Brad Buxer, a keyboardist who worked with Michael Jackson, recently answered a query about the King of Pop's involvement in the soundtrack to Sega game Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which has many oddly Jacksonian flourishes.
With 'Stranger in Moscow'… [Michael Jackson] calls me at 10:30 in the morning. I go knock on his door and I had under my arm a cassette player — I'd been doing all the SEGA Sonic the Hedgehog cues because the way Michael works is, he'll tell SEGA he'll do it and then he says "Brad, you do it." Right? So I think we did one cue together with Michael. One. And the rest I had to do 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" and he said, "No, just play something." And I played the verse for 'Stranger in Moscow' and then I came up with the chorus on the spot and he loved it. So in an hour and a half 'Stranger in Moscow' was written.
The short of it seems to be that Jackson took on the job but was unhappy with the quality of the game console's instrumentation and Buxer did most of the execution. Sega, moreover, was unhappy with the child abuse allegations. So there no credit for any of the work done and no precise way to unravel what elements of the soundtrack were Jackson and/or Buxer's work.
We know about it because Jackson and Buxer recycled music elements from the Sonic project for his HIStory album, most obviously Stranger in Moscow.
Superimposed:
