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Milli Vanilli
This page relies entirely on facts. Fact Cat knows this because of his learnings. Sorry for the lack of dick jokes. |
Milli Vanilli were the original corporate-created musicians, and the subject of a controversy manufactured by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), so that their "Grammy Award" would remain relevant, despite being awarded to two chanteuses.
The music
The music was written and produced by Frank Farian, who had tried for a music career in the 1970s, but even then his music was too soulful to be taken seriously when delivered by a ginger German. To the surprise of noone he found only moderate success as a singer. Like many ginger musicians before him, he took to writing and producing instead, and found great success in the 1970s with a group he called Boney M.
Background
After the success of Boney M in the late 1970s, MTV appeared in the early 1980s, and showed fans just how ugly their favorite singers were, close up. Farian spotted this trend, and having written plenty of danceable material suited for the cocaine fueled 1980s, he set out to find two sexy black men with sufficient oral skills to lip synch these songs on video, for the young people. His search took him to the local bathhouse, where he picked up Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus.
The group
The group was displayed as these two guys, but since those two were good-looking but completely untalented they were told to just sing along to pre-recorded shit and pretend it was theirs. To be fair the pair were being total dumbasses; they were given an advance when they were hired, they wasted it all on shiny shit and dreadlocks, and according to their contract unless they could repay it they were stuck doing whatever the fuck their manager wanted. The two were reported to have had shitty English at the time of their first single, so it was just a wonder that no-one noticed right away.
Even though Rob and Fab were both faker than a hookers orgasm, all the adulation went right to Rob Pilatus's head and inspired him to blurt out this arrogant brainfart:
—Rob Pilatus, who didn't get the memo that he doesn't sing, unlike all those listed above. |
Frank Farian thought up the concept, and picked Charles Shaw, John Davis, Brad Howell, and twin sisters Jodie and Linda Rocco for the vocals. That worked well until people noticed that Morvan and Pilatus were lip-syncing and Farian admitted to just putting it all together.
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The Grammy and controversy
In 1990, the duo won the Grammy Award for "best new artist", despite being models, not singers.
They had their Grammy taken back in the 90s when it was revealed that they were just a pair of untalented niggers dancing around to pre-recorded shit, and pretty much fell off the map after that, making the fact that someone took the time to make this article in 2014 absolutely pathetic.
Aftermath
They got sued like 27 times for fraud, so Farian tried to change their new album back to the original singers, but as predicted, the real singers didn't have good enough vocal talent, and it flopped hard.
In 1998, Rob Pilatus died of an alcohol and drug overdose. Some argue that it was suicide, others claimed he just liked to party hard.
See also
Milli Vanilli is part of a series on Visit the Music Portal for complete coverage. |