Hell March

About

"Hell March" is the main theme song for games in the Command & Conquer: Red Alert real-time strategy video game series, which features aggressive electric guitar riffs set to a marching beat. In online videos, the song is often used as background music in remixes containing footage of marching soldiers and other military imagery.

Origin

On October 31st, 1996, the real-time strategy game Command & Conquer: Red Alert was released by Westwood Studios for the PC. The game's main theme titled "Hell March" was composed by musician Frank Klepacki, which was originally set to be the theme for the "Brotherhood of Nod" faction in an expansion for the 1995 real-time strategy game Command and Conquer (shown below). Variations of the theme were subsequently included in each game in the Red Alert series.

Spread

On Feb 13th, 2006, YouTuber Daggersquad uploaded a video featuring various photographs of the former Soviet Union with the theme "Hell March 2" from Red Alert 2 playing in the background (shown below, left). On May 31st, YouTuber strongmike uploaded a video featuring British armed forces with captions containing anti-terrorist statements (shown below, right). On April 17th, 2007, Urban Dictionary^[2] user Darktrooper666 submitted an entry for "Hell March," describing it as "the most influential computer game music song."

On May 22nd, 2008, a video titled "Red Army Hell March" was uploaded to YouTube, featuring the "Hell March" theme with footage of the Russian army (shown below, left). Within eight years, the video received more than three million views. On November 13th, 2008, a page for "Hell March" was created on the Command & Conquer Wiki.^[3] On June 26th, 2009, YouTube consoleman09 posted footage of the South Korean military marching down a public street with "Hell March" playing in the background (shown below, right).

On April 7th, 2011, YouTuber madboyfull uploaded footage of the Chinese army in marching formation with "Hell March" from Red Alert 3 playing in the background (shown below). Within five years, the video garnered upwards of 4.6 million views and 27,700 comments. On August 26th, 2014, the YouTuber Rodrigo Xavier uploaded a video featuring people in Pikachu Pokemon suits marching to "Hell March 2" (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References