Apart from jasonstar aka vanilli...

Did someone call me to this thread or what?!?! Seriously, it was so interesting talking to a lot of the vocalists involved with that project. With regard to the female vocalists, Frank Farian didn't even bother re-producing anything differently from the Milli Vanilli follow up - he just had the "new" singers added, sing on top of what was already there in most cases. (And then he turned down their vocals a lot, so the ORIGINAL vocalists were still louder in most cases.) Now as far as the male vocalists, he took out the 2 most talented male singers involved in the project, (Brad Howell and John Davis) and swapped them out entirely for Ray Horton. (Who was a newly added member of The Real Milli Vanilli.)

Oh and FYI...On the cover there are 2 black women. One of them is Gina Mohammed. She actually sang on the TRY N B record, but you could hardly hear her voice. (Frank blended her voice in with Jodie and Linda Rocco's vocals way in the back.) You might not be able to tell it, but on a lot of those songs, there are 3 female vocalists singing on each of those sections.

It is funny considering the fact that, the other black female on the cover, was merely a model. Frank Farian never learned apparently that having models who don't sing just isn't the way.

As for the actual music, it is dreadful compared to the Real Milli Vanilli songs that are one in the same, in most cases. Weird to think the versions on the Real Milli Vanilli, the Milli Vanilli follow-up sound pretty good, whereas on this, some of the vocals sound like they were re-recorded using karaoke software. The only MAIN difference is the talented male singers are ON the music, and the talented female singers aren't mixed in with someone who sings too softly. Interesting what adding and taking out certain people can do to a song. The production is interesting, and "Sexy Eyes" sounds pretty good..but has nothin' on Dr. Hook. And for some reason, the cover always reminded me of a Milli Vanilli look-a-like or Dangerous era Michael Jackson look-a-like (Ray Horton) meeting a set from the 90s sitcom, "A Different World."



[Edited 7/22/08 15:02pm]

edit: One last thing I'd love to know if there was any promotion or anything for this record. Interesting to think that Frank Farian tried to appeal to a younger demographic (as opposed to using the older looking REAL Milli Vanilli singers) and then there was never a single video made, to my knowledge.
[Edited 7/22/08 15:10pm]

Awesome write up vanilli.

I got the real milli vanilli, but had no idea about a re-issue/re-recording of the same album (but with a slightly different tracklist as you said).


I find the real milli vanilli album ("the moment of truth") to be no where near as good as their first (bytheway, I only have "2x2", which has most the album tracks plus some surprisenly decent remixes).

"Keep on running" and the diane warren co-write "tell me where it hurts" are excellent, and I even like the goofy anti drug rap "crazy cane" (anything that massively samples cab calloways "hi di hi" is cool with me), but the rest is pretty poor to shocking.

"when I die" is horrible, as is "body slam" "hard as hell" etc...

"too late (true love)" is OK I guess (I got the cd single somewhere?), as is "in my life" (prefer George Lamonds version).

But no where near as good as their first album.

So, even without the scandel, "keep on running" and "tell me where it hurts" coulda been big hits, but the album itself is really poor, particually when compared to their first album.