The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

Only the 2012 re-release censors anything with regards to that particular song. But only "T9_KNUCK.ADX" is censored, the other file "T3_KNUCK.ADX" is still uncensored.

 

Every now and then YouTube recommends me videos along the lines of "WHY SONIC DOESN'T SELL IN JAPAN". We really ought to get some concrete numbers for this one day because the claim always seems a bit wibbly wobbly.

However there is some actual evidence of Sonic Team tailoring their products to a younger Japanese demographic, and it's something I'm not sure anyone really noticed:



According to Sega a decision was made in 2001 to start printing "Sonic" in katakana (ソニック) because this would make it easier for the kids to read (that's "in the games themselves" - the katakana versions have always been used interchangably in supplementary material).

This is something Sega did for the GameCube, GBA and DS Sonic titles, but got mysteriously bored of doing for later games. Even in situations where they renamed the whole game...



SONIC is used. And yeah sure, katakana on top, but it isn't the main logo. The Olympics tie-ins and the movies still bothered. Although maybe you can argue things like Unleashed skew upwards to older age ranges.


And if you were wondering whether Sega Retro wants a "Sega Consumer Conference 2001" page... yes it does. And all of this noise.

 

Via some combination of boredom and curiosity, I wanted to see if I could get some clarity on Metallic Madness's vocals. Rather than let this trivia sit in my music folder to rot I figured I'd share my findings. Tl;dr even with the best of technology it's impossible to understand 100% of what this man is saying.

I isolated the vocals from the track, and then slowed it down to help with enunciation, and to me, it sounds like Eggman broadcasting a command/warning to his robots. I uploaded the audio result here:
https://voca.ro/12IWEYrI0Hiy
To the best of my understanding, the lyrics (Asterisk wrapping = I'm not entirely certain)

I wanted to cross reference it against the vocals of Dr. Gigglymen from Sonic Remix, purely for the sake of additional clarity, only to find that they aren't entirely using the same lyrics. Audio result for Dr. Gigglymen: https://voca.ro/1bkTJ8LvUf10
Again, to the best of my understanding... (Asterisk wrapping = I'm not entirely certain)

Additionally, I found similar results in a Youtube comment, so I assume they iso'd the lyrics track the same way.

I don't agree with some specific word choices (not sure how you get "through" out of "real"), but otherwise I'd say this is probably close enough, sounds more or less like what I'm hearing.

If anybody else wants to try to figure out the rest or revise it, go for it, but at least it's something to actually start with.

 

deeply frustrating because all the "vocal" tunes have printed lyrics for the 20th anniversary release - including Sonic Boom! - but absolutely nothing for Metallic Madness, which makes me wonder if this is actually sampled wholesale?

 

Considering the two tracks mentioned above share some lyrics and one is TTS, I would not think so. But still, it's supposed to be background noise and mostly gibberish, hence not getting an official lyric sheet.

 

Sounds to me like it’s Casey Rankin under heavy distortion, could probably confirm this by adding similar distortion to his vocals on the opening and ending tracks.

 

For whatever reason, this is the nonsense that my mind has hallucinated for all these years:

Hey there friends, it's Mez again
Get that villain, he's going to Hell
Gotta get through, you know the deal
You have no idea what he's going through/He has no idea what he's in for
Get yourself ready for a fight
It's his will versus yours/It's his will to survive
Yo, we're outta here

 

I feel like if that were the case then using it as-is in the original mobile versions -- where they replaced the OP/ED themes with homegrown instrumentals for what we've assumed were rights issues with his estate -- could have also been problematic...

Also, I could have sworn someone (like Casey?) said once in an interview that they hired "these two cool black guys" (per the interview) for the rapping, but the Retro wiki page for "Sonic - You Can Do Anything" attributes the rapping to Casey himself. [shrugs]

 

It’s possible the track wasn’t credited internally for that and was just assumed to be another sample so it slipped by when those changes were made for the mobile version. The 2011 album credits also lines up with it just being him for the OP/ED, the mixing and timing does it make sound like it’s two different guys though with the way they’re almost overlapping at points.
Edit: Found the interview you were thinking of.
“Casey was a good-natured guy, I remember how much I really liked him. For the recording, he brought these two black guys who were friends of his. It was a lot of fun recording the demo takes and scratch tracks with them, and for us personally, getting the chance to work with these music industry pros left us feeling starstruck. We actually did all the music recording (not just the op/ed themes) at Being’s professional studio, so it was a great chance to learn how things are done in the industry, too.”

 

Apple Music has them as:
We all dread this place we're in
Because of you, he's going in
Gotta get through, you know the deal
But you're not through, he's going through it
Get yourself ready for a fight
This dude is superb
Yo, we're outta here

Versus what most sites have:
They all dread this place we're in
Because of you, he's going through it
Gotta get through; you know the deal
But you're not through. He's going through it
Get yourself ready for a fight
This time he's superb
Yo, we're outta here

For Apple’s lyrics I’d replace line 2’s “he’s going in” with “he’s going through it”, very confident that line 6 “this dude is superb” but no clue if line 1 is “we all” or “they all” though.

 

Ehhh. This is a case where I feel like you have to trust your ears, consider the enunciation, the phonetics and amount of syllables being used. Besides, it's not like it's the first time a company just pulled something from the internet without fact checking or finding the source of it and calling it a day. Lest we forget, the use of the Sonic 2 prototype sprites in the Sonic 4 reveal trailer.

I'd need to see where Apple pulled that from, because it could have come from a Wikia/Fandom page for all I know. With isolated samples, I just don't hear most of that, but I do know a lot of people interpreted things that way for a long time. While I can pick up on "get through" rather than "get real" because of how it's kinda slurred together (which would put it more as a softened "get 'rou' " if anything), it doesn't rhyme, and it's not what's being used in Gigglymen, one of the few verbatim reused lines. Both Gigglymen and MM use clearer cases of the word "through" in other places and they don't quite match up, I'd say it's more likely "get (soft R)ea(rushed L)". Consider both of these soundtracks were made at about the same time, and that Hataya is responsible for both Dr. Gigglymen and Metallic Madness as a whole.

Here's as many extractions as I can get, with varied levels of ambient noise, slowed down a bit more.
https://voca.ro/14IB1EcgJEgI

I really cannot get those first two lines for the life of me, but as for the rest? I wouldn't really change what I wrote even though I'm still not positive about the stuff that was between asterisks, just because of the amount of syllables and phonetics alone. The only one I can see is "superb" over "super", and yet, in some takes, it sounds like "su-pah" with some exaggeration on the "-ahh", and I'm not sure how much of this is just trying to keep the music track suppressed. I could go either way, though, but I wouldn't be shocked if it's more or less Engrishy.

 

I'm hearing Line 2 as [something like]
"[But cap that gun] He's going to get it"

 

So hey, I've mentioned before that I'm watching old pro wrestling stuff, and today it occurred to me that there may be some value in preserving the Sega Ads in the spots where they occur. Unfortunately, the videos I have that have ads have pretty heavy wow and flutter - the videos without ads for the same companies (WCW and WWF(E) mainly) make it clear enough what the entrance music and the announcers' voices should sound like outside of these low-quality videos. That doesn't help for any ads I'd clip from the other videos, though. Do we have any format for tracking these in the wiki? Is there value in noting down the dates I've mentioned in previous comments, finding video editing software, and clipping the ads out? The latest ad I saw for the Sega Saturn was on the video for WCW Worldwide from 1995-06-10, but it's *somewhere* before the 33-minute mark in a 55-minute video and it's less than clear.

No rush to answer this one; I have a TON of storage space on my Plex server, and I have zero plans to delete any of these videos when I'm done. About a decade ago I watched Monday Night Raw and WWF PPVs from the start of 1996 up to Wrestlemania XV in 1999 and deleted videos as I went along. This time I'm watching multiple promotions (WCW, ECW, SMW, and WWF) based on the aired date for each show so I have more context and I'm mildly regretting that I didn't back up the video files I used last time, but since I have 1996 files for each promotion I figure unless something breaks then I've already set myself up for success this time when I get that far in.

 

In your case, I wouldn't worry too much about it... I think we have some videos in the same state on Sega Retro ... so I think it's better than nothing... but that's my opinion (I don't know if you want to hear anyone else's opinion... maybe @Black Squirrel's, who is the man who basically knows this house best).

 

I was watching 1996 WWE RAW and was surprised to see SEGA sponsored the "slam of the week" segment. It was called the SEGA Saturn Slam of the Week, with its own graphics and everything.

 

Random little thing, what's the Crush 40 song used in the credits of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing DS? I can't find this song anywhere and have no idea what it's called.

 

Its this one

 

I had no idea that ASR DS used a Crush 40 song in the credits. But yeah, after Bentley Jones' "So Much More" finishes at 4:52, it goes on to play "Into the Wind" by Crush 40, which Google tells me is recycled from 2000's NASCAR Arcade. Interesting!

 

So I like to check Facebook Marketplace every couple of days because for some reason their algorithm surfaces some of the weirdest stuff you've ever seen at the top of my feed and idk, I just get a kick out of seeing people's weird stuff.

Today's item, though, is on a whole other level.

https://imgur.com/a/3yVsC9F (not sure how to post inline)

I neither have a car big enough to transport this nor any desire to drive two hours to get it, but WHERE did they find an Ugly Sonic print that big?

 

Looks like bootleg merch. Search Amazon for something like "Sonic bedsheets" or something and you'll find dozens of sellers selling random items with pieces of art from the movies, games, TV shows or an assortment of all three poorly printed on top. This is the cnt sort of crap.