Music Brad Buxer Reveals New Details of Sonic 3 Soundtrack's Development

[Dreadknux]

The mystery surrounding Sonic the Hedgehog 3's soundtrack - and Michael Jackson's involvement - has once again been thrown into the air thanks to a recent interview with Sonic 3 co-composer and Jackson's longtime collaborator Brad Buxer.

Buxer spoke to Abbey Road Institute in Paris back in May and talked about his professional relationship with Michael Jackson. As part of that topic, he uses a Sonic 3 anecdote to illustrate how a lot of the work attributed to Jackson was developed by Buxer instead - what Buxer calls the 'blank slate' approach to their collaborations.

The musician has previously been on record to state that Michael Jackson's work was included within the Sonic 3 cartridge - work that has long rumoured to be the main blocker in SEGA re-releasing the 1993 Mega Drive classic since the pop megastar's death in 2009. However this interview seems to be the strongest indicator yet of the pop megastar's involvement in the classic Mega Drive title.

"[We had] the most harmonious musical relationship you could ever imagine," Buxer says, before recalling an anecdote about the origins of the song Stranger in Moscow which involved a cassette tape of the entire Sonic 3 soundtrack.

Quote

"With Stranger in Moscow... [Michael and I] were in Moscow performing... I knock on his door and I had under my arm a cassette player. I'd been doing all the SEGA Sonic the Hedgehog [Sonic 3] cues... the way Michael works, is that he tells SEGA that he'll do it [the soundtrack], and then he says [to me], 'Brad, you do it,' right?"

"I think we did one cue [for Sonic 3] with Michael together - one. The rest I had to do it myself. So I had the cassette on me - I had 41 cues done - and I said 'I'm sure you want to hear this Sonic the Hedgehog [music]' and he said 'No, just play something.'"

Sonic 3's soundtrack has been a topic of huge debate for decades due to the well-known secret that Michael Jackson - arguably the biggest music star on the planet, especially in the 1990s - had some hand in its development. SEGA has never publicly confirmed or denied Jackson's involvement.

Buxer's comments also come close to the release of Sonic Origins, a compilation release on modern consoles that includes a re-release of Sonic 3 & Knuckles for the first time since 2009. SEGA has also been keeping very quiet about the nature of the soundtrack included in this release - whether Buxer's compositions (largely attributed to Ice Cap, Launch Base and Carnival Night Zones) remain, or if they have been replaced.

The Michael Jackson song 'Stranger in Moscow' is also interesting in this context because it is also heavily linked with the development of Sonic 3 thanks to the similar sound of the game's end credits theme. It would make sense that the song could have been born from an evolution of the Sonic 3 credits music, but Buxer does not make this connection in the interview.

"I started playing the verse for Stranger in Moscow, and then I came up with the chorus on the spot," he said. "Michael fell in love with it... and in an hour and a half Stranger in Moscow was [written]. [Michael] had nothing in mind for that - nothing." He says that this was an example of the 'blank slate' method of working that he often applied when collaborating with the pop star.

The above video is the meaty bit but the whole interview is on Abbey Road Institute's YouTube channel.

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[Your Vest Friend]

Gotta pick some holes in the links to Origins.

1. It was uploaded in May. The interview was actually in April.

2. I've dug a little further, and I'm pretty sure it's part of a series of events tying into the anniversary of Michael Jackson's death, which was June 25th. Here's some stuff on it.

It's certainly interesting, but I think it's largely coincidental in its timing just due to the fact that MJ's death was around the same time.

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Megasis

I would LOVE to hear the raw audio that was on that cassette tape.

[ZERO_ninja]

It's a little disheartening to learn MJ was actually that disinterested and uninvolved personally in the writing for it, but it really cool to finally find this out all these years later and get clarity.

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Mac

On 6/9/2022 at 12:36 AM, Megasis said:

I would LOVE to hear the raw audio that was on that cassette tape.

Love the backhanded compliment. Working with Michael was great - but I did all the work!

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Fenriraga

After so many damn years, we finally get a proper answer, goodness!

So Jackson more or less dumped the work on Buxer... Yeah, that checks out :V Also likely a safe assumption that the credits theme was the one track he had slightly more involvement in. Might also explain why the credits theme was absent in 3&K specifically.

Really do hope his willingness to talk about it does mean Origins gets to keep the default tracks. Here's to hoping.

[TSS Classic Comment Bot]

Posted By: Ben

Not surprising, but it doesn't check out with the guy from SEGA who said he had the tapes of Michael beatboxing the Sonic demo tracks. You can also hear MJ beatbox on Strange in Moscow.

[The-Master-Board]

Pretty lame. This is why you buy or demand physical games. Digital is bs.

[expansivelovestories]

it is amazing that Hard Times fit with the graphical style and mood of Ice Cap!!  and of course that he recognized it somehow. 

The Act 2 mixes with all of that use of empty space are interesting in Sonic 3 specifically because they never felt lacking, it made those second acts feel larger and more important somehow!!  That being said @Sean posted a link to these custom mixes which i have never heard and they bring the Act 2 style of the rest of Sonic 3K to Brad's three compositions and they are quite wonderful!!