Even with all this "new" information, this is far from over. The only concrete information we have is that Carnival Night samples "Jam" which is direct evidence that MJ was involved at some point AND we know the music was a collaborative effort at best because of Ice Cap essentially being an instrumental remix of "Hard Times."
Something small I noticed. There was a re-release of "The Essential Michael Jackson" that included a third disc with only a handful of songs, among them being "Jam" and "Stranger in Moscow." Do you think that could be someone's way of acknowledging their connection to Sonic 3?
No. If it's the booklets saying something about it than yes. But in reality no and very difficult to prove at that. They could have just been popular songs. A greatest hits compilation album means songs that sold a lot and could be a revised edition that includes songs that sold more because they probably just became hits with time. It happens more than you think. A Remastered edition and to include more popular songs, doesn't automatically mean acknowledgement of what you think. Record companies put these out sometimes without the input of the artist involved as the record company owns the original recording or master.
Whoops! Yeah. It's so well known that I forgot about including it. So we have 2 solid songs. So how is it that Jackson nor his estate sued for the use of these? (or perhaps they did?). It would be hilarious that the S&K Collection was develpoed during secretive litigation. But then Sega won on being able to re-release Sonic 3 a limited number of times....also explaining why we haven't seen much of the game in prior releases outside of the Sonic Mega Collection and the lack of a remastered version like 1 & 2. Ok, I'll stop now.
Well considering the fact that Brad Buxer was a musical arranger and sometimes a co-composer for Michael, along with Michael being a fan of the games, I think it is safe to say that he had no bitter feelings towards the game. If Tommy and Brad are to be believed than we can see that Michael only wanted his name removed at some point in development, not his music.
Just throwing a wild guess in the dark but I reckon the contract that MJ's musicians signed didn't cover for rereleases on future systems (hence why those tracks were changed in S8KPC). Then when MJ's involvement came to light, they realised Sega did just that and began legal action for unpaid royalties. Chances are I'm completely wrong though! It's all conjecture on my part here.
Apologies if this has been posted before, but I was reading a PDF of the September 93 issue of Sega Power and noticed this:
Wanted to post some new information from a Brad Buxer interview I read from an excerpt of an upcoming Michael Jackson book: It makes it clear that Stranger In Moscow is entirely a Buxer composition. http://www.makingmichael.co.uk/#!EXTRACT-6-MAKING-STRANGER-IN-MOSCOW/fagil/5625755f0cf2c6c6437ddf4c
Well damn. Well it is not uncommon for iconic pop stars to have certain pieces written by other people. There is another Jetzons unrealized track that is a dead ringer for marble garden, "When the Sun Goes Down." It all about Brad Buxer people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwFw-gmPXm8 ... I'm not hearing the resemblance. Seriously, don't try too hard here, folks. If the song isn't LITERALLY, note for note, the same melody, when we can already confirm "Hard Times" and "Stranger in Moscow" indeed ARE, there is no reason to stretch the logic ridiculously thin until practically ANY song that sounds vaguely like an 80's hit could fit in.
One of the comments on the video, by Lucas “Lu9” L. Emmerick, I think describes the situation pretty well: WOW THIS IS SUPER MARBLE LAUNCH COLLISION CHAOS BASE ZONE YOU SHOULD HEAR IT After Hard Times, people may be too eager to find things among the Jetzons' work, and anything with even a brief segment that sounds like something from Sonic gets labelled as DEFINITELY Sonic related. Hell, 3 other comments call it Marble Garden, Launch Base and, most baffling to me, Oil Ocean (baffling in the sense that we already know that one was by Nakamura-san).
I mean, the bass in the opening measures there definitely reminds me of Marble Garden, but the notes and rhythm are too different to say that Marble Garden was in any way based on it.
It's stylistically similar, but MGZ has as much connection to some of Herbie Hancock's electric/funky period around the 70s, in particular songs from the Headhunters album like Chameleon and Watermelon Man. I mean if I had to put it to comparison with any Sonic music I would have said Wacky Workbench anyway, but eh
Really interesting that Buxer has in the past few years at least acknowledged his and MJs involvement in the game. Back around 2002 I used to frequent a now-defunct Sonic forum where someone mentioned they had contacted Buxer and asked him about his compositions for Sonic 3. This was well before MJs involvement came to light. Buxer responded extremely rudely (the reply was pasted in the post) and told the him to get lost and never contact him again. Would love to hear that tape
