Ice Cap Zone BEFORE Ice Cap Zone (song origin FINALLY REVEALED!)

[Sir_NutS]

Well that's a nice find, but there goes my Idea of doing an 80s electronica remix of ice cap.

Loving the original though.

[Jamphibious]

I'm confused, the upload date for the video says 2009 so why do we only know about this now?

Forgive me if I am a noob.

*EDIT - NEVERMIND I read the article. Still weird that it took this long for us to notice!

Sick song regardless!

[ocre]

At

it starts to sound like (most obviously at 1:47) it starts to sound like

(0:30). I wouldn't be surprised if there are other tracks out that that Sonic 3 lifts directly from as well. Edited November 14, 2013 by ocre

[DarkeSword]

At

it starts to sound like (most obviously at 1:47) it starts to sound like

(0:30). I wouldn't be surprised if there are other tracks out that that Sonic 3 lifts directly from as well.

That's a huge stretch. I wouldn't read too much into it. Hard Times is pretty much just Ice Cap Zone before before being transferred to the Genesis/MD sound chip.

[MusicianZG]

What an awesome find man! Good job!

[Garrett Williamson]

At

it starts to sound like (most obviously at 1:47) it starts to sound like

(0:30). I wouldn't be surprised if there are other tracks out that that Sonic 3 lifts directly from as well.

lol dood.

this song is the spitting image of Ice Cap Zone.

we don't need to try and think about ANOTHER song it could be connecting to.

this is it dood.

this is it.

[ocre]

Uh, I can hear it but okay.

[SystemsReady]

Wow, that's an amazing find! I always thought the Icecap theme sounded like Jackson's Smooth Criminal myself (the bassline is very, very close)...

...now, the question is, what are the Carnival Night and Launch Base themes based off of? They got taken out and replaced in the PC port, too!

[Scaredsim]

This is incredible ! It's totally Ice Cap.

[DiGi Valentine]

I'm confused, the upload date for the video says 2009 so why do we only know about this now? Still weird that it took this long for us to notice!

It's not as strange as you might think.

The way i try to see it is this:

A short lived band from the 80's had a tune that was unreleased to anybody until just 4 years ago. This band had fans few and far between, so what were the chances that one of those fans also happened to have played Sonic 3 and known what Ice Cap sounded like? The answer seems to be zero, because none of them noticed when the unreleased track hit YouTube. Instead, this track was found by GeneHF over at Sonic Retro, who must have specifically gone searching for Brad Buxer related articles and then just happened to come across this video due to Brad being the bands keyboardist at the time that Hard Times was recorded.

If you ask me, i think we're lucky this was ever found at all. XD

[DarkeSword]

i hate when these remixers put VOCALS on VIDEO GAME MUSIC

[José the Bronx Rican]

Another interesting question:

What are the exact songwriting credits on the original "Hard Times"?

If we check the notes on the "Complete Jetzons" compilation, will we find only Brad Buxer, or were there other people involved? I saw Bruce Connole listed as a writer for the band along with Buxer, but nothing on indiv. tracks.

[DiGi Valentine]

Another interesting question:

What are the exact songwriting credits on the original "Hard Times"?

If we check the notes on the "Complete Jetzons" compilation, will we find only Brad Buxer, or were there other people involved?

It seems to be just Bruce and Brad.

For pretty much all of The Jetzons released work the only names listed as writers seem to be the two main guys.

Some of the videos posted by Fervor Music on youtube displays the image of the LP it came from, and on those images Connole and Buxer are the only names appearing on it.

I'm hazarding a guess but i'm going to say Buxer was the only person responsible for writing Hard Times. It would explain how the song in its entirety made its way to MJ when he was working on Sonic 3. Not sure if the whole track would have been given to MJ had Connole been connected to writing it ...unless Connole had given permission for Buxer to take it over.

But just a guess, as i said. I could be totally wrong here.

[Chernabogue]

.

This is fantastic.

[Antonio Pizza]

Impressive. That mashup makes it better. It took 19 years to become public knowledge.

Is there a reason Buxer would've kept it quiet so long?

Wow, that's an amazing find! I always thought the Icecap theme sounded like Jackson's Smooth Criminal myself (the bassline is very, very close)...

...now, the question is, what are the Carnival Night and Launch Base themes based off of? They got taken out and replaced in the PC port, too!

Carnival Night = "March of the Gladiators" + "Jam".

[Garrett Williamson]

Carnival Night = "March of the Gladiators" + "Jam".

yeah I think it's safe to say the horn arrangement on "Jam" compared to the synth brass on "Carnival Night Zone" are ridiculously similar.

[DiGi Valentine]

Is there a reason Buxer would've kept it quiet so long?

Yeah, there is actually.

To put it in a nutshell, he's never played the game nor heard the soundtrack so he doesn't know what was used or what was not.

Let me just grab a link to the interview. Here you go.

Scroll down until you see the yellow Sonic 3 writing, and read that section.

..

...man, i would really love to talk to Buxer. Have an interview with him or something. Sit him down and play him the Sonic 3 soundtrack just to see if he recognises anything else in there.

I've tried looking for him on social networks but to no avail

If anybody finds this guy online, let me know.

Also. Just another neat little bit of info regarding things being sampled.

The Minor Boss music in Sonic 3, the voice that yells

That was sampled from the beginning of a Robe Base & DJ E-Z Rock track 'Joy & Pain'

Lol, literally lifted the vocal straight out from that track and threw it in to Sonic 3! XD

Edited November 15, 2013 by DiGi Valentine

[Garrett Williamson]

Also. Just another neat little bit of info regarding things being sampled.

The Minor Boss music in Sonic 3, the voice that yells

That was sampled from the beginning of a Robe Base & DJ E-Z Rock track 'Joy & Pain'

Lol, literally lifted the vocal straight out from that track and threw it in to Sonic 3! XD

holy crap.

that's hilarious, honestly.

[Moseph]

Another interesting question:

What are the exact songwriting credits on the original "Hard Times"?

If we check the notes on the "Complete Jetzons" compilation, will we find only Brad Buxer, or were there other people involved? I saw Bruce Connole listed as a writer for the band along with Buxer, but nothing on indiv. tracks.

The BMI registration for Hard Times lists only Bruce Connole as writer/composer. It's unlikely to be an error since Buxer is listed as cowriter on a couple of the other Jetzons songs.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Moseph

[José the Bronx Rican]

...man, i would really love to talk to Buxer. Have an interview with him or something. Sit him down and play him the Sonic 3 soundtrack just to see if he recognises anything else in there.

I've tried looking for him on social networks but to no avail

If anybody finds this guy online, let me know.

I'm sure we all realize maybe a quarter of the entire Internet VGM fanbase has been looking for him before this revelation. Now? Maybe all of it. He likely wants to be let alone until he's either a) ready or legally authorized.

[DiGi Valentine]

The BMI registration for Hard Times lists only Bruce Connole as writer/composer.

o_O woah! Now that is interesting. Thanks for providing that info. I'm pretty sure that if Buxer himself had been involved in writing Hard Times it would be credited and listed accordingly. I guess it must mean Buxer had access to all of the unreleased material from The Jetzons whether he wrote any of it or not. I can't figure out how else MJ would have wound up with it all otherwise.

Anyways, thanks for digging that up! Great work. (i didn't even think to check BMI's registrations, lol).

He likely wants to be let alone until he's either a) ready or legally authorized.

Yeah, i would imagine it's probably the former option. He always seemed to prefer being the background guy out of the lime light, never doing many interviews, even way back in the day when MJ was in his prime and doing loads of interviews. I guess if he wasn't allowed to talk about it he wouldn't have answered the questions relating to MJ's involvement with Sonic 3 in that interview a few years ago.

I know after MJ passed away, Buxer did pop up and do a few interviews like the one i've been mentioning. And about a year ago he and Michael Prince (another person who used to work with MJ) were talking about trying to release some of MJ's material though i don't think it came to pass.

There's a tweet that Mr. Prince had posted about it, showing Buxer and himself.

Aside from that, Brad seems to have gone off the radar again.

But all's fair. If he doesn't want to be found it's probably for a good reason.

I'll still be on the look out for him, regardless. If he pops up again i'll let you cool cats know~

Edited November 15, 2013 by DiGi Valentine

[Kaleb.G]

The BMI registration for Hard Times lists only Bruce Connole as writer/composer. It's unlikely to be an error since Buxer is listed as cowriter on a couple of the other Jetzons songs.

Though at the same time, it's possible Brad still worked on the track and simply wasn't credited. From the interview posted ealier in this thread:

Black & White: Did that not bother you that Michael did not include it in the song credits as co-composer?

Brad Buxer: No. I did not ask to be. When you have the opportunity to work with such a musical genius, be credited or not, it does not really matter. I had a great opportunity to working with Michael all these years. I'm probably the musician with whom he worked most of his career. I was a musician and arranger from 1989 until 2006. It shows how we were on stage, him and me ...

I know this isn't MJ we're talking about but maybe he's not big on being credited?

[Moseph]

Though at the same time, it's possible Brad still worked on the track and simply wasn't credited. From the interview posted ealier in this thread:

I know this isn't MJ we're talking about but maybe he's not big on being credited?

Could be. Bands sometimes have strange ways of dividing writer credits on their music for PRO registration purposes that don't actually reflect the real authorship. (Like I know it's pretty common that a band will just mutually agree to credit all the band members on all songs regardless of whether they helped write them or not.) My guess would be that this isn't the case here, since Buxer is actually credited on a couple of the Jetzons songs, which suggests that someone was keeping track of what he was and wasn't involved in. Though if he is actually that hands-off about requesting writer credit, it could be that he just didn't monitor what was going on with the BMI registrations because -- especially for unreleased tracks -- he just didn't care that much.