Buxer is probably just getting tired of hearing about ghosts from 20+ years ago and is just telling people what they want to hear at this point. though it would be nice for him to release some archival audio of WIP Sonic 3 tracks getting confirmations is good too.
Except this isn't a stretch, I am a musician and a student of music theory and this goes beyond elementary speculation. If you are looking for note by note paralells, then even Hard Times fails your test when comparing to Ice Cap. You can't say When the Sun Goes down was not the basis of inspiration in this case, you have to listen to the layers, especially the counter melody. I know previous comparisons that have proven incorrect drive you to the conclusion of all or nothing, but the fluidity of music is what makes it beautiful. I am extremely aware of "sounds like X" versus "inspired by X or modulated from X."
I am also a musician and a student of music theory. I also believe you're wrong on this matter. There are similar vibes, but compositionally there's nothing alike. This is a stretch and you know it is.
I have to agree, if anything, the This Song Sounds Like X thread has taught me that almost anything can fit, not because they are "intentional" variences, but because they are "unintentional" variences. Us as a human race, tend to copy from each other subconsciously, the term "influential" comes to mind. I believe Derren Brown demonstrates it perfectly, how one can "think" they've come up with something brand new, but in actual fact they copied the idea without ever even knowing it, all because it "just feels right". Our music tends to follow similar patterns in terms of bars, chords, etc. Another great example Axis of Awesome - 4 Four Chord Song, 40 Songs, Same Chords who also demonstrate how the same type of progression is reused over and over, not because intentional copying (though some of them might have been), but rather because the four chords "just felt right" (because they heard it before, but forgotten about it, except from a subconscious state). You are finding similarities, but are you finding them for the right reasons? We may have to keep definitive rule or line which can somehow distinguish the difference between intentional and unintentional copying, our only current way of deciphering the difference between the two is; the artist's word. The rest is nothing more than speculation.
Clearly aMUSiC wrote music for BLiNX: The Time Sweeper, and KAGERO ZERO wrote the theme to Men Behaving Badly. I mean, there's no way these songs would be similar otherwise, right?
As a sidenote - that Men Behaving Badly song link is hilarious. How did you even come across the Kagero Zero one?
I was listening to random radio stations while in Japan and it was playing. I recognised it as Men Behaving Badly instantly.
It doesn't help that the 80's in particular was a time when music was experimenting with blatant riffing/sampling of other songs (Typically, resulting in things like mixtapes, record labels getting stricter with music IP, etc. And this continued well into the time when Sonic games were being made ("Work that Sucker to Death" samples in Sonic CD being the most obvious example to a Sonic fan.) I've been working at a K-mart recently, and their music playlist is still filled with 80's "hits", and, well, quite frankly, they all sound similar, blend in with each other, and transition almost stealthily, to the extent where it's JARRING when the playlist shifts to anything from the latter 90's or prior to the 80's. (I remember also being commonly told that grunge rock started as a counter-culture response to 80's pop music sounding mostly the same, although don't quote me on that because those who said that were more grunge fanboys than anyone actually in the know.) (These similarities, by the way, is also the reason 80's songs are among the easiest to mix into a Sonic mashup, regardless of whether the songs have any actual relation in composition.) Note that the compositions we are all discussing are mostly ones that were first made in the 80's. I'll start by saying that "Note by note identical" was more an exaggeration to get the point across than an actual test, but I can only take it you're just saying this for the sake of arguing, since it'd be ridiculous to imply that the level of similarity "Hard Times" has to "Ice Cap" is the same amount of similarity "When the Sun Comes Down" has to "Marble Garden". Let's pop out some reference material here. Hard Times Ice Cap Zone (act 1) I'll admit I may not have the best ear for making decisive calls for notes, but c'mon here. 1) Since you went out of your way to mention counter-melodies... Well, again, my ears aren't perfect, but the counter-melody sounds dead-on in "Hard Times", where "When the Sun Comes Down" has a counter-melody that is only vaguely similar. 2) The ambient "hum" may not sound exactly the same (Hard Times sounds like a "simpler" version with less notes, which just gives the impression that Ice Cap version was polished up/modified and optimized for a videogame), but it hits the same notes at the same times at the same tempo. Also note how, while much of the instrumentation was modified in "Ice Cap" to better suit the artic theme, the "hum" melody actually uses a similar-sounding Genesis equivilant of the sound used in "Hard Times". 3) Up until the refrain, "Ice Cap" doesn't sound like it has a "main" melody of sorts. This is part of the reason the track stands out from other tracks in the game, including Marble Garden. Now, why would a song be composed like that? The answer is obvious in commercially-produced music: the song was originally designed in a way that vocals were meant to represent the main melody. This is obvious if you're familiar with the difference between an "instrumental" version of a track and a "karaoke" version of a track (Something I learned the hard way from anime.). "Hard Times" has a main melody done in vocals, while "Ice Cap" has something of a void in it's place. (Which works GREAT for the artic theme, BTW, representing how abandoned and void of life such a place would be expected to be.) It's also notable to be said that "Credits" vs "Stranger in Moscow" does similiar in what would be considered simply "omitting" the vocal melody, again leading to a song that sounds like it's missing something. (Which could be brilliant foreshadowing to Sonic & Knuckles if that was the intended effect.) During the refrain, a new instrument is added to the song that fills in at the point where the vocalist would be saying "Hard Times", and at this point is probably what would be considered the biggest differences between "Ice Cap" and "Hard Times", since we have, in Ice Cap, a refrain melody that, to summarize the differences, is less complex than the vocal melody in "Hard Times" (In contrast to the "hum" ambience, which is more complex in "Ice Cap".) Even with all these differences, though, the notes Ice Cap's "refrain" has are mostly the same as the refrain vocals in "Hard Time", with the one notable exception being the very last note which would coincide with "by" in the vocals, which pitches lower than the previous note instead of higher. In comparison, "Marble Garden" has a very distinct and catchy main melody, and "When the Sun Comes Down" barely has even the slightest resemblence - it doesn't even play for as long as Marble Garden's melody before moving up a verse! 4) If Brad Buxer composed both Ice Cap and Marble Garden, why would Ice Cap GREATLY resemble one of his previous works, while Marble Garden would only have very slight similarities? Since Buxer has now credited himself with "Stranger in Moscow", it is now safe to say that "Ice Cap" and "Credits" follow a PATTERN in regard to Buxer's input into the musical compositon which would likely show how his M.O. works in regard to using his prior work to make a Sonic 3 song (Which, at this point, seems to be "Take the song, barely change it as necessary for the hardware/context."), and we need to take this pattern into account when discussing whether any other track in the game sounds like another one of Buxer's works.
I thought MGZ was nothing to do with MJ? I only assume this because in Sonic and Knuckles PC collection, MGZ is still the same tune. After listening to that song, I can't really relate it to MGZ at all. As Simon Cowell would say, "It's a no from me".
What I think we should be looking for at the moment is similarities to Buxer's previous works in Carnival Night, OG Knuckles, OG Sub-boss, and 2-player menu, to compare and contrast with similarities we've discussed prior to Michael Jackson's work, to gauge which ones are more likely to be Buxer's vs. Jackson's. (We'd likely have to look more for compositional patterns than instruments, hence why I highlighted the patterns in Ice Cap/Hard Times and Credtis/Stranger in Moscow, one of which is explicitly Buxer's and the other which Buxer is basically retrospectively claiming credit to.) That should settle that, hopefully. Yeah, I think it's safe to say that a song that smoothly transitioned to Sonic & Knuckles Collection for PC was most likely written internally at Sega/by one working for Sega at the time. Even putting aside the idea of legal issues, the remaining tracks being technically difficult to transfer to PC highlight how they were clearly done in a different style, and thus it wouldn't be all that plausible that one composer made a track in one style for one level and then a totally different, PC-incompatible style for the next.
It's me, guys, I wrote that song. (The joke here being that this song dates back to the era when 8bitcollective was still around and I had not heard When the Sun Goes Down until it was featured on an episode of Parks and Rec -- since 8bc is no more I obviously can't prove it conclusively, just saying it's not a fruitful means of analysis) More seriously though, I figure this is the best thread to ask the question -- I think one time someone posted a cover of Best of My Love by some Japanese percussionist that was released in the late 80s? Given that it particularly has resemblances to Labyrinth Zone I was interested in a reminder of who the artist that did that cover actually was.
Has anyone contacted Geoff Grace about his compositions yet? I was planning to, but I wanted to check in case it had already been done.
I don't believe we've gotten any information whatsoever from him. I do vaguely recall someone saying he tried to contact him many years ago, but got denied any information (I could be thinking of someone else, however.) He does openly acknowledge his involvement in the Sonic 3 soundtrack right on the front page of his website, so I'd say go for it and good luck />
If no one has contacted Geoff, you might be mixed up with the time Dissident93 contacted Bobby Brooks, who was hostile towards him. Hopefully Geoff isn't hostile to me if I contact him. Even though I'm a bit of a coward, I'll go for it someday. I may give him a link to the S3 soundtrack, and I may also ask him about Michael Jackson's involvement (many sources give different views, and it'd be interesting to hear it from Geoff's point of view)
I definitely remember the Bobby Brooks incident, but I do vaguely recall someone mentioning Geoff Grace. Again, I'm probably mis-remembering, and this would've been many years ago anyways. Best of luck!
His site does ring a bell, I also think somebody here may have tried to contact him without results. Also, if you're not sure on what to tell him... Just don't contact him and let others with more experience handle it. The last things we want when trying to document delicate stuff are annoyed members of the original teams.
I honestly think the only way you'd get anyone to mention their Sonic 3 work without telling you to fuck off would be to include it as a very small part of a larger piece covering the rest of their career, and even then there's no guarantee you'd get anything, especially given the legal complications of the subject matter. That's what the Doctor Who DVD team had to do to get the guy who cancelled the original series to talk about it on camera (if I recall, a 2 hour interview just to get a 2 minute soundbite that they could use for a documentary)!
Though I kinda know what to ask him, you have a good point. I don't have that much experience (I've only successfully contacted Hideki Naganuma, Tomonori Sawada and Yuzo Koshiro), and I don't like the thought of him getting brutally angry at someone as young as me. I guess I'll let someone with more experience contact him.
The problem with interviewing the composers about Sonic 3 is that everyone wants to know MJ's involvement and goes on about that, and not ask the composer what he/she actually did and how they got there, etc. Make it out that MJ isn't priority and the composer him/herself is.
