Michael Jackson's Moonwalker - Thriller OST Genesis / MD [Prototype]

A KZbinr named Brian the Hedgehog found a prototype version of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker on Megadrive, which contains the original Thriller music (replaced by "Another part of me" on the released version):
/ @brianthehedgehog3665
Sadly, it hasn't been dumped yet. Plus, his footage has been recorded with a crappy capture card. Therefore, I've decided to clean up and restore the audio in order to create this 9 mins loop of this music removed from the final version.
Enjoy!

[@DMan_-mb7dn]

I'm here from the avgn I wanted to know what it sounds like

[@ben_retzer]

Same

[@sheik124]

Me three

[@dumbest1204]

Me four

[@dyadiel07]

Same

[@Cton9573]

@@dyadiel07 Me seventh

[@BrandyBrandalia]

I knew I wasn't crazy. I remember years ago I was telling people I knew for a fact that Thriller was in this game, but people thought I was lying. Now I know. Wish I knew that it was a rare copy.

[@dovleerre3696]

yep appears in the graveyard level

[@Moonwalker86]

Can we find Genesis rom copy with this song ?

[@DangerousMoonwalkerOfficial]

Hey while using the spin attack during the graveyard levels press and hold the attack button just trust me 🧟🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️🧟🧟‍♂️🧑🏾‍🦱🧟‍♂️🧟🧟‍♀️🧟🧟‍♂️

[@wafflelink4806]

Holy sh*t i had one i just stumbled upon this i thought it happened to everyone

[@matthewrease2376]

But this is from a prototype ROM, not a retail copy...

[@redstreak9430]

0:12 I love how one zombie jumped into the grave to start dancing.

[@guilhermehank4938]

Spoopy

[@MTX777]

Hey hey i need help. in mj moonwalker game when i change settings so how to save settings

[@lighttvgaming4989]

This is really damn good, how couldn’t they use this

[@everythingyoucantouchandse6786]

either rights issues or the fact that it wasnt from the "bad" album, which all of the other songs were

[@oskarrandall]

@@everythingyoucantouchandse6786 Neither were Beat It or Billie Jean

[@carsisbest]

While Thriller is a Michael Jackson song, but the writer Rod Temperton was the real man behind this iconic song

[@KaneRobot]

@@everythingyoucantouchandse6786 lol, yeah, I loved Billie Jean and Beat It when they were on Bad 🙄

[@ChungusKhann]

RIghts issue. MJ performed the song but it was written by Rod Temperton so they couldn't use it in the final version. They made the song for the game, realized that this was the case and removed the song before the game was released after finding out... only to forget removing it completely as you can still hear it in the earliest versions of the game when you get the boss dance lol.

[@halfmedia64]

Thank you. I'd love to learn how to clean up tracks like this some day.

[@matthewrease2376]

I assume the tracks are instructions for the music chip as opposed to sound samples, so assembly knowledge may be required.

[@jdudeman5043]

EXACTLY what I was looking for, soon as I heard this stage’s soundtrack was still out there - the experience of seeing them both together. Thanks, good work, it’s good quality!

[@utterdisaster603]

I’m so grateful I own a copy with this song

[@64ios]

YES. Thank you!!

[@GreyDaPone]

Hello! I love the Sonic mod among us!

[@chrism1518]

I wonder if someone will go through the effort of making a ROM hack that has Thriller?

[@blueyosh43]

There's at least 2 I'm aware of.

[@joecool97]

Wow! Thriller is one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs! A+

[@megamayo2500]

I thought this was a myth.

[@GenGamesUniverse]

Nope, this actually is on the first carts that came out. IF you got one that was after a certain date, it had Thriller replaced with Billie Jean as Thriller was not created by Jackson.

[@KainZeuxis]

My cart had thriller on it but it only plays during the dance supper move

[@sebastiann.8088]

@@GenGamesUniverse It wasn't replace by Billie Jean lol it was replaced with Another Part of Me.

[@sebastiann.8088]

@@GenGamesUniverse And the Moonwalker prototype was the ONLY version to have the full Thriller Music. The one that came in the first productions only had thriller as a dance theme. How do you not know this???

[@nahuelborda5290]

@@sebastiann.8088 calmate un toque flaco

[@Turrrtle]

You beat me to it, nice work. Also, I love how you added footage of the game, very appreciated:)

[@Vaisin]

As much as I have always loved the Thriller song (one of my favourite MJ songs non-written by MJ) and think it may have been more fitting for the graveyard level, I can't help but be happy with the decision to include Another Part of Me, since it is actually one of my favourite songs of all time, and I do like it more than Thriller.

[@The_Cozy_Couch]

Amazing work! Thanks!

[@Doommaster1994]

I have a couple theories as to why this wasn't in the final game: 1.) It got removed due to Sega not being able to get the rights to the song. 2.) They only put it in later copies due to them finally getting the rights. Though the first scenario sounds more likely, seeing that the song is used in the prototype.

[@GenGamesUniverse]

Revision 0 has Thriller. Every other Revision does not, it replaces Thriller with Billie Jean. This is because Michael did NOT write Thriller, someone else did.

[@Doommaster1994]

@@GenGamesUniverse The game's sound designer told me that during development of the game, they were notified by Sega of America that the song wasn't Jackson's and were forced to remove it.

[@PauwerFurry]

The Yamaha should chip was so perfect for this song, the fact they couldn’t include it is a huge bummer.

[@subg9165]

yeah, a lot of 80s music with synth stuff used the yamaha dx7, and the mega drives sound chip is closely related to the one in the dx7 iirc

[@GTV-Japan]

very cool and I love the effort put into the editing! great!!!

[@TheRetroMike]

Thanks. It's funny 'cause I didn't put a lot of effort for the video editing. I've mostly worked on the audio in order to improve the overall quality (which was very poor).

[@GTV-Japan]

TheRetroMike but still better than a static screen. Maybe next you could add the vocal track. That bass line sounds sooooo much like the real song

[@scboy2003]

a shame this track was never used in final :(

[@Electricdynamite]

Super impressive clean up.

[@nyodesu]

I wonder why they replaced it? Seems strange that the developers got the rights to Michael Jackson and some of his hits at the time. BUT NOT THIS? At least we know it exists now! 🤷‍♂️

[@miloyoungblood7122]

It's still on a few copies of the game. The reason it doesn't exist on all of them is because of rights issues. It's strange, but rare copies do have the song.

[@ratix98]

@@miloyoungblood7122 I thought the copies were a certain revision of the game and it only played thriller when you made the zombies dance with your magic. It didn't play the whole song.

[@Tempora158]

"Thriller" was written by Rod Temperton, not Michael Jackson. Sega made the same mistake you made and naively assumed Michael Jackson owns every song he sang, but he doesn't own "Thriller", Rod Temperton does. Instead of negotiating yet another contract to pay yet another person (i.e. Temperton) just to get this one song into the game, Sega swapped "Thriller" out for "Another Part of Me" because this song actually was written and owned by Michael Jackson, just like the rest of the MJ songs that made it into the game, which includes songs that has nothing to do with the Monnwalker movie like "Beat It".

[@nyodesu]

@@Tempora158 It'd be nice if they gave proper credit to the writer then. Spotify's version still labels it as JUST Michael Jackson. It makes sense though, can't use a song you didn't make.

[@Tempora158]

@@nyodesu Spotify only list the performer(s) on the playlist, which is why it's only MJ's name. You need to click on the song's "Credits" and you will see Spotify has "Written by Rod Temperton", so Temperton is properly credited by Spotify. AFAIK, MJ never bought the song from Temperton (the way MJ bought the entire Beatle's songs catalog) and Temperton would be crazy to sell the song for a lump sum.

[@GreyDaPone]

Yes! I love thriller songs!

[@Oysterblade84]

Well there is now an IPS patch on Romhacking.net that you can download where you can replace ''Another Part Of Me'' with ''Thriller'' in the released version.

[@ym2612girl]

Well there's a rom floating online that has thriller, and has better drums than that ips.

[@Oysterblade84]

@@ym2612girl Which drums? Shinobi III? If so, then that's the same one i'm talking about.

[@ym2612girl]

@@Oysterblade84 No, I mean one with the moonwalker drums that sound better than the ones that rom hack used.

[@Oysterblade84]

@@ym2612girl Shinobi III and Moonwalker share the same drum kit.

[@ym2612girl]

@@Oysterblade84 oh, they do?

[@shamahvisuals]

I wasn’t the biggest fan of thriller but the Genesis version sounds great.

[@geethamadhuri4.033]

Awesome awesome 😊😀😀😀

[@Mike14264]

Sick... I wonder why only a few copies have Thriller.

[@Hotsaucebauce3943]

It does exist! I knew it!

[@alguem_pensador]

Show👏👏👏👏

[@Hasoon-os4id]

When i played this song my parents told me they’ve herd it in a game . I was like HOW

[@nathanurie4686]

Probably heard the small bit of it during the zombie dance in that area. We thought it was an Easter egg at first XD

[@AzureAngel]

The cartridge I played had this, unfortunately it was a rental, and I didn't know it was unusual at the time...

[@사냥꾼의꿈-r5x]

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night~

[@tsohgallik]

Nice.

[@RetroMediaMan96]

I just thought of a crazy but good idea. What if after the prototype is dumped, we can hack the final version of the game, and put this music from the prototype in it?

[@TheRetroMike]

It has been dumped now.

[@RetroMediaMan96]

@@TheRetroMike cool!

[@Moonwalker86]

@@TheRetroMike Where can we find the rom?

[@ongakuwotabeta]

@@Moonwalker86 I believe on TCRF.

[@Seven71987]

Sprigatito, Fuecoco and Quaxly.

[@kgrfirdjy]

you might want to put a strobe effect warning with the start of the video

[@joedaylight]

Im hearing revenge of Shinobi drums in this song.

[@solarflare9078]

Is there an arcade version where Another Part of Me was replaced by Thriller as well?

[@Micho55]

hey, sorry to comment offtopic, but can I ask you if there is a way to enter that wordpress site you linked on your remastering of the rescuers?

[@vick_cabroni]

what a tune hopefully someone ll add it to the sega megadrive colecction's modded rom

[@Mchenrygames]

headphones recommended

[@gjtrue]

I know I'm about 30+ years late on this detail but WHY the devil wasn't this in the final game? Like AVGN said years ago, they put a *graveyard* in a *Michael Jackson* game but don't put freakin' "Thriller" over it?! 😐

[@dustman820]

Copyright issues because Michael did not write the song. In early copies of the released game, a bit of it is played if you do his dance in the graveyard levels, but was removed in later copies.

[@RetroGaming-gp2ef]

I heard some copies have this song and others don’t

[@davidbautista4457]

We should blame Sega for not using this song instead!

[@sahidurrahman7497]

Sounds really cool but they never put the real full song in mega drive for years soo disappointed

[@RWL2012]

it would have taken up more space than the game itself (making the cartridge prohibitively expensive) and been in 26KHz 8-bit mono.

[@tonymacaroni_1]

I dont understand why this song is in some copys of the game but others don't have it.

[@fromzerotosixty]

had to do with the copyrights of the song, so they ended up having to remove it

[@lutherheggs451]

Because Jackson didn't write the song. Rod Temperton wrote Thriller and they didn't have the rights...I had a cart that had Thriller. It didn't play through the whole level, it still used Another Part of Me, except when you used the super that made all the enemies dance it played 10 seconds of Thriller.

[@demontamerbf18]

They already had Billie Jean and Beat It on the game, why would they get rid of Thriller?

[@nathanurie4686]

The writer of the song. They didn't want a 2nd contract just for one song

[@Lemontrelais]

Mec pourquoi tu recommence pas t’es test ?

[@fevermario]

So....... This been hacked into the final game yet?

[@KeithPhillips]

I don't think so...but I could do it.

[@roadrunnercoyote2263]

Say, do you think you could send me MEGA download links to the French Disney laserdisc editions of "Snow White", "Pinocchio", and "Alice in Wonderland" (both original video and audio included)?

[@armorvil]

Are these the only things you want? How about a house in Los Angeles with a few girls, a chopper, and 1 billion dollars in cash? Anyways, I'm glad that you realize where you should ask for free stuff : in the youtube comments section of a video-game track.

[@subg9165]

@@armorvil last time I checked you couldn't download houses, helicopters or money

[@strumdynasty3050]

Flashing lights warning

[@YoshiKiller2S]

Do you have the midi file for this?

[@Doommaster1994]

There's no MIDI. Back then, they coded it 100% in pure assembly language.

[@solarflare9078]

@@Doommaster1994 Well, that and tracker stuff, but never MIDI... unless the crappy GEMS driver is involved.

[@h2ofan80]

There actually is a hack which restores this in the game.

[@lutherheggs451]

There is nothing to restore. I have a cart that has Thriller on the graveyard level and it only does it when you do the super or whatever that gets all the enemies dancing. It didn't have the whole song, just 10 seconds of it, any other time it was still another part of me.

[@h2ofan80]

@@lutherheggs451 Ok, dude whatever. There IS a hack that restores the whole song, REPLACING Another Part of Me. Thriller was going to be in the actual game, but was taken out for some reason and replaced with Another Part of Me. You can even play it in the options menu. I know because I have it. And yes, I know that there's a small part of Thriller on some actual copies of the game. Some other copies don't have it at all, and instead have Another Part of Me, even in the graveyard level when you use magic and get the enemies dancing.

[@SDSOverfiend]

Weak Drums... Mike ain’t fucking with that. Thriller was heavily composed and Mike was sensitive about how his music sounded

[@mrmadmight266]

I can make a better one

[@tuberoyful]

There was a code for moonwalker to have this it was the hidden level.