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Milli Vanilli
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Milli Vanilli was the brainchild of German producer Frank Farian, who'd previously masterminded the European disco group Boney M. and the session-musician rock outfit Far Corporation. Seeking to fuse European dance-pop with elements of American rap, Farian assembled a number of session musicians and vocalists, including rapper Charles Shaw (an Army veteran) and two middle-aged American singers living in Germany, Johnny Davis and Brad Howell (some accounts give his name as Howe). Realizing that he had a marketable record but a distinctly unmarketable image, Farian hired two aspiring models and former breakdancers, Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, to pretend to be the group in videos, concerts, interviews, and the like. Pilatus had been born in New York in 1965, but grew up in Munich, spending some time in an orphanage after his parents (an American soldier and German stripper) gave him up for adoption. Morvan was born in 1966 on the island of Guadeloupe, lived in Miami for a time, and moved with his mother to Paris; he had been a skilled trampoline athlete until he suffered a neck injury in a fall. Both skilled dancers, the two had met sometime circa 1984 (differing accounts list their meeting place as Munich, Paris, or Los Angeles) and were attempting to make it as singers, dancers, models, or whatever they could.
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Milli Vanilli was the brainchild of Frank Farian, someone who will have to be a major part of any movie about the pop duo. He knew all along that Morvan and Pilatus weren't singing on their records and were lip-synching to the recorded tunes at public appearances and in concerts. The curtain started to collapse in July of 1989 when a recording of "Girl You Know It's True" got stuck during a concert and started skipping. The show was at Lake Compounce theme park in Connecticut. Shortly thereafter, the house of cards collapsed and their Grammy was taken away just before they got dropped by their record label.
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Milli Vanilli had a string of hits in the late 80s, including ’Girl You Know It’s True’. They won the Grammy for Best Newcomer in 1990. However, they lost it after it was revealed that neither member had actually sung on the track. Instead, the vocals were recorded by session singers.
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Milli Vanilli will sing again. The pop duo that topped the charts before it was exposed as a fraud will be the subject of a film to be written for Universal Pictures by Jeff Nathanson, who rendered a sympathetic portrait of a con man with his screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can” (2002), Variety.com reported. In case anyone has forgotten, Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus were hired by the German producer Frank Farian to front Milli Vanilli, for which he had already recorded the voices of other singers. After the two men topped the charts and sold millions of records, Mr. Morvan and Mr. Pilatus refused to promote the second album unless Mr. Farian allowed them to sing. Instead he exposed the fraud. Their 1990 Grammy for best new artist was revoked, class-action lawsuits were filed, and Arista Records dropped Milli Vanilli.
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The brainchild of German producer Frank Farian, Milli Vanilli went on to become one of the best-selling acts of the late 1980s. But disaster struck them down at the peak of their fame when it was revealed that preening front-men Morvan and Pilatus did not actually sing on their records. Suspicions were first raised in July 1989, when the recording of their song, Girl You Know it's True, stuck during a supposedly live performance at the Lake Compounce theme park in Connecticut. The following year they were stripped of their Grammy for best new artist and dropped by their record label.
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Milli Vanilli's first album, All or Nothing, was released in Europe in 1988 and was an instant success. Retitled Girl You Know It's True (after the lead single) and trimmed a bit, the record was issued in the U.S. in early 1989. Its catchy, lightweight pop-rap proved equally popular with American audiences; "Girl You Know It's True" raced up the pop charts to number two, and the next three Milli Vanilli singles -- "Baby Don't Forget My Number," the ballad "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You," and the Diane Warren-penned "Blame It on the Rain" -- all hit number one. Despite near-universal critical distaste (Farian's productions often recycled the same sounds and drum tracks), Girl You Know It's True sold an astounding seven million copies in the U.S. alone; internationally, Milli Vanilli sold approximately 30 million singles. In December 1989, as the fifth single "All or Nothing" was climbing the charts on its way to the Top Five, rapper Charles Shaw revealed to a New York reporter that Pilatus and Morvan had not actually sung any vocals on the album. Shaw quickly retracted his statements (apparently paid off by Farian to keep quiet), claiming that they were merely a PR stunt for his own album.
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Milli Vanilli