The Original Soundtrack of Doom Enters the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress
The National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress was established with the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000: twenty-five titles a year, selected from recordings deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" to the American sound heritage, with a minimum requirement of a decade since publication. Since its inception, the registry has predominantly included music and radio broadcasts from the traditional American canon. Starting in 2023, with the inclusion of the theme from Super Mario Bros. composed by Koji Kondo, video game music has begun to find a place in what is effectively a state archive.
The Class of 2026 and the Doom Soundtrack
On May 14, 2026, Acting Librarian of Congress Robert R. Newlen announced twenty-five new entries, bringing the total number of recordings to 700. The class of 2026 spans seventy years of production: from Spike Jones's novelty swing in 1944 to Taylor Swift's synthetic pop in "1989." Among the new entries are Beyoncé with "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)," the Blue Album by Weezer, "Midnight Train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight and the Pips, the original Broadway cast of Chicago, and the radio broadcast of the 1971 Ali-Frazier match. We have before us a selection built upon documented cultural relevance.
Within this list, one title stands out for its production context: the original soundtrack of Doom from 1993, composed by Bobby Prince. This is an entirely unique work created before the game levels were completed, with no possibility of calibrating the compositions based on the actual gameplay experience. Prince, a freelance composer with a parallel legal career, received a selection of CDs as stylistic references from John Romero, lead designer of id Software: Alice in Chains, Pantera, Metallica. The result was a metal score that also incorporates elements of techno and ambient, building a soundscape far more intricate than the game’s sole "heavy" reputation.
MIDI, Frequencies, and Prince's Technical Solution
It's worth noting that the main technical challenge at the time was engineering. The audio drivers of 1993 imposed strict constraints on the quality and concurrent management of music and sound effects. Prince, who had been exploring MIDI technology since the mid-1980s, solved the problem by assigning sound effects to distinct MIDI frequencies from those reserved for music. In this way, the two audio components could coexist without overlapping confusingly, a non-trivial requirement for a game where sound cues were integral to the gaming experience. The Library of Congress explicitly highlights this solution as a commendable technical achievement in its announcement.
There is also a further peculiarity in Prince's biography: the Doom soundtrack was composed by a musician who had yet to establish a consolidated genre reference to draw upon. Music for video games in 1993 lacked a shared "grammar" or comparable precedents; Prince essentially operated without a tradition to respond to, effectively becoming a pioneer who would influence subsequent generations of composers dedicated to the world of video games.
We previously mentioned the theme from Super Mario Bros. composed by Koji Kondo, which was selected in 2023. Minecraft’s Volume Alpha, by Daniel Rosenfeld, followed in 2025. The Doom soundtrack is the third consecutive "video game entry" into the National Recording Registry, a circumstance that the Library of Congress itself notes in the official announcement as a deliberate choice that testifies to the broadening scope of what is considered national sound heritage.