Michael Jackson Involvement with Sonic 3
From Sonic Retro
At one point in development, Michael Jackson brought a team of his musicians to be involved in Sonic the Hedgehog 3's soundtrack - however, due to the scandals that arose around this point, this plan fell through. Howard Drossin would complete the soundtrack, which was later used in Sonic & Knuckles. Brad Buxer, Doug Grisby III, Bobby Brooks, Darryl Ross and Geoff Grace all lent their work to Sonic the Hedgehog 3's soundtrack; all of the above worked with Michael Jackson at some point in time.
A discography of another musician working on the game, Cirocco (appearing as 'Scirocco' in the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 credits), lists a song 'The Water' as being composed by Michael Jackson and belonging to Sonic The Hedgehog. [1]
Although uncredited in the game, it is assumed he composed many well known tracks in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. This was revealed in a recent interview with Roger Hector conducted by hxc, who was the General Manager of the SEGA Technical Institute for many years:
- Q: Which of those was your favorite project?
- Roger Hector: Sonic 3 (also called Sonic & Knuckles) was a lot of fun, but it was also very difficult. Michael Jackson was originally brought in to compose all the music for the game, but at the very end, his work was dropped after his scandals became public. This caused a lot of problems and required a lot of reworking. But the game turned out great in the end.
However in a documentary created by Qjimbo back in 2006, a theory was put forward that his work from the game wasn't actually dropped, as much of the music featured in Sonic 3 has cropped up elsewhere:
- Smooth Criminal: Although not present on the version that appears on Bad, there is a section of this song in the nine-minute music video that appears during the "Moonwalker" movie which is almost unarguably identical to Ice Cap Zone Act 1. Roughly six minutes into the song, following the bass solo after the quiet orchestral section (as Jackson and the gangsters perform the Lean), the bassline and string section clearly changes to a piece of music identical to Ice Cap Zone. After the main bassline returns, a keyboard continues to play the Ice Cap chord sequence until the end of the song.
- Jam: The similarities between this track and Carnival Night Zone (both acts) were spotted by Ben2k9 before it was even known that Michael Jackson worked on the music for Sonic 3. The tracks themselves aren't very similar, but there is a horn-based "downwards fall" (played directly before Michael Jordan's rap in the Jackson song) that also appears during Carnival Night. Carnival Night also uses a small sample taken from "Jam" (the sound of breaking glass).
- Who Is It: The keyboard section under the chorus, when sped up, has an almost identical chord structure and texture to that of Ice Cap Zone (particularly Act 1). This was first noticed by Dioxaz.
- Stranger In Moscow: The most obviously Sonic-connected Jackson song. The synth/strings section, as heard in the intro before the lyrics start, is identical to the sequence that plays during the first section of the ending theme to Sonic 3. It should be noted that both MJ and Dreams Come True (whose band member Masato Nakamura help composed music for Sonic 1 and Sonic 2) decided to use ending music elsewhere, or vice versa. This was discovered by Shade.
It makes sense to assume then that in the PC game Sonic & Knuckles Collection, the music tracks that are replaced are the ones written by Michael Jackson.