Ah Death Battle, it's been one of the biggest names in VS Debating for quite awhile and has really stepped up its production over the years, to the point that now every single episode of the show comes with its own piece of original fight music! So basically I thought it’d be fun to give my thoughts on their various Albums so to speak. I do have a background in music, I play the Piano and Harmonica, and have been in numerous Choir and Acapella groups from High School, to College and beyond. I wouldn’t call myself an expert level professor of music history or something like that, but I am quite immersed with the art form, and have spent a good deal of time crafting soundtracks for my various analysis blogs and used to help out Death Battle Wiki by searching for and finding pieces of music Death Battle used for their transcripts back before DB swapped to using Royalty Free, and that’s somewhat because I really liked how Death Battle used music to help them present characters more dynamically, and it inspired me to do the same! So anyway, Death Battle didn’t really start making original battle music a regular thing until late Season 4. A modern Death Battle Season has anywhere from 16-20 original tracks, and if you total together all the Original music in the first 4 seasons, you get 18 songs, which is just exactly enough for me to treat it all as one big season for this ranking! And before we start, I would like to say that there are no BAD Death Battle Tracks. Even the ones I put in last place are still enjoyable, also I did find interesting just how different my enjoyment of the tracks can differ from my enjoyment of the episode it spawned from. There are episodes of DB I don’t like that had some great music, there have also been eps of DB I Loved that only had average tunes. But anyway, without further ado, here's my ranking for the Season 1-4 DB Tracks!
18. Blood On Broken Glass:
Season 3 of Death Battle was a bit weird with music, they didn’t use original tracks that often, yet when it did, instead of using them on big deal fights they used them on fights that were forgettable at best and Terrible at worst. Case in point, Blood on Broken Glass is a battle theme made for Bowser VS Ganon, used in the beginning portion of the battle. The theme creates a heavy sense of atmosphere with booming loud beats and a bellowing echo-like effect in the background that sounds like a banshee and sounds like a big intimidating final boss is making an entrance, which I like! Beyond that though, this song is pretty much a basic electric guitar piece of fight music without too much standing out about it. Something I find very apparent in this theme is that it doesn't sound at all like music you’d hear in a Mario or Zelda game and has very little to do with Bowser or Ganon as a result beyond just sounding intimidating. Come on, where’s the creepy castle music or mysterious fantasy instruments? I’m not even sure why it’s called Blood on Broken Glass, as that too doesn’t seem to have anything to do with them either. Beyond the lack of connection the song is pretty repetitive without too many interesting parts making it comparatively lacking.
17. I Am All Of Mewtwo:
Another Season 3 song, I Am All of Mewtwo is the main battle music from Mewtwo VS Shadow, as well as a Mashup of the song I Am All I Am, Shadow’s theme from his spinoff game, and the main Pokémon battle music. Now I respect the ambition of Yates trying to create a mashup between an instrumental 8-bit song and a Rock/Metal song; those two styles of music do Not sound similar and would be super hard to blend well. But with that said, I don’t think he was entirely successful at pulling this off. The 8-Bit Pokémon tones are simply too overpowering here, and the Pokémon battle music’s melody really isn’t altered all that much. While the melody from I Am All I Am is still there, it’s significantly more underplayed and gets less focus overall. Most of the time this song sounds just like listening to the Pokémon Battle Theme, but also playing some drums in the background. The theme is also pretty underwhelming too, this is a battle of overpowered, anti-hero science experiments that are messing with time and attacking people's minds, and yet it basically has a slightly fancier version of a theme that would play for a Magikarp fighting a Ratata. I feel like if they went with more of a techno sci-fi kind of rock song it would have worked better.
16. You Have Failed This City:
The Battle Music of Green Arrow VS Hawkeye…kinda, sorta, not really. Yeah You Have Failed This City is battle music that was made by Brandon Yates for that fight, but it only ended up being used at like the very end of the animation when they moved into close combat, and even then it was an instrumental version. Now was that the right call? If I’m honest it probably was, see back when this episode came out I was still working on Death Battle Wiki tracking down the music DB used in all their episodes and I really loved the music Brandon Yates made for the fights, but even back then I distinctly remember knowing immediately this wasn’t on the same level as the earlier tracks. This song has a very powerful Metal sound with extremely shrill and throaty singing that honestly isn’t very pleasant to listen to and kinda makes my throat hurt just thinking about it. I wouldn’t say this is a Bad song, but I do think it’s not very fitting for Green Arrow and Hawkeye, who are generally more light hearted characters that crack one liners and smooth talk ladies and stuff, especially when compared to the music DB used for the earlier parts of the fight. The Lyrics of this song also don’t feel very connected to these characters at all either, they feel like if you replaced them with nearly any street tier heroes like Punisher or something it would fit just as well or better. Literally phrases “So Let a Rip” or “Trying to Shoot You Down” are the closest things to an archery reference we get in the whole song, and the Lyrics are pretty repetitive otherwise too. I still listen to it from time to time but It wouldn’t be one of my favorites.
15. Goku VS Superman Theme:
Besides the original theme song, the Goku VS Superman Theme was the first original theme Death Battle ever made, and did so in order to commemorate their first ever season Finale, Goku VS Superman, using this theme in both the opening credits sequence, and in the ending analysis. The theme has a high amount of reverence to it, it's slow paced and features orchestral instruments and a chorus that makes it sound epic and even mythic in scope which was certainly fitting for a fight that was hyped up as much as this one was. It samples rhythms from All Star Superman and the original Dragon Ball Anime as well which I think goes a long way towards blending the two franchises. That said, the song is a fair bit repetitive, seeming to basically start itself over after 40 seconds, and while I do like the epic tone, the slow and reserved pace of the song does make it rather hard to get pumped and excited for what is supposed to be a big event, which is why I didn’t put it higher.
14. Goku VS Superman 2 Theme:
This song was made to be used for the main opening credits sequence of Goku VS Superman 2, as a call back to the original Goku VS Superman episode which did a similar thing. It’s honestly really hard to talk about this theme without comparing it to the original Goku VS Superman Theme as this version is almost the exact same thing, except it is much faster paced, having a higher rhythm speed. As a matter of fact that’s pretty on the nose as this theme is actually a good 20 seconds shorter than the original, and has a similar problem the original had in that it is repetitive. Now that said, this song is still good, as the original song was good, and there are a couple things I think this song legitimately does better than the original. First off the beginning of this song is way better, it has a nice and fancy sounding lead in to build up to the main part that's very pleasant on the ears. And Secondly, the faster pace of the song makes it way easier to actually get excited about the fight, I actually think it's easier to listen to this song than the original as a result, it actually makes you feel like you’re flying if you listen to it with the right mindset, but that also makes me think its learning more towards trying to be a Superman song than a Goku one. Ultimately though, I’d pick this song over the original in most circumstances.
13. Slingshot:
Slingshot is the main battle music used for the fight scene in Carolina VS The Meta, season 3’s self-contained red vs blue fight. The funny thing here is because of the Gimmick of that Death Battle episode simultaneously being an RVB episode, this was actually released on the RVB season 14 Soundtrack as one of the series’ official songs, so technically it isn’t possible for Death Battle a theme to be MORE connected to the characters fighting, so imma focus on the song in a vacuum for this analysis. Slingshot to me is an interesting song, it’s rather somber, having a high energy melody and rhythm to it to convey action, but it never lets the music get really loud or exciting, keeping itself reserved and more cold and serious. I suppose this is to help invoke the feelings of regret this song seems to have, as while the lyrics are very confident of victory, they also focus a lot on those they have killed in the past. These combine to essentially lay out that these two characters wound up being killing machines due to project Freelancer and feel it is a tragedy. I do like them trying to tell a story about their feelings with this track, and it does work for the fight, the choir in particular at 1:56 is a great touch. However this song being soldier-like in discipline, repetitive in its lyrics and overall somber, really speaks to it just not having any fun. It’s a bit weird to me that this is a RVB track because the music used in RVB’s fight scenes always are having Lots of fun, and this song ends up being somewhat of a dull black sheep in comparison. Not a bad song, definitely has its merits and did good to try something different, but it may have been a missed opportunity.
12. Beyond 2099:
Wow that is easily the laziest song title on this entire list, I mean taking the unique parts of their names and just putting them together? come on. So Beyond 2099 is the battle music from Batman Beyond VS Spider-Man 2099 if you couldn’t guess, made by Therewolf Media. So for the longest time I don’t think I gave this theme a fair chance, in fact I thought this might be in last place when I decided to do this, though I think that maybe I was just projecting onto this theme because I didn’t like the episode it’s associated with because listening to it now it’s a LOT better than I remembered it being. This song does start off rather slow but picks up very quickly and has a cool Cyber-Techno style to it that does give it some neat super vibes reminiscent of the Batman Beyond cartoon. I particularly love the part of this song that starts around 1:09, that killer beat that makes me want to dance, it’s just really fun and full of energy which was a pleasant surprise to revisit. That said, while it certainly isn't the generic fight music I wrote it off as, It’s still a far cry from the most memorable track, most of the song is relatively simplistic and somewhat slow paced for an aerial fight between two high tech superheroes from the future. That said, I do have somewhat of a soft spot for it nowadays and how it reminds me of all those 90s action cartoons I used to watch.
11. Olympus Mons:
Yup, there was not one but TWO different original tracks made for and used in Bowser VS Ganon, even made by the same dude, Brandon Yates, it’s crazy! Anyway upon listening to both tracks I was surprised to find that Olympus Mons is clearly a significantly better song. It does still have kind of a random name without much to do with the characters, but even back when I first saw this fight I remember this theme sticking out to me as notable and good. First and foremost, this song SOUNDS like it is a Theme from Mario or Zelda! With its haunting pipe organ and underlying rock music it invokes feelings of struggle, intensity and mysticism and would work great as an epic Boss theme in both the mythic land of Hyrule, or in the magically awesome Mushroom Kingdom. This song also has a lot of diversity with its melody, never being too repetitive. It also has a weird thing though where one part of it sounds ripped directly from a famous Pokémon song, and I’m not a huge Pokémon fan either so for me to recognize it is pretty telling. I don’t know that song's name but go to like 1:39 or 2:02 for an example to see if you can figure it out. Anyway, it is pretty clear to me why they used Olympus Mons for the entire 2nd half of the fight while BoBG was used for a much shorter time in the beginning.
10. Invader:
So here we go, Invader is the Original Death Battle Main Theme, used in the Intro and credits of every single episode in the first 3 seasons, and it has become synonymous with the series. I always loved when Ris Grestar used to edit this song to play when he was trying to predict who was gonna win the fights after watching the analysis’. Obviously this is a Theme I’ve got nostalgia form but what’s it got going from an objective sense. So I think it fits the tone of Death Battle very well, Particularly early Death Battle where they were trying extra hard to be all Running Man style making people fight to the Death, as opposed to now where they are more into the actual debate and numbers and showing a character's full story. This theme has a intense, hardcore Rock/Metal sound to it, but it still remains quite catchy and reserved while doing so, you can very easily hum along to it. Honestly this sounds like the music used for one of the shows that inspired Death Battle, Deadliest Warrior, mixed with the Music from the videogame series Doom, which is pretty cool considering DB is a Deadliest Warrior like show spawned from Screwattack, a classic Videogame site. I think this theme does an adequate job fitting the whole badass gladiator fight club atmosphere they crafted, while remembering that DB is still a fun show that you can joke around in by not going to dark. I also appreciate how the song has several stages where it changes up the rhythm to make it a more dynamic piece, my favorite part of the song happening around 35 seconds in, and then later that same part of the song is brought back at the end to close it out strong.
9. Wiz and Boomstick:
After season 3 of Death Battle, Screwattack officially merged with and became a part of Rooster Teeth, leading Death Battle to rebrand itself to reflect the shift in ownership, changing both the shows Ascetic, and retiring the original Invader theme in favor of their new main theme, The Wiz and Boomstick theme, which has been used in the intro and credits of every Death Battle from the beginning of Season 4, to now. Ironically due to how massive seasons 1 and 2 are compared to a modern season of Death Battle, Invader has been used in 71 DB episodes, while currently Wiz and Boomstick is only barely ahead at 86. Anyway, initially I was so planning to call this track a cheap remix of Invader and rank the original song higher, but as I gave it it’s fair chance…. yeah it changed my mind. This track does take a lot of inspiration from the original Invader theme, but it is much more of an homage than a replication, basically no part of the song is exactly like a part of Invader. Its Death Battle paying respect to its roots while still moving forward to bigger and better things, a familiar but ultimately new Death Battle. I said Invader did a great job representing early Death Battle, well the same is true here for Wiz and Boomstick with modern Death Battle, as rather than a Metal song with Rock elements like Invader, this is a Rock song with Metal elements. Wiz and Boomstick’s use of lighter, more echoing music and (can’t believe I'm about to say this) Rad guitar solos still present that the show is Badass and all, but also that the show is here to have some fun with it and it’s not as serious. Fitting Modern Death Battle going far more into science and lore and presenting a characters story rather than just tunneling in on things characters can do to kill people as early Boomstick would proudly put it. I also think that Wiz and Boomstick is a more consistent song overall. Invader had some really lacking parts of the score, such as a long section 2/3rds into the song that is basically silence with a continual sound of a trash can getting hit with a bat, while Wiz and Boomstick replaces things like that with brand new original sections that are a lot better.
8. Shredding Silver:
Shredding Sliver was actually the first Battle Theme Death Battle Made after deciding to give original music to every single fight. With the exception of the joke fight Smokey VS Mcgruff, every single episode since has had one. Anyway Shredding Silver is the theme of Shredder VS Silver Samurai. This episode has a history with me because several months before the Fight happened I happened to think of this matchup myself and Thought it was really really cool, even talked about it in one of my early blogs. I was prepared to eventually do this matchup myself as honestly, I never thought this fight would get made into an official DB in a million years because Silver Samurai it a relatively pretty obscure Marvel character, and at the time they hadn’t used ANY TMNT characters in literally 6 years, but sure enough they ended up announcing this fight later the same year and my Jaw hit the floor in excitement! So therein lies a dilemma I had with this theme, I wanna love it so much more than I do. It's a custom made theme to a battle I was really invested in so I listened to it so many times to try and connect but it's simply not awesome enough for me to fully get into it. So the song is not bad, in fact it's actually quite good in its own right, it uses a lot of distinctly Japanese instruments to highlight this being a Ninja fighting a Samurai, and it also has a Dark and honestly pretty eerie tone to it because both characters are also dark masters of the underground crime empire. That said the song IS kinda dry, and makes me wish that when making the tone they remembered these two are Supervillains first and ancient warriors second. This song is very serious and maintains a quieter, more reserved rhythm and doesn’t really break it up even at the beginning or end of the fight. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for example always uses Techno or Techno-Rock style music which they blend in with traditional East Asian music to better represent the Shredder and I do think that would’ve helped here a lot, in fact Death Battle actually used a song Kinda like that in Shredder’s analysis for a quick example. Something like that I think would have been more catchy and memorable for me.
7. Thunder of Wonder:
Gotta give credit, that's a damn good name. Thunder of Wonder is the theme of Thor VS Wonder Woman, and is the first piece of battle music made by Therewolf Media, who has basically become the auxiliary musician to Death Battle, making themes in addition to Brandon Yates. Anyway, I like a lot of what this theme brings to the table, it starts off very atmospheric with very peaceful and naturalistic sounds which bring up feelings of the harmony of nature and the tranquility of Themyscira, where the fight starts. However, as the song continues the more dramatic, intense and bombastic it gets as it starts bringing forth the feeling of a raging thunderstorm or a mighty battle in a warzone. This theme samples some of the melody from that awesome DCEU Wonder Woman theme, and does it in a way that is organic and fitting with the tone of the rest of the song, and not distracting. It also near the end starts playing with these super cool sounding violin-techno sounds that I feel was suppose to invoke the more space based feel of the film Thor: Ragnarok, which came out that year, but honestly that makes me think of the Saint Seiya song, Soldier Dream, which is from the Norse arc so even that is pretty fitting for this battle. Now as far as shortcomings go, this song serves better as background music to a fight scene rather than a song itself. It's not very catchy and at least for me, hard to listen to all the way through without my mind wandering somewhere else. I think it's a really solid track overall though.
6. Pokemon VS. Digimon MASHUP THEME:
This battle music was made for the Season 2 finale by Natewantstobattle, who voiced Red in the fight animation and from what I understand, just decided to make this music for the fight without even being asked, what a cool guy! Now as far as Mashup themes go, this is honestly one of the best I’ve heard. This song blends together the Red/Lance Battle Music from Pokémon with the iconic main theme song of Digimon Adventure and does so seamlessly I swear it doesn’t even sound like a blend! The Digimon theme is an infamous ear worm from back in the day, known for being unstoppably catchy to the point even kids who didn’t watch it loved it. This Mashup manages to maintain similar levels of catchiness while also adding some dramatic flares with the Pokémon aspects of the song. Obviously this theme connects to the characters fighting very well due to literally being a blend of their music, but I also believe that it being a Rock cover of the song just makes it all that more fitting to these very Firey and badass looking monsters. Overall an all around solid track without any real negatives.
5. One-Winged Devil:
The theme of the Season 4 Finale, Vergil VS Sephiroth, and last theme in the first 4 seasons. This theme mixes together the Orchestral Classical and Rock and Metal themes you can hear at various points in both Final Fantasy AND Devil May Cry games which naturally makes this a very fitting piece for the fight at hand. As a matter of fact it pays tributes to numerous songs from both franchises from various stingers found within the song itself, to even the songs title. One-Winged Devil is extremely elegant and fancy sounding, making the fight that it is accompanying seem as much a dance of blades as it is an actual battle, and the relatively slow pace of the song is used to simultaneously establish a serious tone of dread and fear between these two imposing figures. The song has enough fast paced background too that it never FEELS slow, and it can also legitimately feel action packed when the guitar is allowed to cut-loose. The fact it keeps changing up which aspect of the song it is focusing on really helps keep it dynamic in the mind of the listener. Overall its a pretty good track with no real major flaws, and probably only needed some epic lyrics to go along with it to truly become a top tier song for this ranking.
4. Shonen Showdown:
This is the Battle music of Naruto VS Ichigo, given the very appropriate name Shonen Showdown as it’s a fight between the stars of two of the 3 series of the Holy Shonen Trinity, and hey it’s a pretty great theme to commentate it. This song blends music from traditional Japanese instruments with a rock/metal accompaniment, which is actually something a lot of modern Shonen, including Naruto and Bleach, do to make their own awesome OSTs. Shonen Showdown has a lot of action and intensity in its rhythm that makes the listener tense up and subconsciously feel as though they are on the edge of their seat, which is very fitting of these two complete powerhouses throwing everything they have at one another. It also blends in this Bellowing Woodwind instruments to its main melody at parts like 0:28 which give an increasingly mysterious and haunting feeling, which also works as the characters are a Ninja and a Ghost, which are super ethereal and unknown entities in folklore. The fact that they have both these tones at once brings to a head that these mysterious forces are being brought into the light to do battle and that we’re all about to see what they are truly capable of. Honestly this song is in many respects an improvement over Shredding Silver, having many of the things that song did well but also having a lot I’d still want from it. Makes me curious how well it would work if you edited this song over Shredder Vs Silver Samurai. But anyway, this song is pretty dang good, the ending part at 3:05 being especially well done. I am a little annoyed that it kinda spoils the ending of the fight it goes too, but come on, who listens to DB Battle Music before watching the ep?
UPDATE: just listened to this while watching the muted Shredder Silversamurai fight and yeah that was awesome.
3. Exo:
Exo is clearly one of the coolest songs to come out of early Death Battle, being another Brandon Yates song composed for one of season 2’s most awesome fights, Wolverine VS Raiden. This song is very much a rock metal track, it's cold and intense with some of its rhythms, while also untamed and wild in others at the same time which creates a perfect contrast for these two enhanced special ops killing machines to tear into each other too. What really makes Exo such a great song to me is the lyrics; they are Amazing and do such a great job laying out just how thematically the same these two characters really are, going into their backstories, struggles, physical traits, while simultaneously having them constantly threatening each other. It has a lot of really cool lines that accomplish this like “There’s No Escape and soon You’ll See, You’re Made of METAL, …but you still Bleed.” and the fact that the song never tells you who’s talking makes it even more cool because you realize that it’d make sense for either of them to say any of these thing to the other, it just leaves it up to your imagination to craft the coolest way of interpreting it. This song is one of only 4 songs to even have Lyrics in the first 4 seasons and in that department specifically it’s the best one hands down, and it goes the extra mile by having a full songs worth of unique lyrics instead of just a few cool lyrical phrases that get repeated a few times, something not even modern DB themes do very often.
2. Stronger Together:
The last of the sporadic battle themes from Early DB, Stronger Together is the battle music of Megazord VS Voltron, made by Brandon Yates. This theme blends together the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme with the original Voltron theme, which actually really blend well together because Wow this song has a really great beat to it. Stronger Together bleeds with the classic energy of the late 80s/early 90s. The song feels epic and important, iconic even, but also manages to sound really really Fun too! I can’t think of something that would fit better to a brawl between top of the most iconic and celebrated mecha in pop culture than this! True it’s an instrumental track and therefore doesn’t have any good lyrics to speak of, but I think that it’s all the more impressive how catchy this song is and how much it sticks with you. It’s a lot more fun and gets stuck in your head more than Exo, and my god that ending part where they just go crazy on the Guitar just gives me chills. My biggest complaint with this song is that the whole intro part is too long, being about a full minute's worth of buildup. It sounds good but like clockwork every time I try to hum along with this song it always has one more repeat than I think it does.
1. Alive:
HOOOOOOLY Shit this song is Awesome! Alive is the first actual Death Battle Fight Music ever made, as well as the first appearance of now main Death Battle song crafter, Brandon Yates, and wow this is one hell of an introduction! Alive is the main Fight song in Goku VS Superman 2, kicking in once Goku goes all out Super Saiyan Blue, and yeah I can safely say this easily is the best thing to come out of that episode! I think part of what makes Alive such a great song is that it seems like it's taking all the pent up frustration Ben and Chad clearly had making this episode, and weaponizes it into pure gloves-off passion and energy. This theme is High Octane and almost hypnotizing-ly hype, fitting to the title, I really do come Alive when I listen to this. Now the lyrics in the song are not nearly as good at connecting to the characters as Exo was, but they also aren’t trying to, the Lyrics of this song are looking past the characters and seeming to connect to the Debate itself, dramatizing effectively the experience Death Battle has went through with the Goku VS Superman matchup after their episode. If one listens to it it's basically the Goku part representing those blindly arguing for him as it cockily brags about how he's totally going to win the fight in a stomp, once he rises to the occasion, comes alive so to speak, while the Superman side, with much less energy, simply calmly responds with logic and facts to establish that there's no more humoring this situation. That might sound disrespectful to the Dragon Ball side of things, but to me it has always been more of a straight F-You to bias vs debating, and that I respect! Apart from that, this song is a lot more High energy than Exo so I tend to favor it more when listening to music in general, it's also smoother and more easy on the ears with no hard metal sounds in it. It's so good I actually think the Rap part of this song is a particular Highlight, the start of the rap at 2:07 - the end of the song is my favorite part, the part where Superman puts his foot down…
Well anyway that’s my list, I hope you liked hearing my thoughts on these mostly nostalgic Death Battle songs. If you have different rankings or takes on these songs feel free to let me know when the comments, I’d love to hear them. And also let me know if you’d like to see me do this with Music from more recent seasons of Death Battle!
