Michael Jackson Involvement with Sonic 3

File:Michael jackson.jpg

Michael Jackson with Sonic the Hedgehog.

Michael Jackson (born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana, USA) is an American musician. In the Sonic community, Jackson is most renowned for his alleged involvement in composing Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog 3 soundtrack in 1993. He also worked with Sega in co-producing a number of games named Michael Jackson's Moonwalker.

Sonic 3 Soundtrack Involvement

In 1993, Jackson and his team of his musicians were to be involved in composing Sonic the Hedgehog 3's soundtrack. However, due to child molestation accusations occurring at the same time, Sega discontinued their plan with Jackson to compose the game's music. 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. These same people have also 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 "levels 2 & 3" as being composed by Michael Jackson and belonging to "Sonic The Hedgehog." [1] This "levels 2 & 3" may be referring to Hydrocity Zone and Marble Garden Zone, respectively.

Although uncredited in the game, it is believed 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:

A recent interview was conducted by HXC with Roger Hector, the Executive Coordinator for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and General Manager of the SEGA Technical Institute for a number of years. In this interview, Hector reveals some information about Jackson's involvement in composing the game's soundtrack:

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.

This statement reveals that a soundtrack was indeed composed by Jackson for Sonic 3, but, according to Hector, was dropped from the game (whether complete or not at the time) due to his child abuse allegations.

However, in a 2006 documentary by Qjimbo, a theory was developed stating that Jackson's work was not completely removed from the game. Similarities between some tracks in the final Sonic 3 and Jackson's own work outside of Sega were evidence for this claim.

• 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.

The PC remake Sonic & Knuckles Collection featured replaced tracks for Carnival Night Zone, Ice Cap Zone, Launch Base Zone, the Knuckles Theme of Sonic 3, and the Sonic 3 credits music. It is believed that the original tracks may have been composed by Jackson, and were removed in this remake due to legal reasons.