they were so popular, they definitely could have kept going... at least until nirvana came and cleansed the hair bands and MV's brand of pop.

the girls in my high school thought these guys were so hot.

i have to admit that i really like some of the songs, especially GYNIT.

but.. COME ON!
they could barely form a sentence, their accents were so strong.. there is no way they were singing that!
they deserved an oscar for that!

ernestsewell said:

Im not trying to argue with you, just curious because I find this very interesting. How does a voice "fit a face"? Can you give me an example of someone? Does Stevie Wonder's voice fit his face?

Who the hell is Boney M?

Who the hell is Boney M?

Who the hell is Boney M?

Let me just say, I love reading all these awesome responses.

As for me, I would hope they could have lasted a few more albums.
I always figured if Frank Farian wanted to, he could have blended the voices.
Like had Rob sing behind Brad Howell (the male vocalist) and have Fabrice
rap/sing behind Johnny Davis (the other male vocalist) and just kind of
gradually album by album transition the original singers out less and less,
and just call it "experimenting with new sounds and styles." Just a thought.

Second of all, my biggest hang-up was, this music is still damn good. Even
the non-singles, "More Than You'll Ever Know" and especially "Take It As It
Comes." (That second song, it cheered me up when I was an awkward, overweight,
zit ridden, out of shape, 13 year old. (Man those early teenager
years sure were a bitch!) I'd often worry about a lot of things
back then that weren't a big deal. Don't most teenagers? Anyway,
the lyrics,from that song, "Sometimes it's easy to worry.
When there's nothing to worry about. Take it as it comes, girl.
Yeah, we'll make it through no doubt. It'll all come around." and
"Seems like the world's always changing. Gotta learn how to take it
all in your stride." I those lyrics and the real singers' performance of that song. Not to sound dramatic but those songs
helped me through a rough time of my youth, so they will
always hold a special place in my heart. To this day, I can't understood
why the music had to get "punished" just because of the scam.
Okay, so they didn't sing? Play the songs on the radio,
re-release the music with the real singers on the cover.
That music was still awesome in my book either way..no matter what.

Oh yeah, and while were on the subject, Milli Vanilli's version of
"It's Your Thing" is my favorite version of that song, EVER.
[Edited 10/31/09 20:31pm]

All I remember was how bad this Arsenio performance was, and how Rob acted at the end of the performance. He sang but the backup singer's voice was louder so you could not really tell he was singing. Fab was not bad. At the end, which is not in this clip, Rob acted as if they had finally made it on their own and he cried on national television as fans hugged him on stage.

There's a Prince and MV connection I forgot about until I cued up some of their music earlier.

On the Remix album, on "Girl You Know It's True", about 1:35 into the song, you suddenly hear people laughing. It's The Time laughing at the end of "Onedayi'mgonnabesomebody". You can clearly hear Prince in there.

None Prince note: There's a 2nd, unreleased album, that is floating around out there, for those interested.

This was a big deal back in the day. If I remember correctly, Sting (of Police fame) was a supporter of theirs stating they should not have to give back their Grammy Awards due to the whole thing. The Behind the Music showed how these guys became pariahs in the industry and no one would touch these guys again. It is a shame, but the pop music world was far different back then.

To elaborate on this point, anyone remember the Ashley Simpson SNL fiasco from a few years back? It was essentially Milli Vanilli part 2 (pre-recorded vocals not in sync with live performance), but by then the public was so jaded and used to lip syncers that the storm eventually blew over.

Who the hell is Boney M?

Milli Vanilli's version of
"It's Your Thing" is my favorite version of that song, EVER.

daPrettyman said:

Do you remember that MTV tour video? Julie Brown talked about it a lot. She was there. They were performing and the tape got stuck on "Girl you know it's.....girl you know it's.....girl you know it's....." Rob ran off stage, and Julie Brown pushed him back out there. That was the first hint that something was off, and very wrong. When Farian was interviewed at the end of the next year, that's when he finally confessed about it. During the summer of 1989 and the winter of 1990 (Farian's confession), that's when comics started to take huge jabs at them. In Living Color's Wayans brothers used to put mops on their head and mock them in skits. Rob said when he saw that, it's when he knew the end was coming for them.

After that MTV incident, Rob and Fab asked Farian to sing on the next album, so they could keep any credibility they had. It never happened, and Farian confessed finally.

Oddly, I don't remember many fans questioning the MTV performance. No one in the audience seemed to care. It was the critics who sniffed it out.

Although the narrator is in a different language, herein lies the infamous performance. This is from Behind The Music. It's what set the wheels of distrust in motion.

Timmy84 said:

They were still sought after in the early 90's by people in needing remixes. I have always heard a rumour that on The Cover Girls "Funk Boutique" which was done very early 1989-90 when it was first demo'd, that they were using vocals of a member that left, and on a version released to avoid it being known he sped up the vocals. Evelyn Escalara who joined in 1990 had to quickly be rushed into the studio to over-do the vocals because she was being used as the new singer.

8 years?

I think 1998 one of the gays, er, guys killed himself.

The worst thing that came of it, is everyone got on that dull ass "Unplugged" accoustical kick and stripped off all their instruments to prove that they could sing. Hell, you can prove that you can sing by performing the songs with all the instruments but just have the band play the song slightly different so that people can see you aren't lip syncing to the record. But don't strip everything off and make the songs sound like Roy Clark and Buck Owens on "Hee Haw" just to prove that you can sing. Hell, we went from a decade of excess (which is how I do everything in excess) to a decade where people were satisfied with "the simple things in life" (how dull).

LightOfArt said: