Confirmed: Michael Jackson DID compose music for Sonic 3

So, what exactly was confirmed? That Stranger in Moscow was a Buxer/Jackson song, rather than being a soundalike arranged by a ?

I guess that's interesting, but I'm still mostly unimpressed (again, it's well established that Jackson did work on the soundtrack), and feel that -- especially because only one song was discussed -- there's still at least a fair bit more to this.

EDIT: And fuck the SNES's shitty sample rate and piss-poor PCM storage bank

 

I wouldn't be surprised if we found out the tunes Jackson had his hand in were all the ones that had voiced samples playing in them. Those always felt different from the rest of the game and I always did find it weird that Knuckles' theme was changed to something a bit more... mediocre and the mid-boss music to something more generic when we know in the 0517 Sonic 3C release, the original music was kept aside from the Credits music, which was now becoming a medley.

Good to see we get confirmation, but a little bit sad to know M.J.'s perfectionism (I can sympathize with him sometimes) would have lead him to declining his involvement if one of us ever somehow managed to get an interview with him.

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I hated Knuckles' original S3 theme and thought that the S&K version was much more distinctive and a better tune overall. The same goes for the mini-boss music, which just seemed totally out of place in S3.

 

I liked it because it was so out of place. It just worked for the mechanical midbosses in otherwise "natural" settings.

 

The only thing about the miniboss music that I didn't like was that it was longer than the main boss theme. It took away emphasis from Robotnik's vehicles.

 

I completely agree. Although the other MJ tracks, especially the S3 credits, are fantastic!

 

That is hilarious to say in the least. Although this answers a few questions, this just opens up a whole new can of worms.

I always felt that the music for Carnival Night, Icecap, and Launch Base...as well as Knux/Miniboss theme and credits were out of place. If MJ were trying to convince them over and over to "try again" in converting his demos to what the should chip could handle, I could see them deviating from the synth voices that are used within the rest of the game, which is why the sound the ay they do. I still believe they converted other songs of his using the original synth voices because A) they stopped caring about MJs satisfaction, B) It was quicker, C) A combination of everything I mentioned and failed to mention.

As far as the S&K Miniboss theme, it was always IN the SONIC 3 Sound Test, and accessible through various bugs in the game.

[OMG Theory!] To this day I stand by the idea that what we know as the S3 Miniboss theme would have been used ONLY for the Hidden Palace fight while the S&K Miniboss theme would have been used throughout the entire game. Since the game was split, they found applications for both to be used. Therefore the "fight" only features the generic S&K Miniboss music. It only makes sense for Knuckles' full theme to be played only during that event since his appearances uses part of that same theme. So I take it as contingent on the splitting of he game and Sonic 3C as proof of this (although the Miniboss theme remains as the full Knuckles song in this version). [/OMG Theory!]


Just think, my first impression of Sonic 3's music was pure hatred, but mostly because of the completely different title screen music. But it was a sound track I've grown to love, even more so than what preceded it.


I have been waiting awhile for news along these lines, but my mind was made up years ago!

 

Well it's about time we got the evidence. But it's stupid that they couldn't tell us this from the beginning, seriously why do they always wait until the composer is dead? Also the Genesis/Megadrive soundchip kills the SNES chip.

 

Seriously people.

Do you have to get into an argument about two fundamentally different sound chips?

The SNES does stuff better then the Mega Drive can do and vice versa.

 

Oh, so he did.

Eh.

 

I must be pretty sad or have low standards. I quite like the music that is pumped out by the MegaDrive/Genesis in most Sonic Games.... Also if he wasnt happy with the music that the MegaDrive/Genesis could produce why did he allow the Moonwalker game to be produced? I am not so sure thats why his name isnt credited. I would still go with SEGA/Sonic Team decided to remove it due to the Scandal... either that or now I sound like a complete idiot.

 

The "Sega removed it" reasoning has never sounded at all realistic to me. Since there are demonstrably still Michael Jackson compositions within Sonic 3, it strikes me as legally improbable that Sega just decided "Oh, this is scandalous, so we're going to remove his name from the credits but retain his compositions." Unless it was written into his contract that he not be accused of pedophilia while working on the game less his work be rendered forfeit, I can't see how Sega would have had an out to just cut him from the credits. If they had actually removed his music as was claimed by Drossin, I can see it working out, but since they didn't, I would imagine that they would have at least had to get Jackson/Jackson's management's approval before summarily removing him from the credits.

The only other options really are that Jackson's contract included a mention that he may or may not be credited for his work, at Sega's discretion (unlikely) or just that Sega decided it was too late in development to switch out the music, and so kept it, but (quite possibly illegally) removed Jackson from the credits anyway, and Drossin's later comments were simply intended to cover Sega's asses ("What? No, we removed that, of course, are you kidding? We wouldn't do anything to upset Michael Jackson/Sony's legal squad!"). This last is of course possible, but hugely irresponsible if it was OK'd by Sega's legal department. Obviously Jackson had more pressing issues to worry about, but it'd still be a pretty big gamble.

But as always, IANAL.

 

As I said earlier today in the irc, my idea is that things went like this:
MJ: ok guys don't use my songs because I don't like how they sound
Sega: you son of ***, now we're going to tell everyone that you're a pedo

 

Is there not a single name in the credits that can just be a pseudonym for Michael Jackson?



He used a fake name when he did that voice in The Simpsons, if I remember correctly.

EDIT: Just checked, he was credited as "John Jay Smith". =P

 

ooooooooooh, hahahaha =P

This is very interesting, obviously like most of us here I didn't expect "Michael not liking the Yamaha Synthesiser chip" to be the reason behind it.

Welp, it's about time we had some backed up evidence at last

 

I think that when MJ heard Sonic 2 he thought the Genesis was capable of much more. I mean, that's a good soundtrack. You don't even notice any limitations when you hear that.

 

Are you crazy? The mid-boss music in S&K is insanely cooler than the one in S3.

 

I think that's mostly based on the opinion of what people think, not what it is.

 

fixed

Also, this really amuses me because I was thinking about the whole MJ thing while I was walking to the bus this morning and was thinking about making a topic about it to recap what we know so far. Imagine my surprise...

 

Count me as one of the people who believe the mid-boss music in S&K rules.

It conveys a sinister, yet quick-paced feeling. The best way I can describe it is classic saturday morning cartoon action music - heavy on the break beats (but not actually break beat) to give a sense of urgency. It reminds me of the BGM for Dragonball and Dragonball Z (jpn), actually.

The vanilla Sonic 3 mid-boss music conveys no emotion with me. It feels very dry, and too slow for boss music, in that it's slow yet not dramatic.