If there’s one thing I respect in this fallen world anymore, it’s commitment to a bit. Jim’s Music Dungeon on YouTube is Knee Deep in the Bit, having taken hundreds of classic metal songs and made them sound like Doom level music—and he isn’t slowing down.
His Doom midi cover of Schism by Tool definitely has my favorite image gag of the lot, with a godmode Doomguy superimposed over Lateralus’ signature psychedelic cover art of a skinless muscle dude just chilling out. Also, the long runtime and repeated prog riffs make this one feel particularly well-suited for in-game use.
The tasty irony of it all is that Doom’s own iconic soundtrack was, itself, basically just classic metal music remixed in the Doom soundfont. Some of them sample from a number of sources, but others are basically just 1:1 midi recreations. Take the track “Sign of Evil,” for example, which is pretty much “Starless” by King Crimson. No shade to Doom composer Robert Prince, it was sick as hell. The ’90s could be so beautiful.
Back to Jim “Aku” Brimstone and his Music Dungeon: his first Doom soundfont experiment appears to have been a cover of Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” in 2023. It was cleverly titled “Doomguy in the Way,” though Jim appears to have abandoned such puns in the titles for discovery’s sake, leaving that work to frequent cover artist collaborator Reddo.
Jim’s made so many of these, it’s hard to pick favorites. I love his recent Master of Puppets treatment, which sounds extremely similar to At Doom’s Gate—the song is listed as a likely sample source used by Robert Prince on the Doom Wiki. As a big fan of Iron Maiden, I gotta shout out Jim’s covers of the band, including the self-titled “Iron Maiden.”
If you dig what Jim’s got going on, you can subscribe to keep up on YouTube and also check out his other music on Bandcamp or Patreon.
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