Michael Jackson did some of Sonic 3's music

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SamIAm

New member
This, ladies and gentlement, rocks my socks.

I love the soundtrack to Sonic 3. I love it so much that I bought a JVC X'Eye almost solely for it's slightly cleaner sound hardware that I could use to listen to the music in it's ideal form. I love it so much that I learned how to do Sonic 3's sound-test/level select code, renouned for being outstandingly difficult, with my television off and using only the sound of the game coming through my speakers as a cue. I didn't turn the TV on much of the time because I didn't need to in order to listen to the music, and believe me, the number of hours I've spent listening to this soundtrack is in the 3-digit area. Sonic 3 itself is undoubtedly one of my all time favorite games, and its soundtrack and I have a great relationship.

So if this video is right, MJ had a hand in writing the tracks for Ice Cap Zone, Carnival Night Zone, Launch Base Zone, and the credit roll. Judging both by style and by abscence in S3&K, I also think it is highly likely that he wrote the mid-boss music, Knuckle's original theme, and maybe even the main theme/title screen music.

It's a shame that thanks to time, legal issues, pride and otherwise, we will probably never get the real story about this. However, if he had anything to do with Hydrocity Zone, my favorite track, the boss music, or the Special Stage music, I am going to have to bow down once again to the Great Gloved One.

The saga behind the Sonic the Hedgehog games never ceases to amaze me...
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There is one part in the ending of one of the sonics probly 3 that sounds alot like a part of We are the World or what ever the name was.

EDIT: Nope its Sonic 2's ending when it shows the slide show of tails picking up sonic. If thats not the song then I know its from something.

<P ID="signature">The pipes clangor all the time!</P><P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by pipes clangor on 05/18/06 04:42 AM.</FONT></P>
 
> This, ladies and gentlement, rocks my socks.

Michael Jackson fucking grabbed Tails by his two fox tails and totally just rammed him up his boyish, cartoony fox-ass. Indeed, when Michael Jackson blew his load, he sent Tails flying into the air, careening into Dr. Robotnik, which caused Tails to erupt in a shower of golden rings and semen...

Michael Jackson just totally sodomized your childhood.
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> I heard this a long time ago, I thought everyone knew about
> it by now.
>

People have been talking about the similarity between that one part of Carnival Night Zone and Jackson's song Jam for years, but most chalked it up to the fact that one of the guys listed as a music composer in Sonic 3's credits...Brian Buxor?...also did work on some of Jackson's albums. The idea that Jackson himself did multiple tracks for the game is fairly new. That interview with STI director Roger Hector was done last year, and AFAIK the similarites between the other tracks and Jackson's work has been recovered only recently.
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I think basically a Sega "Sonic Team" composer just used MJ style of music and maybe even paid tribute to him by using his style. MJ most likely didn't work on Sonic 3 much less Moonwalker.
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> I think basically a Sega "Sonic Team" composer just used MJ
> style of music and maybe even paid tribute to him by using
> his style. MJ most likely didn't work on Sonic 3 much less
> Moonwalker.
>

Why would he need to work on Moonwalker? He wrote all the original music for it anyway.

I know that Jackson didn't write a lot of the music on his albums anyway, and it shouldn't be too hard to mimic whatever musical style is "his". However, if the music was written by one of the STI guys, then why were those tracks pulled from the PC version? Not to mention, the similarity between the credit roll and Stranger in Moscow would be hard to explain otherwise.

I could be wrong, however.
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I beleeve that MJ wrote the sonic music in the same sense that The Police wrote "I'll be missing you".
So it's more of a "theft" thing than anything else.
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> This interview post is the source of contention. If this is
> genuine, then Michael Jackson did indeed work on Sonic 3.
> Whether any of his work was preserved, though, is another
> question.
>

Indeed, that is the long and short of what a lot of time spent combing through discussions about this on other boards concludes. STI director Roger Hector has been asked again to verify that Michael was involved in Sonic 3, and he confirmed it, although he didn't give any further details.

The big thing that I hadn't known when I made that first post was that all the guys who are listed as music composers in Sonic 3's credits are part of a musical posse of Jackson's, and they probably came with him to Sega at the time. So, were these guys going to be responsible for making all the music and give credit to Jackson, just so Sega could use his name? If not, when Jackson's own work was dropped, did they really make everything over by themselves? Or did they recycle some of Jackson's stuff? The only clue I can find is in the credits for the Jackson album songs that are similar to Sonic 3 tracks. Both Stranger in Moscow and Who is it are credited only to Jackson, and it would seem from the other listings that whoever writes one of Jackson's songs gets his name in the credits. Interesting...but still not conclusive.
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Re: Example mp3

> This little mp3 is pretty cool. It's a synchronized overlay
> of Sonic's ending theme with part of Stranger in Moscow. It
> starts with Stranger in Moscow by itself, and you can hear
> the Sonic music growing after about 5-10 seconds.

This is actually pretty cool. I can't say I'm a Jacko fan, but at the very least you could make some really cool remixes using this material.

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After reading through this thread, I just felt that I needed to say that regardless if MJ worked on it or not, Sonic 3 has one heck of an amazing soundtrack.

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> After reading through this thread, I just felt that I needed
> to say that regardless if MJ worked on it or not, Sonic 3
> has one heck of an amazing soundtrack.
>

Yeah, this thread made me go download the GYM soundtrack.

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> I know that Jackson didn't write a lot of the music on his
> albums anyway, and it shouldn't be too hard to mimic
> whatever musical style is "his". However, if the music was
> written by one of the STI guys, then why were those tracks
> pulled from the PC version?

The explanation I have heard for this is the supposed inability to reproduce the "shout" sound that's used in these tracks in a MIDI file. I know almost nothing about MIDI, but perhaps someone who does could clear this up.
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> After reading through this thread, I just felt that I needed
> to say that regardless if MJ worked on it or not, Sonic 3
> has one heck of an amazing soundtrack.
>

<img src=smilies/magbiggrin.gif><img src=smilies/magbiggrin.gif><img src=smilies/magbiggrin.gif>
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Re: Example mp3

> This is actually pretty cool. I can't say I'm a Jacko fan,
> but at the very least you could make some really cool
> remixes using this material.
>

I'm not really much for Jackson myself, although I do own Thriller and enjoy it. But if it was revealed that he did a substantial portion of this soundtrack, I just might have to check out some of his other stuff.

Now there's something I never thought I would be thinking.<img src=smilies/erm.gif>

Anyway, here's another clip that does basically the same think with Ice Cap Zone and Who Is It. They had to speed Who Is It up quite a lot and alters its pitch, but it's still a good example of how the chords fit.
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C:ServerxampphtdocszopharoldwwwthreadsattachmentsICZ - Who Is It Comparison.mp3
 
They may well have left out those tracks just for technical reasons, it's true. But for one thing, that wouldn't prove that Michael didn't write any of those songs, and for another, I think that out of all those tracks, only Launch Base really needed the PCM effect. Carnival Night, which only used the PCM for a percussion effect, could have been remixed with no trouble.
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