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Free to use and they work as both! (icons won’t be animated tho) Credit isn’t necessary, but appreciated. Reblog/Like if used ♥

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for @caesariessongbless! 

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The Calm Lands. Long ago, the high summoners fought Sin here. The road ends here. Beyond, there’re no towns, no villages. Only endless plains.

cactuarqueen plays ffx (47/?)

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Sonic 3 & Knuckles - The Jackson Soundtrack

I wish I could’ve continued the Games Done Quick theme for this month, but sadly I’ve run into a bit of a roadblock; I can’t find anything substantial about any of the three Sonic games they did play (Lost World might have something, but it’s too early to make much sense of it). So we’ll be calling that series done here, but I feel like Sonic is a quick enough guy that he fits anyway.

A while back now, before I started this blog, somebody asked me whether there was any interesting cut content about music. And my instinctive answer was no, because video game music is supplementary by nature; it’s rarely, if ever, the focus. It can spark or assist in a search, as people will notice a conspicuously unused part of the soundtrack, but it itself will never be the focus.

But my instinctive answer was wrong, because there is one hell of a cut content story revolving around music.

So what is it?

An early version of the Sonic 3 & Knuckles soundtrack worked on by the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson. In 1993 he wasn’t quite at the height of his popularity anymore, but he was certainly still a strong performer and name; this was only a couple years after he guest-starred on The Simpsons, back when that was an exceptional thing to see.

We don’t know how many tracks he would have provided. It’s doubtful he would have composed the whole thing, since Sega had other composers anyway and I would assume getting Michael Jackson to compose your entire game would be expensive. But it was also probably more than one.

Initial Discovery

It’s hard to say. It was either a known fact early on–or at least a commonplace rumor–that Jackson had composed music for Sonic 3, enough that it had to have come from somewhere, most likely a magazine article given the time. But the best I can find before the fact is a piece from EGM talking about Sega giving Jackson a private early play of Sonic 2 when he was in Japan for a tour.

It seems a strange combination, but as the clipping notes, Jackson did collaborate with Sega on the game Moonwalker. And that relationship didn’t lapse, either; Jackson also had a cameo appearance far later, in the Space Channel 5 series.

Regardless of when we found out, it had become common knowledge among the fanbase a few years after the game had been released. Jackson’s name wasn’t in the credits, but a few musicians that were are known to be people who worked with him, such as keyboardist and composer Brad Buxer. Given that Jackson was even credited in his Simpsons appearance (admittedly under a fake name), the absence clearly indicates that something happened to make him leave the project, and likely take his work with him.

Why was it cut?

The most likely and consistent story appears to be technical limitations. This reason, too, is something that had been floating around in the aether for some time, but eventually did get confirmed in 2009, along with Jackson’s actual involvement, when a French magazine called Black and White interviewed Buxer. The quote was found by a user named ‘dma’ from VGMdb, and the important part to us is this:

B&W: Can you clarify the rumor that Michael had in 1993 composed the music for Sonic 3 video game, for which you have been credited?

Buxer: I’ve never played the game so I do not know what tracks on which Michael and I have worked the developers have kept, but we did compose music for the game. Michael called me at the time for help on this project, and that’s what I did. And if he is not credited for composing the music, it’s because he was not happy with the result sound coming out of the console. At the time, game consoles did not allow an optimal sound reproduction, and Michael found it frustrating. He did not want to be associated with a product that devalued his music…

I think the reason this explanation had been floating around for so long is that it’s very true, especially of the Genesis. Even for its time, the Genesis soundchip that Jackson would have been working with was lackluster and obtuse; I don’t really understand musical technology, but I remember being told a number of years ago that Genesis sound hardware was more like a synthesizer than traditional recording and playback. This meant that it required a certain skill to get good music out of it, and that even if you did it was never going to sound like real instruments. It’s certainly not a surprise to hear that someone like Jackson would have had trouble with this.

One thing I should say is definitely NOT responsible, are the child molestation allegations. That’s a common scapegoat to point to, but much like the Fire Temple and Darkel that we looked at earlier this month, the timeline just doesn’t hold out. Those allegations came in several months after the release of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, well after the credits came out without his name.

Can we play it?

If we can, then we might have been listening to it this whole time. Over the years, people have noticed resemblances between S3&K’s soundtrack and some of Michael Jackson’s later songs. The first connection was drawn before Jackson’s involvement was even confirmed, as somebody realized that the song Jam included a sequence of notes identical to part of Carnival Night Zone.

While this could have been coincidence, others found other connections between some other tracks, like the credits theme and Stranger In Moscow. A lot of this is easily deniable without further evidence, though.

Fortunately, we have further evidence. The Sonic & Knuckles Collection on PC, released in 1997, conspicuously removed only a few tracks, replacing them with new music. Many of them were suspicious ones, too; Carnival Night, the credits theme, Knuckles’ theme (which shares samples with Blood on the Dance Floor), as well as some others like Ice Cap and Launch Base. So these, perhaps, were tracks Jackson and his people worked on, but we still had no proof of this.

Until just a few years ago. At some point in late 2013 or early 2014 (I know it was a couple of months after Pop Fiction studied this for an episode, unfortunately finding no new information), this surfaced among the fanbase. I don’t know who found it, I don’t know how they reached it, and I don’t know where they spread it, but somehow, we got this:

An unreleased track from 1982, by Brad Buxer’s old band The Jetzons. Its resemblance to Ice Cap is uncanny, and with that, suddenly our suspicions were resolved. The tracks removed from the PC edition were the ones worked on by Jackson and his people, and were likely removed because of rights issues after they started adapting some of their ideas into later-released songs.

Legacy

Jackson and co.’s work wasn’t cut, really. Those editions were removed from one version of the game, but not from even later stuff like the Sonic Mega Collection, or the Steam releases. Hell, it’s harder to find the replacement tracks at this point (although you still can).

I think the idea and the mystery of Jackson’s influence was more interesting than the truth of things. If there really were songs he composed for S3&K, but weren’t used? That’s beyond this blog, that’s a lost Michael Jackson album. The sort of thing we look at here, in an entirely different medium, and with one hell of a name on it. It’s almost anticlimactic that he and his people turned out to be responsible for the music we actually got and love, it means there’s no treasure to search for.

…Well, except for Hard Times. That’s a pretty good gem to unearth.

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Love playing Splatoon! It’s a great game for people who can’t really play shooters like me.

EB and I will be selling this print at SMASH! this year. Can’t wait!

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K A N N A ♂ || for nohrdragonprince

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13 Days of the 3DS (Day 3/13)Best Adventure Game: Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

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LATE NIGHT TILE WALLPAPERS this time featuring a few of my favorite water types.

uhh it’s not the greatest, but go ahead and use it if you like!

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※ Permission to upload this work was granted by the artist.

エリーゼちゃん。 by 甘ガエル２

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Angel Sandwich

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Bravely Default - Phone Backgrounds - Requested by anonymous

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無題 by ゲB

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Grown-up Misty ♥

https://www.patreon.com/dandonfuga

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Bayonetta doodle.