Friday Rewind- Milli Vanilli
'I Hope They Didn't Get Too Cozy with Those Grammys.' For those that don't remember, these two cats played the biggest trick on the music industry that the world's ever seen. I mean they gave The Joker a run for his money.....Do you remember just how HUGE Milli Vanilli was? Yes, Granted, they look like a bad 'In Living Colour' Skit , but in '89, they were everywhere- hence why the show made fun of them. People thought that they were the biggest thing since sliced bread.....And you mean to tell me that through all of the videos, all of that over-exposure, NO ONE put it together that they possibly could have been lip-syncing. Have you ever heard them in interviews? They could barely speak a lick of English, nonetheless sing it! Now I know that there are singers from the UK who sound different singing than they actually speak, but these fools were GERMAN! You can't fake that.....I know, I know, hindsight is 20-20 and all, but I still don't understand how any of us could have ever thought for a split second that those voices (of what obviously sounded like older, heavier, middle-aged Black men), ever could have come out of those two....
What's really foul is that as soon as news of the lip-syncing scandal broke, their record company, Arista didn't want anything to do with them. They dropped them quicker than a hot potato coming out the oven! Clive Davis, who was president of Arista at the time, said that they apparently "never knew" that Rob and Fab weren't the ones singing on the album. Really?......Did they just sign them for their "dashing good looks," without ever hearing what they sounded like? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a "recording contract?" I'm just sayin....Of course they knew that these fools weren't actually singing.
In addition, Milli Vanilli ended up being a complete bust to Arista Records, as the company had to refund all proceeds of all album and tickets sales to anyone who had ever spent money on a Milli Vanilli album or concert. That means that they made absolutely nothing off of the group...And they remain the only act in history to have ever gotten their Grammy taken BACK! This completely changed the Music Industry as we know it. Before this, singers had been lip-syncing for live performances for years. Go right on down the line: MJ on Motown 25- Lip-Synced; Whitney Houston singing the Start Spangled Banner- Lip-Synced; every performance on Soul Train,ever- ALL LIP-SYNCED! Thanks to Milli Vanilli, artists now had to actually sing and dance "live" to their own music- no pre-recorded track allowed.
Enjoy this trip back in time to 1989......
Until Next Time....
