I propose we start calling the Sonic 3 music by different terms

The proto discovery probably gave them a little bit of leeway to be like "aha, you see! The replacement tracks were the intended tracks all along!" which gives the whole "they replaced the music, those bastards!" scandal a little more positive spin.

Of course, you'd think someone at Sega internally would have known that already, but given their track record of documenting/preserving historical stuff, I'm highly doubtful. The line always seems to have been that the PC release changed the music.

 

I think it is old enough of an issue to where trying to push a terminology is a bit gatekeepy, but knowing what we know I typically think of the re release ones as the "original" soundtrack now and point out to friends that MJ/Buxer wrote some of the tracks and amaze them with Hard Times. I guess if I were to call it something I would call it the Genesis/MD soundtrack.

Thinking a little more "placeholder" would also be a kind of snarky but accurate way of describing the re release/proto soundtrack, since it is pretty obvious they wanted another pop star to write it with or without MJ, given how 1 and 2 were done by Dreams Come True.

 

They have always been Proto, MD, PC, and now Origins to me.

PC has the distinction that there are two sets of MIDI tracks (GM and FM) too. But that aside, I think it's pretty easy to understand which one is which without having to explain myself everytime this way.

 

I find it extremely bizarre to call the prototype music the original. It's like calling Green Hill with the wrecking ball the original one, which... it isn't. It was scrapped. They did away with it. It's like calling Wood Zone a Sonic 2 stage as much as (say) Metropolis Zone, which it isn't. It was never released. You can't consider the first idea to ever exist the original when talking about products with multiple stages of development and an official version.

 

I think this is putting the term original on a pedestal.

 

It isn't. It's just practical. We can't ever safely use the term "original" if we adhere to this idea that it's any possible earliest installment because we can always find out about new, yet earlier music. I mean, you woouldn't call MJ's beatbox idea mixtape the original songs. They are what they are.

 

You could absolutely call that the original mixtape or release them as the original tracks or whatever.
Original does not have to be the best or what the public originally experienced. If we are going for accuracy, calling the Genesis tracks the original is actually wrong. For practical purposes I can not blame you calling them such since people believed this for a long time nor do I even really care what people call them.

I'm really warming up to calling the older originally unreleased tracks placeholder tracks myself.

 

You couldn't, that'd be an extremely weird way to put it. By that logic, the original would be the first tune Jun Senoue, or any other composer really, ever whistled during their shower while development had already started, and we'll never know about it. There's some degree of materiality for something to be considered the original version of something, and everything else that was scrapped was... scrapped, even if reused elsewhere. It's not about being better -- remastered versions aren't the original ones either --, it's about existing somewhere with a relevant degree of consensus that it's finished. Anything that is prototypical isn't that. Prototypes are prototypes.

 

This is just incorrect. I don't know what else to tell you.

 

I suppose you could tell me Sonic Origins isn't an accurate name because they should have had Sonic as a rabbit instead.

 

It would be accurate to say that Sonic was originally planned as a rabbit. They could release a game with Sonic as a rabbit and say that this is how Sonic was originally envisioned. Nobody would like it and it would be really dumb to do but it wouldn't be the first time someone did something like that. Star Wars had a full re releases with content "as it was originally intended" and people still prefer "the originals" which is still accurate even if the re release is actually the more complete product.

Your reasoning is incredibly arbitrary and you are putting a lot of weight on what you think original should mean rather than what it literally means or even how it is used. The placeholder songs being the originals doesn't make them better, or even really matter. At all.

 

At the same time... the 1997 S&KC version and the 1993 prototype version (I'm using these terms for clarity; obviously y'all're gonna use something different) are clearly meant to be the same overall composition, so I imagine disambiguating between the two would mostly only be necessary when referring to certain differences.

 

I prefer Team Buxer/Brad Buxer team myself since he appears to have been the one truly overseeing the compositions.

 

The lukewarm being the MJ team ones? Because that's how I feel about Carnival Night and Launch Base. Melodically poor songs with innovative percussion.

 

I'm in camp MD, Proto, and PC. I don't really see the Proto and PC songs as being the exact same thing even though they're based on the same compositions.
For the same reason, I figure we'll end up referring to the Origins music as the Origins music since it sounds like the arrangements are going to be notably different.
Anyhow, that's just me.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty much in this camp now.

 

I just use Proto, Final, and PC. I don't think that's terribly confusing.

 

- Prototype -
Only referencing the 1993-11-03 prototype at the moment but if a new prototype is found with different tracks or MJ tracks that came before then we got a problem.

- Mega Drive / Genesis -
Only referencing what made it into Sonic 3's released version for the Mega Drive / Genesis. Could be mistaken for prototype tracks.

- PC -
The released PC version of the game with alternate tracks.

- Origins -
The tracks finished up for Origins.

- Final -
Don't use this term.

- Sega Sound Team -
Self explanatory.

- Michael Jackson Team -
Self explanatory.

- Brad Buxer Team -
Self explanatory.

- MJ/Buxer Team -
Self explanatory.