How To Decide Which Black/Doom Metal Album To Blare Over Your Speakers So You Can Ignore Your Players!

One of my players asked me how I choose what background music I play during my campaigns. I thought I could give her a more accurate/honest answer as well as assist other Referees by writing this post. I look at the background music of my campaign as the "score" of my sessions. I'll get into my advice on how to pick out good background music for your campaign below, but I want to explain some concepts first.

In regards to effectively scoring my campaigns, I have been fortunate in two unique ways Referees with the same amount of experience may not have been. First, around my sophomore year of high school I began to try to gain a better taste or appreciation in music. I began to expand my horizons in not only what I listened to, but also tried to listen to the "best" music. I don't currently ingest as much music as I did and I think I only spend maybe 3 hours a week attempting to find new music. I feel that because of this I am simply aware of more music to draw upon than other Referees. Second, I have been exposed to much media which had excellent usage of sound atmosphere. I don't know if I simply chanced upon noticing these things because they all had great usage of sound atmosphere, or if  my diet of music predisposed me to noticing the usage of sound elsewhere.

Like other aspects which go into creating an atmospheric setting such as negative/positive space usage, visual aesthetics, and tempo; a good sound atmosphere can make one's partaking in media much more overwhelming. I use the term overwhelming in an emotional sense, not a sensory one. I'm not referring to music being blared over loud speakers, instead I'm referring to the emotional intensity which results from the summation of a media's individual components.

Examples of good sound atmosphere off the top of my head below:

Donkey Kong Country

Heroes of Might and Magic 4

Sunless Sea

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Sound Effects and Backing Track

Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift Sound Reinforcing Visuals

28 Days Later  Climactic Build Up

Soundscapes

If one were to ask me to describe what kind of music I enjoy the most, I would probably list off a few of my favorite genres. Last time this happened I was asked why those specifically, and I got to thinking about how they relate to one another. The majority of my favorite albums fall into one of the following genres: Black Metal, Stoner Doom Metal, Cloud Rap, Witch-house, and Emotive Hardcore. On first glance, one may simply surmise I have garbage taste. Honestly though, each of those genres are dominated by soundscapes. I use the term to mean the increasingly atmospheric composition created as the album/song is played. perhaps the following song may help explain.

Link

Each element of the song builds and coalesces into an overwhelming experience. Now the song itself could not serve as background music. Instead, I would say to think of the song as two separate components. First are the recited lyrics and the second is the background instrumental. The lyrics themselves evoke a certain theme and the background instrumental reinforces that same theme. I would say that each component on its own could evoke the theme, but the combination of them is what makes it so atmospheric. Each component can then be divided into components. The recited lyrics can be looked at in terms of what is said as well as how it is said. The instrumental component can be looked at in terms of the repeated motifs and chants, specific tonalities and slow somber tempo.

Selecting Background Music

There is a fine line between distracting and supporting background music. To quote the musician Brian Eno "it must be as ignorable as it is interesting." The purpose of the background music is to thematically support the tone of the campaign, not be fun to listen to. Think of the campaign as the recited lyrics and the music as the instrumental component.

Side-note: Please don't use any music which has lyrics. Lyrics are too engaging and the players will try to figure out what they are saying. That kind of music distracts from the actual playing.

A great way to get music for your campaign is to steal Original Soundtracks from other media. Those are designed to facilitate a specific theme and you will also get a sense of what it should sound like. Friendly reminder, creativity is a false god!

For the majority of my dungeon background music, I either choose Dungeon-Synth, Post Metal, or Doom Metal Albums. Here are the ones I currently have in rotation for when the party delves: Pig Destroyer - Mass & Volume, Bongripper - Satan Worhsiping Doom, Bongripper - Miserable, HUNTER GATHERER - Regathered, Ufomammut - Idolum, Sans Soleil - A Holy Land Beneath a Godless Sky, Asva - A Game In Hell Hard Work In Heaven, Asva - A Trap For Judges,Sunn O))) - Black Wedding, Lord Wolf - Darklands of Hate, Dolch - Yggdrasil, Depressive Silence - 1996 Demo, Leviathan - A Silhouette in Splinters, Locrain - Extinction, and Locrain - Drenched Lands.

For the majority of my overland travel background music, I go either with folk or ambient albums. Here are the ones I currently have in rotation for when the party travels: Bone Tomahawk Film OST, Book of Eli OST, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. OST, Nebelung - Palingenesis, Black Hill and heklAa - Rivers & Shores, Forndom - Flykt,  Forndom - Dauðra Dura, Wardruna - Yggdrasil, Wardruna - Ragnarok, and Wardruna - Gap var Ginnunga.

For the majority of my battle music, I go with either the songs a film's OST uses for a fight scene, or a four string cover of either video game or thrash metal. For important NPC's and the occasional monster I use leitmotifs. These are often instrumental tracks of a song that remind me of a character. I use sounds of wind, rain, and the ocean to reinforce the locations characters are at. Lastly, I use instrumental covers of songs on harp or actual medieval music for when the party goes carousing.