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So Stranger In Moscow Was A Cooperative Effort...

Psychoniff

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After Michael flew over from Los Angeles, ‘Stranger in Moscow’ was the first song the pair worked on. “When Michael finally came out to New York and heard my work on ‘Stranger in Moscow’, the strings, piano, drums and the beatboxing samples that make up the rhythmic backbone of the track, he literally shrieked with joy,” Buxer recalls. Although Buxer is the co-writer of ‘Stranger in Moscow’, as he created the music, Michael would not credit him. “That song, more than anything I’ve ever done with him, was a true collaboration to say the least,” Buxer revealed. “It is absolutely my most important contribution to him.” But Buxer doesn’t hold a grudge. “Of course I’m disappointed that I didn’t receive a songwriting credit on it,” he admitted. “But Michael chose not to credit me; there is nothing I can do about it.”
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http://www.makingmichael.co.uk/#!blog/adb5m

Why didn't MJ credit Brad for Stranger In Moscow, Why?
 
Psychoniff said:
http://www.makingmichael.co.uk/#!blog/adb5m

Why didn't MJ credit Brad for Stranger In Moscow, Why?
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In my opinion he should have. But in another interview Brad said that he was in his room with MJ and he started playing around on the piano. And after some time he just started playing this melody that MJ liked very much. That is all he did. After that MJ wrote the lyrics and the whole arrangement, beatboxing and stuff as he usually does. After that Brad went to Los Angeles and started mixing it and preparing it for MJ "the strings, piano, drums and the beatboxing samples that make up the rhythmic backbone of the track". That was their usual process (for example The Way You Love Me or Who Is It). The only difference here is that he played first something that inspired MJ to write the song. But he got co-writing credits on Hollywood Tonight which is common practice this day (look at Invincible), but back in early 1990's or 1980's it wasn't. Greg Phillinganes wasn't credited for writing the bridge on Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough for example.
 
Many artists have songs credited to them which in reality were collaborative efforts. Just two examples from the top of my head.

Pink Floyd's Money is officially credited to Roger Waters alone when in reality it was a collaborative effort among several members of the band:

The demo tracks for the song, including some of the sound effects, were recorded in a makeshift recording studio Roger Waters had in his garden shed.[10] As recorded by the band, the song has a "bluesy, transatlantic feel", unlike Waters' original demo version, which he later described as "prissy and very English". As heard on Classic Albums: Pink Floyd – The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon, the demo is in G-sharp minor, as opposed to the B minor of the final version.[2]

The instrumental jam was a collaborative effort, with Gilmour overseeing the time change as well as his own guitar and vocal work, and Richard Wright and Nick Mason improvising their own parts. Dick Parry contributed the tenor saxophone solo that precedes the guitar solo. Gilmour's input is also discernible in the final mix, which features contrasting "wet" sections, with thick reverb and delay effects, and "dry" sections. In particular, during the second chorus of the guitar solo, all the reverb and delay effects are suddenly pulled out, creating a much smaller and more intimate virtual space. To produce the distinctive piercing high notes that distinguish the final chorus of his solo, Gilmour played a customized Lewis guitar with twenty-four frets, allowing a full four-octave range.[2]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_(Pink_Floyd_song)

Prince's Kiss is credited to him alone when in reality it was a collabortative effort with the band Mazarati.

"Kiss" started as a short acoustic demo, about a minute in length, consisting of a single 12-bar blues verse. Prince gave the song to the funk band Mazarati for their debut album. Mazarati and producer David Z drastically reworked the song, giving it its stripped-down minimalist sound. When Mazarati delivered the song to Prince, he was amazed at their work and decided to take back the song for himself. He replaced their lead vocal, added the guitar break in the chorus and edited the song to its present form. Mazarati were credited for their backing vocals, which Prince left intact. Prince added the song at the last minute to Parade.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_(Prince_song)
 
"Kiss" started as a short acoustic demo, about a minute in length, consisting of a single 12-bar blues verse. Prince gave the song to the funk band Mazarati for their debut album. Mazarati and producer David Z drastically reworked the song, giving it its stripped-down minimalist sound. When Mazarati delivered the song to Prince, he was amazed at their work and decided to take back the song for himself. He replaced their lead vocal, added the guitar break in the chorus and edited the song to its present form. Mazarati were credited for their backing vocals, which Prince left intact. Prince added the song at the last minute to Parade.
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Lmao! Haha that's one funny story.
 
Makes me wonder what someone has to do in order to get a co-composer credit on a song. My guess it's up to the artist if whether or not they feel someone has contributed enough to get co-composer credit.
 
crediting is very tricky... There are artists everyday that go unedited and vice versa.. people that should not be credited that do. Songs create more of a dramatic effect when it is written by the singer.. fairly often singers fight to get credited as a writer by doing the smallest input to get the exposure and royalties from it. I am not saying Michael did this, just that crediting in general is a very... I guess complicated is not the word, ummm.. I guess I can call it controversial part of the music making/releasing process.
 
I was reading this thread on Ultimate Guitar where two producers from HIStory were talking about their experiences in the studio with MJ. One of them said at one point that in quite a few songs MJ beat boxed the entire beat. He specifically mentioned Stranger In Moscow having that beat box influence. Can't really remember the details of the thread so can't provide the link atm...
 
Yup, Brad pretty much wrote the music more or less.

Not exactly sure why Michael gave him the boot as far as crediting is concerned. Obviously it didn't phase him if he continued to work with the man over the next thirteen years, of course, but so many people call it Michael's greatest song when he really didn't write it all.
 
AlwaysThere said:
Yup, Brad pretty much wrote the music more or less.
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Well, it would be nice to hear Michael's version of the story as well before jumping to such a conclusions. The problem with all these stories that are first being told after MJ's death (as far as I know Brad never said this when MJ was alive), that it's always one side's version with no chance given to MJ to tell his side. Brad sounds like a nice guy, but it's still only one side of the story. Even if people do not want to deliberately lie, they still can exaggerate their role.
 
OnirMJ said:
In my opinion he should have. But in another interview Brad said that he was in his room with MJ and he started playing around on the piano. And after some time he just started playing this melody that MJ liked very much. That is all he did. After that MJ wrote the lyrics and the whole arrangement, beatboxing and stuff as he usually does. After that Brad went to Los Angeles and started mixing it and preparing it for MJ "the strings, piano, drums and the beatboxing samples that make up the rhythmic backbone of the track". That was their usual process (for example The Way You Love Me or Who Is It). The only difference here is that he played first something that inspired MJ to write the song. But he got co-writing credits on Hollywood Tonight which is common practice this day (look at Invincible), but back in early 1990's or 1980's it wasn't. Greg Phillinganes wasn't credited for writing the bridge on Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough for example.
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Have you got a link for this?
 
Psychoniff;4112122 said:
But it's Brad's composition.
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Well, according to the conclusions that people make based on some things said by Brad after MJ's death and without hearing Michael's side of the story...

And BTW, to me it seems like some people even exaggerate what Brad said. He did not claim he wrote the music and MJ just wrote lyrics to it. It feels like this is some people's conclusion here. He said this is the song where he had his biggest contribution creatively, but he never claimed he wrote the music all alone. He said it was a collaboration with MJ in that Moscow hotel room where they TOGETHER wrote the song basically in 1.5-2 hours.

And let's look at the process that he talks about:

Then Buxer goes on to talk about “Stranger in Moscow.” This song contains his biggest contribution of all the material he worked on with Michael, and Brad doesn’t hide that it means a lot to him. He reads the entire piece about the song from Joe Vogel’s book – the story of the song creation is well documented by now. Even though Buxer is not credited in the album liner notes, he actually is a co-author of the song and the one who came up with the chords. Buxer explains that he and Michael could work together in two different ways. Oftentimes, Michael already had the melody in his head, and Buxer’s job was to play that melody on the keyboard as Michael was “hearing” it and find an arrangement that fit the melody. Such was their work on “Heal the World,” “In the Back,” “Childhood,” “Beautiful Girl” and other songs. With “Stranger in Moscow” it was different: Michael asked Brad to play chords until he would hear something he liked, and Buxer came up with the now famous chord progression. Buxer says that the entire song was written in about 1.5-2 hours, and when it was finished, he couldn’t believe what had just happened. “I wanted to say something, like, ‘Wow, did we just write a song together?’” recalls Buxer. “But I didn’t.” He doesn’t hold a grudge about not being credited on the album. “Mistakes happen,” he says. “Michael was always very generous to me.” It’s clear that the experience itself is much more important to him than his name in the booklet.

Another thing Buxer mentions about “Stranger in Moscow” is the drum sound that was made out of MJ’s beatboxing samples by slicing and compressing his natural sounds. Buxer says that with Michael, he used beatbox-based drum sounds quite often because they sounded fantastic.
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http://en.michaeljackson.ru/brad-x2-evening-brad-buxer/

Would Brad have written this song without MJ saying "I like this chord that you are playing now"? Would that chord have developed into a song without MJ directing him? Most probably not. So IMO it's a bit rich to act like MJ almost had nothing to do with it bar the lyrics.
 
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Themidwestcowboy said:
How did you come to this conclusion if i may ask?
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Just from what Brad said.

I've learned over the years that very few people with ties to Michael are worth listening to. Brad was one of Michael's closest allies and has done nothing but respect the man before and after his passing. I also notice that Brad isn't asking to be recognized nor pushing the estate to add his name to the credits. He's just going, "I was a cowriter, but it's whatever. I worked with the greatest artist of all time; that's all I need."

I'm surprised I feel this way to be quite forward! Typically I shut down anything like this :p
 
Here is a little more background from Black and White Magazine (December 2009)

B&W: Can you clarify the rumor that Michael had in 1993 composed the music for Sonic 3 video game, for which you have been credited?

Buxer: I've never played the game so I do not know what tracks on which Michael and I have worked the developers have kept, but we did compose music for the game. Michael called me at the time for help on this project, and that's what I did.
And if he is not credited for composing the music, it's because he was not happy with the result sound coming out of the console. At the time, game consoles did not allow an optimal sound reproduction, and Michael found it frustrating. He did not want to be associated with a product that devalued his music...

B&W: One of the surprising things in this soundtrack is that you can hear the chords from Stranger in Moscow, which is supposed to have been composed later...

Buxer: Yes, Michael and I had composed those chords for the game, and it has been used as base for Stranger in Moscow. [...]
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