After most of the previous posts (remember them? it's been a while) there's not a lot to say in terms of a preamble. That's good, because it means we can get right down into this and start examining music.
Present, Good Future, and Bad Future.
The present track has been extended to about twice its length by layering in some additional synths into the mix, a bell-like synth in the first section and a trumpet-like one in the second. Both almost certainly come from a Yamaha 6-op synthesizer and are probably default patches, like the SY77 noted previously, the DX7 (which was ubiquitous gear for producers by '93), or the CE 20. The latter is what Mann dubbed as the "trumpeton" in Masque's performer credits, based on information on an older incarnation of the MMEB web presence (Greg Russo dates the post by Mann clarifying this was a joke about the mellotron to 2001 Nov 11; I have no idea if the wayback machine has archived it and I'm willing to take his word on this one). It's a bit funny to see these two projects united by a sound from an old (well, not that old in 1987) Yamaha FM synth, when that's arguably the sort of sound Sonic CD was trying to get away from -- after all, there's one right there they could have used. Of course, this section only comes to us courtesy of the Sonic the Hedgehog Boom promotional album and wasn't in the game's release.
If I were approaching this project more abstractly, looking at using any outside ideas to try to construct past tracks for Sonic CD, the combination of funk and doo-wop ideas here makes the starting point fairly obvious to me -- David Bowie's collaborations with Nile Rogers in the 80s, in particular Let's Dance, which like the present track mixed both recent funk sensibilities with a throwback doo-wop progression. The bad future does have a fairly Bowie-adjacent guitar solo, with the heavy pitch bends reminding me of the style of Adrian Belew, who worked with the Talking Heads and Bowie before becoming part of the resurrected King Crimson. This performance of Stay live in 1978 is probably relevant to those unaware of it. Heck, the way it's performed, you could probably stick it in a more modern Sonic game and not many people would blink; it's very stylistically reminiscent of some stuff from Jun Senoue -- compare with the Smash Brawl remix of Angel Island Zone.
That choice would seemingly be obvious, but we have a theme here. Masque is not an album known for its funk licks -- it's moody, vaguely spiritual. So my trick is going to be to exploit a little loophole, of sorts. Masque actually was, at one point, planned for US release the year after it came out in Europe. Mann was starting to collaborate with vocalist Gary Dyson, though he still had some help from the album's lineup. They worked on a cover of Summer in the City intended to be included on the US release (one of a handful of MMEB albums with US alternate/bonus tracks), but of course the album never materialized. The cover was preserved and has been compiled on a couple albums. Odds and Sods: Mis-takes and Outtakes mentions this track's origins as being from Masque. It's also on the recent singles (and rarities) compilation Mannthology. And wouldn't you know it? There's plenty of funk to go around here. Those guitar licks are just what we're looking for -- and very easily sampled to boot, so yes we are gonna steal them.
And, yeah, you probably noticed but like the band's relatively recent (as of that time) hit Runner, this song also starts out with a 'trumpeton' riff. Go figure.
If there were a Sonic 1 zone that most reminds me of Wacky Workbench, it's probably Marble Zone. Present WW has a similar amount of purple in an enclosed area, both involve lots of moving blocks and avoiding large crushing objects in narrow passageways, care around touching the floor (the more electric floors being the closest thing Sonic CD has to lava), and especially in act 2 similarly winding passageways through the level. The melody in the past track of Japanese Sonic CD seems to match this as well; the PSG licks in Marble in particular are notably similar to the riffs there, and they're much more prominent here than in any other time zone. There's a nice little similarity in the Summer in the City arrangement and Marble here, too, both based on the Andalusian cadence, which will sound familiar to anyone who knows a lot of Castlevania tunes. However, Marble avoids the major dominant (i.e. V chord) by going back up to the VII chord -- consistent with melodic rather than harmonic minor scale.
Again, I have a Chaotix track in mind. It's New Moon, used for Amazing Arena, which is well-suited to adaptation here because it, like with Summer in the City, has a pretty abrupt transition into the relative minor. It's also arguably the level in the game most like Wacky Workbench, both a vertical closed-in stage and one built around confusing and disorienting conveyances.
With our influences all laid out, it's a good time to lay out the finished product.
The A section's melody is derived from the horn riffs in New Moon, the melody in the transition section lifted from the end of Labyrinth's melody almost wholesale (I mean, it's like 4 notes), and the b-section is derived from that synth trumpet lick in the Present track and Labyrinth's melody. Just about everything else comes from Summer in the City; again, those funk guitar licks are sampled directly from it with the help of Audacity.
As another note, the buzzy guitar sound comes from freesound.org, specifically this sample here. Since it's CC0 (i.e., directly released to public domain), this credit isn't necessary but the whole point of this project is being open about where I ~stole~ adapted things from. The bass sample is also from freesound, a fingered bass note under the (deprecated) CC sampling license.
A lot of the other samples are fairly basic (i.e., a simple square wave cycle) or come from the Roland sound canvas (i.e., power snare).
That's about all there is to say for this track. It's arguably got the fewest moving parts (unlike the stage it's intended for), but I hope you enjoy it either way.
