Milli Vanilli documentary

Weird to think the huge worldwide mob that blasted them and made fun of them for lip syncing. Now some of our top tours are nothing but lip sync live, and full-on autotuned or worse in the studio, and people don't bat an eye.

R1 the issue is these modern artists are lip syncing to their own voices, even if auto tuned. Autotune keeps your voice on tune but you still have to deliver the voice. They were lip syncing to other peoples voices. People ignore that part of the controversy.

r2 Thanks, don't think I had remembered that part.

R3 yes. I think most either forget or don’t know, because I see people speak of it as “everyone lipsyncs in the industry” and the truth is they were singing to ghost singers voices. They didn’t deliver a single note on their album.

An article from 1990 on it after news broke.

They were the very first artist to be stripped of their Grammy. I think possibly still the only one

One of the ghost singers died two years ago.

Their scandal even led to bills on lip-syncing being proposed. It was such a massive scandal even politicians were getting involved.

They were so humiliated I felt sorry for them. If I had been their PR person I would have told them to be unapologetic. They should have been like, turn down the opportunity to make some money and have fun doing so? No way. Plenty of people out there would have done the same. Blame the record company, we were just hired performers.

What’s messed up is they actually wanted to sing their own songs and when they started challenging their manager and producer because they wanted to do the singing for their sophomore album he refused because that’s not what he wanted plus people would hear they sounded completely different. It became drama behind the scenes before someone came forward letting the truth be known that they were using ghost singers.

But they legit WANTED to be able to perform themselves.

I liked their music at the time, and "Blame It on the Rain" still lives on my playlists today. It was light, disposable pop. From my perspective as a consumer, my satisfaction with the product wasn't affected by the revelation. If it had been Joni Mitchell or Kurt Cobain revealed as a fake, the outrage would have been understandable, but getting upset over the Milli Vanilli fraud is like being outraged because Froot Loops contain no fruit.

Having said that, I wasn't too blasé to apply for the $15 I had coming to me from the class action lawsuit.

R10 what a weird comment. And no, you didn’t have their album because it wasn’t considered disposable pop at the time. They were fresh and fun in 1989/1990.

Girl You Know It’s True was a bop

ooh ooh ooh, I love you

OP replies to herself a lot

did they ever do nudes...they was hot

Why don't these ravenous Millennial filmmakers turn their attention to interesting subjects, like the truth about 9/11 or how Russia stole the 2016 election for Trump (and tried again in 2020 but failed)?

R16 because this is pop culture and pop history, not world history. Retard.

Girl you know it’s, girl you know it’s, girl you know it’s… oh fuck….

How I wish we still lived in an era where lipsynching was the biggest scandal of its time.

Here are their real voices:

r20 Just as good as half the people on charts today

Fab Morvan 2018:

Per Linda Rocco, “David Copperfield couldn’t have done it better….”

What is left to say that Beyond the Music did not cover 25 years ago?

Gosh, I still remember listening to them. I used to tell my husband their voice sounds so very old for them. If you listen closely the voice had an older tone to it…. I am not up on singing jargon (so I used tone).

I loved them but something felt off even back then. There were many stories about friends asking them to sing while just hanging out. They supposedly became very “weird” about it. That is his the suspicion began.

Both of them must have had an undiagnosed personality disorder to do what they did. How can you face people living a lie. The humiliation was too much for Rob (Pilatus) and he took his life. So very sad and heartbreaking.

It’s coming soon I think

[quote]They were lip syncing to other people's voices.

Problem?

R25 is full of shit

[quote]They were lip syncing to other people's voices.

Isn't that what Jennifer Lopez does?

I always remember thinking they dressed really funny

On his late night show Arsenio tore into them regularly. After the truth came out, he admitted he actually liked the music, it was them he despised.

Their first number one in the US was “Baby Don’t Forget my Number” not “Blame it on the Rain” like the article says. “Blame” was their 3rd and final number one.

I thought it was Frank Farian himself who threw Milli Vanilli under the bus and confessed they were lip syncing. I think Farian helped Rob Pilatus out financially the last few years of his life which was the least he could do after throwing him and Fab to the wolves.

The German accents are strong in R20s clip though Fab worked hard to get rid of his.

3 #1s within a year is great. They sold 30 million singles worldwide. They were massive.

Seriously the fact they exploded in 1989 and by the end of 1990 were over is insane. But within that short time they sold millions of singles worldwide with 3 #1 hits, sold 7 million albums of their debut in the USA, won a Grammy, were filling stadiums etc. is impressive. And then boom. It was over.

R14 bizarre character, OP. Britney, Air Supply, Milli Vanilli... Something ain't right.

R19 This wasn’t the biggest scandal of its time.

In the music scene it was

R38 That isn’t what was said.

The problem is that in 2023, MV's sins or "fraud" just isn't that big of a deal. Someone lip synching? OMG [sarcastically]. The better go hard on context and try to explain why it was such a big deal then.

Because they were singing to someone else’s voice and got caught.

In Europe, there was lots of lip syncing!

R40 If someone today was a top selling artist and people found out they weren’t singing for themselves and were singing to other people’s voices and passing it off as their own voice, it would still be a big deal. I can’t believe people are this dumb.

I thought lots of pop tarts are dubbed in the chorus.

Would it?

R43 agreed. People love to minimize it to just lip syncing. It was not just that. It was lip-syncing to someone else’s voice and topping the charts. The argument that J Lo does it etc. doesn’t work because she hasn’t gotten caught outside of gossip and speculation and her producers are smart enough to actually mix her vocals in with the other artists.

R44 the chorus is usually the artist and/or backup singers. That’s what backup singers are for. Not an artist in place for your voice for all your songs. This wasn’t just the chorus either. But you knew that and are being stupid on purpose for attention. Go ask mommy for that attention you need.

Finding out they were dubbed by other artists just meant they were talentless pretty boys and that meant their careers were going to go bye bye.

R47 but some pop tarts are rumored to be barely present. All ghost singing. See R46

You just said it r49. RUMORED. Rumors are just that. Unless they are caught red handed nothing will come of it.

Nobody is ARGUING WITH YOU, dear. The point was it's hard for today's music fans to get worked up about the scandal that fits an old context.

Fab still looks good. Would bang.

I am watching right now. It’s insane how they really ran this operation. It’s also insane how on their European debut album (when Arista Records signed them in the states they wouldn’t release the European album because they said it wasn’t strong enough for America) Rob and Fab aren’t even credited in the credits for vocals, yet no one in Arista Records caught that. If the two men on the cover of the album aren’t credited for vocals, that’s fishy but no one noticed.

I also didn’t know that Diane Warren wrote Blame It On The Rain for them.

Of course this documentary played the race card. lol. Never fails.

She didn’t write it for them. She gave it to them.

Correction: she gave it to Clive Davis.

The guy who didn’t croak seems to have a good voice.

So where's MY documentary?

R59 you aren’t a popstar who sold 6 million albums in less than a year in the USA.

If they didn’t get nominated for that Grammy they would have been able to keep going without being exposed, at least for a longer time. And then them winning really pissed off a lot of people in Hollywood. Them not really singing their songs was an open secret in Hollywood. Almost everyone in the music industry knew it but they just ignored it and let them keep making millions for both their American and European record labels. Once they won the Grammy it was downhill for them.

Wow, I didn’t know Frank Farian who created them and was the mastermind behind all of this was who exposed them in the end.

We certainly are not going to watch it.

Apparently you haven't read my résumé, R60.

The Indigo Girls sucked.

The Indigo Girls are very talented and have released several masterpiece albums.

The truth is that if it was your average black artist whose audience was mostly black it wouldn’t be nearly the spectacle this became. You would just never hear from them again. This was such a huge deal because their audience was mostly white. White people all over the world loved these two, and white Americans loved these two. You had suburban middle America parents buying their album for their teen and buying concert tickets for them. Very few black artists achieved that prior where they were these teen idols covering teen magazines and on MTV and had the #1 album in America for 7 weeks in a row. It was huge at the time.

Arsenio was on to them pretty early. He knew.

I love that they made fools of the Grammys.

The Grammys made fools of themselves. The Grammys had a no lip-syncing rule and were bought out by the record label to allow them to lip-sync.

I didn’t know they ever actually stepped foot in the studio. Must have just been for show.

Fab always has a good voice and tone. Rob not so much. Issue was they could barely even speak English.

I had no idea they made another album post Milli Vanilli. Wow.

The documentary was well done and I learned several things. Didn't know Farian was also behind Boney M and that they were also phonies. It's blatantly obvious that everyone was in on it, yet everyone involved told their story as if they were bamboozled until some point in time. That one Arista executive did a great Nathan Thurm impression. The only one I truly believed was as ignorant as they claimed was the junior guy from Sandy Gallin's office who submitted the boys to the Grammys.

While I've always felt the outrage was out of proportion to the reality of what happened, I never really considered how the guys took the full brunt of the world's hatred while everyone else involved, who made much more money from the stunt then the guys did, came out unscathed and only got richer over the years. This may be the first time I've ever heard anything negative said about the sainted Clive Davis, which makes me wonder what other skeletons he may have rattling around.

More than anything, I was happy to see Fab living a happy life with his family, and not only singing for a living but actually singing well. Hope this documentary will bring him some goodwill and maybe lead him to a hit single or two.

I'm looking forward to watching this. I have always had a soft spot for Rob and Fab and felt sorry that they were treated that way when the scandal broke, which ended up breaking Rob permanently. The music was fun pop and I still listen to some of the songs all these years later. They were young, attractive, and offered opportunities that most could only dream of. Imagine refusing the money, fame and as much tail as you can handle at that age? As if. Not many young people would say no in a situation like that, especially young men, and the power players behind the scenes just let them cop it all face on when it all blew up. Those poor guys were riding the wave and at any time the puppet masters could just cut that string and leave them to drop and crumble. Which they did. Was it wrong what they did? Of course. But who is really to blame here and what if the news never came out? I have always wondered how many other 'pop artists' did exactly the same thing but were protected better. So, I will always be in the Rob and Fab camp, and I hope Fab knows that they have many supporters around the world who still listen to the songs with fondness and wish him well,

The true villain is Farian. The fact that he came out of this whole thing unscathed is just wrong.

Let's not forget how cocky Rob and Fab got during all the controversy. Going on a PR tour "proving" they could sing was all wrong. They played the victims while enjoying the money, fame and adoration the whole time. I think the blame and outrage was disproportionately placed on the duo when the gig was up, but their behavior didn't help matters.

I met Fab when he lived in L.A. 15? 20? years ago. He was a very gentle, humble man, still trying to get his music off the ground, and shopping around the idea of a documentary. Wasn't Black Box a german group as well, using Martha Washington's voice and using a model to lip sync in their videos? There was another group who used her and did the same thing, but I can't remember them right now.

Fab was always a gentle and quiet man. Rob was the tough one. Sadly he’s the one who couldn’t get it together in the end

I agree with you 100%, R76. Sounds like they were monsters toward the end and treated people terribly. But considering they were two naive young men who were living with the burden of perpetrating a multi-million dollar fraud on a global stage for a powerful corporation, and coping with it by doing an ungodly amount of drugs, I can feel some forgiveness for their behavior. I know what an asshole I am using powder and I could never afford even a tiny fraction of what must have went up their noses.

One became a drug addict. One didn’t. One just dabbled

[quote] There was another group who used her and did the same thing, but I can't remember them right now.

FUCK YOU.

Footage of someone who was hired to teach them to sing their hit song. Crazy.

The full press conference. The journalists came down on them HARD.

First off, I loved “Girl You Know It’s True” back in the day. I didn’t care as much for their big #1s. Their debut was their best. And despite them not singing the songs they did add to the songs performances and videos with their amazing energy. They were terrific performers and had a lot of charisma and charm. It’s a shame things went down the way they did.

I am about 3/4 of the way through the doc and wow Frank Farian comes off like this huge egomaniac who somehow transferred his greedy fuck-up to these two lost souls...and did it successfully. He lost nothing and they lost everything. Yes, Rob and Fab apparently acted list a-holes when they were famous. But how did he make them out to be the perpetrators of this charade when he was the mastermind? And why did the press let him get away with it? Why was everyone so upset with the "crime" that Rob and Fab committed while Frank walked away with a fortune and relatively unscathed? That is fucked up!

Sorry, typo. Should have said: "Yes, Rob and Fab apparently acted list a-holes..."

Also, that big homo Arsenio Hall has a nerve calling them out when he is sitting on (ahem) quite a big secret himself. What a self-serving asshole.

like

Sorry to post again but I am having tech difficulties. "... Rob and Fab apparently acted list a-holes" should have been "acted like" assholes.

And I did a search on Amazon and apparently there is a new greatest hits package coming out, probably based on the documentary. Hopefully, Fab will get some of the money that is being funneled directly to Frank Farian and the nefarious "bisexual" (what a joke) Clive Davis. Fab will get nothing -- again -- and the white men will gain all of the profits.

Exactly R85. He continued fraudulent producing after the incident.

Really good documentary. I kind of felt bad for them. They were used and throw away. But they kind of deserved it too because they tried to blackmail him. That’s where they screwed up.

[quote] Very few black artists achieved that prior where they were these teen idols covering teen magazines and on MTV and had the #1 album in America for 7 weeks in a row. It was huge at the time.

It may seem that way, R67, but Prince’s Purple Rain was 24 weeks at #1, Michael Jackson’s Thriller was weeks at #1 as well. Stevie Wonder had several #1 albums. All before Milli Vanilli. Even Nat King Cole had #1 singles since the early 1940s.

R91 no one said there weren’t other black artists who were #1. It’s the teen idol part. MJ was a teen idol for a moment but Prince and Nat King Cole weren’t.

If only they were better at square dancing...

R92 Billy Eckstine was.

R92 You really don’t know what you’re talking about. Michael Jackson was a teen idol for more than a moment, and I remember seeing Prince on the cover of teen magazines. I just looked on eBay and they’re selling posters of Prince that were originally in Tiger Beat.

This video is still hilarious. The way he ran off stage when the tracks started skipping...LOL

R95, you are correct that MJ was a teen idol that was loved internationally.

Has Susan Dey commented?

R96 Haha! What were they lip-synching to, a record? Crazy they didn’t have something more fool-proof for a concert like that.

I remember being in a department store like Caldor and there being posters for sale of Prince in some kind of crop top with all the other teen idols of the period. He had hit radio songs and was young and androgynous, who do you think bought his music and went to his movie(s)? Maybe he went beyond teen idol status but he was a teen idol and so were some of his spin-off acts like that chick who played the drums whose name I can’t remember.

The videos were on MTV every day. How do people think Prince became famous, anyway? Middle-aged fans?

R101 huh?

I love Prince. I was a teen when "I wanna be your Lover" was released. He claimed to be at that time but was actually 21.

He always looked older

R72 that is TRULY AWFUL