Michael Jackson Involvement with Sonic 3
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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.
Contents
Sonic 3 Soundtrack Involvement
"His work was dropped"
In September of 2005, an 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. When asked about his favorite project:
| “ | 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. | „ |
| — Roger Hector, General Manager of the SEGA Technical Institute | ||
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 molestation allegations. Before this interview, there was little thought of Jackson being involved in Sonic 3, but after, more information was revealed about Sega's plan with Jackson to compose the game's music.
Howard Drossin, a composer for a number of Sega games, would complete the soundtrack that is now used in Sonic 3. Brad Buxer, Doug Grisby III, Bobby Brooks, Darryl Ross and Geoff Grace also lent their work to Sonic 3's soundtrack. Interestingly, these same people have also worked with Michael Jackson at some point in their careers.
Evidence for his involvement
While Hector stated that Jackson's soundtrack was removed from Sonic 3 upon child molestation allegations, it is believed that Jackson had some kind of influence on what would become the final Sonic 3 soundtrack.
Audio similarities
In a 2006 documentary by Qjimbo, a theory was developed stating that Jackson's work was not completely removed after all. Similarities between some tracks in the final Sonic 3 and Jackson's own work outside of Sega were evidence for this claim.
"Smooth Criminal", "Who Is It", & IceCap Zone Act 1
A good portion of Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" has a chord structure similar to that of IceCap Zone Act 1. This is especially noticeable in the version that plays in the "Moonwalker" movie, which isn't found on the Bad album. 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 very similar to IceCap Zone. After the main bassline returns, a keyboard continues to play the IceCap chord sequence until the end of the song. This was first noticed by Shade.
Jackson's "Who Is It" is also very similar to both "Smooth Criminal" and IceCap Zone Act 1. The keyboard section under the chorus, when sped up, has an almost identical chord structure and texture to that of IceCap Zone Act 1. This was first noticed by Dioxaz.
| "Smooth Criminal" | "Who Is It" | IceCap Zone Act 1 | "Smooth Criminal" & IceCap Zone Act 1 |
"Who Is It" & IceCap Zone Act 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| <mp3>Michael Jackson Smooth Criminal.mp3</mp3> | <mp3>Michael Jackson Who Is It.mp3</mp3> | <mp3>IceCap Zone Act 1 sample.mp3</mp3> | <mp3>IceCap and Smooth Criminal mix.mp3</mp3> | <mp3>IceCap and Who Is It mix.mp3</mp3> |
| Chord progression: (Am, G, F, G, Am, G, F, E) x4 | Chord progression: (Dm, Am7, Dm, Am7, Dm, Am7, Gm7, Am7) x2 | Chord progression: (Cm, Bb, Ab, Gm7, Cm, Eb, Bb) x4 | Left: "Smooth Criminal", transposed up from A to C, tempo increased 17.5% Right: IceCap Zone Act 1 |
Left: "Who Is It", transposed down from D to C, tempo increased 35% Right: IceCap Zone Act 1 |
"Jam" & Carnival Night Zone
The similarities between Jam 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).
| "Jam" | Carnival Night Zone Act 1 | "Jam" & Carnival Night Zone Act 1 |
|---|---|---|
| <mp3>Michael Jackson Jam excerpt.mp3</mp3> | <mp3>Carnival Night Zone Act 1 sample.mp3</mp3> | <mp3>Carnival Night Zone and Jam mix.mp3</mp3> |
"Stranger in Moscow" & Sonic 3 Credits
Stranger In Moscow is one of Jackson's songs that sounds most remarkably similar to a Sonic 3 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.
Sound Effects
Cirocco discography
A discography of another musician working on the game, Cirocco (appearing as 'Scirocco' in the Sonic 3 credits), lists a "levels 2 & 3" as being composed by Michael Jackson and belonging to "Sonic The Hedgehog." [1] This "levels 2 & 3" could be referring to Hydrocity Zone and Marble Garden Zone, respectively. However, this may be referring to work that had been composed, but already removed from the game.
Unable to credit Jackson
Even if Jackson's work was used in Sonic 3, there was a possibility his name could not appear in the credits due to contractual complications. In 1991, Jackson guest starred in an episode in the third season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. Jackson was credited as John Jay Smith, a person that does not exist. Lisa refers to Jackson's work in a season four episode when talking about an Itchy and Scratchy movie: "And you wouldn't believe the celebrities who did cameos. Dustin Hoffman, Michael Jackson...of course they didn't use their real names, but you could tell it was them." If he could not be credited for his work in The Simpsons, then his work in Sonic 3 may also have been uncredited if it was included in the final game. This was discovered by XCubed³.
Removed tracks in PC version
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. One theory behind the reason for replacing these tracks is that the original tracks may have been composed by Jackson, and were removed in this remake due to legal reasons.