dominant the global video games market. id Software was founded by John Carmack and John Romero, and of all their video games it is perhaps the 1993 DOOM that has been most influential and celebrated. Advancements in technological game development and creativity afforded DOOM exhilarating gameplay, killing monstrous enemies, spurred on by a synthesized, metal-infused soundtrack by Bobby Prince. The 2016 reboot of the serious, similarly titled DOOM, had one of the strongest legacies to live up to in the gaming world. To both respect the series’ lineage and give this new game a distinguishing identity, composer Mick Gordon developed unique technical and musical processes based on a philosophy of energy passing through objects, and so doing, corrupt them.