The Competition Menu theme ever so slightly reminds me of "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' ", the way the bass and chords go together while doing two separate things....if it makes any sense. I'm too tired for this lol Just for consideration since we're on the subject, the song "Money" gives me Competition Menu vibes. I'm not sure if Buxer was in on this one since everything I've found says it was produced by Mike himself (although considering how Buxer described the situation above with "Moscow"....). From what I can tell though, the chords are too different for me to call it anything other than a neat little coinkydink. It's likely another case of popular chord progressions and arrangments; if I was near any of my equipment, just for kicks I'd see just exactly what the chords are for both songs. It still made me go "Hey, wait a fuckin' minute" the last time I heard it.
Yes, Brad Buxer himself confirmed that he worked on "Money". He at least did drums & percussion, which is because he used two samples from Norman Cook's "Skip to My Loops" for the base drums on the track ("Tokyo DJ Theme" & "Rock that Jazz"). Same sample CD that he got the "Woo!" & "Come On!" sample for the Miniboss Theme. Here's a part of "Money", listen to the drums during the main track & the chorus. Here's "Tokyo DJ Theme" & "Rock that Jazz" from Norman Cook's "Skip to My Loops". In terms of the situation itself of crediting, it's weird. I'm pretty sure a lot of tracks on the "HIStory" album lack credits, maybe because it wouldn't fit in the booklet. Teddy Riley (who helped produce half the tracks on Michael's "Dangerous" album) says that Michael was too willing to give him credit for things he barely worked on, such as the track "Dangerous".
I've just remembered another video: https://vk.com/video-196618611_456239028 The way he plays this song, it really reminds me of Staff Roll from Sonic 3.
It's beautiful. Straight up magic & I regularly go back to this video cuz like, it's just incredible. I hope an earlier demo of S.I.M. surfaces one of these days. I've heard two of them years ago & the most notable thing was the extra percussion on it (arguably much closer to the Sonic 3 version, but still pretty different) + some earlier vocals from Michael. But I'm hoping for something from February 1994 or somewhere around there.
Maybe everyone else has figured this out already, but the drum sample featured in Staff Roll (at the 03:11 mark) is the exact same one that's later heard in They Don't Care About Us (at the 01:29 mark).
There is also a sample used throughout credits theme. Something similar (or even the same) is heard in unreleased track "Space Dance", which is related to another Michael Jackson / SEGA collaboration – Space Channel 5:
I'm pretty sure that we're talking about either the exact same or a very similar sample. Also worth noting how much this track sounds like Launch Base. Edit: They literally acknowledge that in the video, too.
