Fabrice Morvan, one-half of the disgraced pop duo, says he sees lip-syncing everywhere now.

January 25, 2010



From his perspective as a DJ, record producer, singer/songwriter — and player in the Grammy Awards' greatest scandal — Fabrice "Fab" Morvan surveys today's often-synthetic music scene and poses a simple question: "Authenticity — what is it?"

All around him, the former Milli Vanilli frontman sees performers lip-syncing in concerts and videos. He hears recorded voices that have been manipulated using Auto-Tune. Most telling, he observes consumers who seem not to care.

"It's not about being authentic anymore, it's about entertaining," says the man whose Grammy for best new artist was revoked 20 years ago — the only take-back in Recording Academy history.

Morvan and Rob Pilatus were the photogenic public faces of a Germany-based dance-pop project whose album Girl You Know It's True was released in the USA in 1989. The group of session musicians had found success in Europe and was signed to the Arista label by Clive Davis. Their revised American debut went six-times platinum and spawned three No. 1 hits: Baby Don't Forget My Number, I'm Gonna Miss You and Blame It on the Rain.

The group won the Grammy on Feb. 21, 1990. But soon after, Morvan and Pilatus were spotted lip-syncing in concert.

Producer Frank Farian later revealed that the album's lead vocals, credited to the duo, were those of other singers. The resulting firestorm led the Recording Academy to revoke the award and Davis to delete the master recordings from Arista's catalog.

Two decades later, the industry still is sensitive about the incident: The Recording Academy and Sony (which now owns Arista) declined to talk about it; Grammy Museum spokeswoman Katie Dunham said the museum's historian could not speak knowledgeably about it. Farian could not be reached for comment. Academy spokeswoman Jaime Sarachit did note that all performances on the Jan. 31 awards broadcast will be sung live, without lip-syncing.

Questions still linger about who did what when. Morvan, who considers himself and Pilatus "scapegoats — imagine a horde of wolves who want to eat you alive," says misconceptions will be cleared up in a movie, for which he is consulting.

Morvan says he's keeping some revelations for the movie but wants to set the record straight about one key thing: "We wanted to give the Grammy back. We felt in our hearts that it would be a good gesture to do that. But they made it look as though (the academy) wanted it back. They could have come to my house and gotten it."

Mantis Evar, who spent 32 years as a rock musician and jazz producer and recently founded the musicians collaborative Indaba Music, says that in a narrow sense the episode could be considered a "marketing thing" — if the correct singers had been listed on the album and Fab and Rob's role clarified from the start, the issue wouldn't have erupted.

"Some fans felt duped" by the lip-syncing then, and some still do when it occurs today, though the practice has become common at live pop shows.

Vocal enhancements in the studio are a different matter, he says. "In pop, R&B and hip-hop, just about everyone uses some sort of processing. This has almost become part of the sound today ... and people expect it."

Twenty years later, "what we were crucified for you see everywhere," Morvan says. "Society and life and everything changes."

Still, he says, "there is no bitterness. It made me a better man. I feel like I have lived the life of 100 men."



http://www.usatoday.com/l...6_ST_N.htm
[Edited 2/2/10 8:21am]

A Milli Vanilli movie

bboy87 said:

I WANNA C IT

paisleypark4 said:

Me too!!

I do agree they got unfairly punished when it was the record company that made the mistake, and it was the Grammys that tried to pull out of it by taking the award away rather than give it to the people who actually sang.

But Rob & Fab knew they were entering into deception. Britney lip synchs, but to her own voice!

I guess the comparable thing would be The Monkees who didn't play their instruments on record.

But if Rob & Fab were talented, they'd have gotten past the scandal. They actually had more opportunity than, say, ME! They got to sing on Howard Stern. He still gets articles & interviews 20 years after the fact. Stop whining and realize that being a superstar is a fluke, not what came before & after. That part is just real life.

dancerella said:

Me three!

As just so everyone knows, I still think Rob & Fab were more entertaining 20+ years ago then most of these auto-tune bound lip-syncing artists of today.

gat dayum he foine!!!!


very sad story. I wonder if they had kept their mouths shut would they still be around? eventually they would have worked on their vocals and learned to sing good enough to record on their own. wasn't an additional problem the fact that they didn't speak english very well...in addition to the lip synching?


whomever the vocals truly belonged to....the music is pretty good.


"Blame it on the rain that was falling, falling
Blame it on the stars that did shine at night
Whatever you do don't put the blame on you
Blame it on the rain yeah yeah"

The songs were great.

I had no problem getting people to dance to "Girl You Know It's True" when I DJed a rap show this past summer.

Fabrice do look good. Kinda Taye Diggish! I'd hit it.

such a shame what happened to Rob....

Cinnie said:

That's why I don't understand why the Grammys didn't give the award to the people who made the music

TonyVanDam said:

Me 4 - I want to see it too.

The release of their first album was confusing as it was released in europe months before the US. Then after the US edition blew up also (with a few new tracks added, and a few taken away), they re-released it again in europe.

My copy of the album, called "2x2" (which was the european reissue with extra remixes) never actually states who sings on it. Does the American version state it then? I know that alot of european music (italo disco for example) had pretty boys fronting but they didn't sing a note on the records. Europe didn't care, but America obviously did.

Obviously nobody thought the album would blow up the way it did. And certainly without the good looking duo, the album never would of blown up in America like it did (or anywhere else for that matter).
[Edited 1/26/10 17:21pm]

I still think those dudes got a raw deal...I saw them sing the song live after the scandal broke and hey didn't sound that much diffrent..

Did Grammy ever give awards to Black Box or C+C Music Factory?

Vendetta1 said:

no

banks said:

Arsenio had Rob & Fab on HIS show after the scandal broke out.....and they didn't sound THAT BAD!!!!!
it's a shame that Rob Pilatus killed himself, though. R.I.P. Rob!!!!!

woogiebear said:

ok... I thought it was Arsenio's show but i wasn't sure... They didn't sound bad

Vendetta1 said:

Which woulda been JUST AS FU**ED UP because Martha Wash (Sylvester/Two Tons O' Fun/Weather Girls) ACTUALLY sang on BOTH projects!!!!! But they ALSO played the role w/some skinny bitch perpetratin' a fraud!!!!!

They had catchy songs even if they was singing it or not. And a movie ?? probably something played on Vh1

woogiebear said:

sure did... they have them skinny chicks in the video's singing along to Martha's vocals

BklynBabe said:

He is really good looking. The both of them were! Maybe Taye Diggs could play him in the film!! Who should play Rob? Terrence Howard??

I agree that's the worst part of this whole ordeal. A man lost his life because of the public humiliation. Now really was it that serious? No!! I didn't give two shits when I found out it wasn't them singing. I still liked their music.
[Edited 1/26/10 19:04pm]

i thought it was a terrific pop album, and i have no idea why they felt the need to put up a front for it. the songs would have been good enough to carry the project to success anyway, IMHO.

and as for these guys, yeah i do feel bad for them. just about anybody with dreams of making it big would probably have done the same thing, or would have been mighty tempted. i think the truth would have come out eventually though, even if their cover hadn't been broken when it was. Ultimately it was probably for the best it happened so quickly. How could you enjoy success under those terms, knowing that you could be unmasked at any second?

it's actually an interesting story for a movie and would probably be quite good.

What Milli Vanilli did in the late 80s/early 90s was pretty much a not-too-uncommon practice in the whole Eurodance scene in the mid 90s already. For those of you who remember those acts, MC Sar and the Real McCoy and Mr. President did the same.

I still prefer the old Milli Vanilli stuff over todays crap. Since there are no melodies to sing anymore, there also is no need to hire real singers to back up fake frontmen. They can take the talentless people to do everything right away.

Their songs were catchy but the scandal... sad Rob couldn't handle it. I do remember when the "Real Milli Vanilli" recorded an album and released some videos... lol. They did look kinda old.

Anyway, the Milli Vanilli scandal didn't bug me as much as finding out that this German dude was the real male voice on the Boney M records. WHY???

banks said:

I was told that Martha Wash sued for royalties and credit to those projects, and won. Is that correct?

Oh my... Fab is kinda fine these days.

angel345 said:

With the Milli Vanilli scandal still fresh in the minds of the music industry, Wash, also perturbed by the fact that her image had been labeled "unmarketable" because of her size, successfully sued to receive proper credit and royalties as the vocalist on all of these songs

Rob committed suicide didnt' he? Poor thing. I imagine no one was taking them seriously after that scandal. They probably caught so much flack and mockery and criticism.

Is Fab fine? Girl, you know it's true!!

And I'm not ashamed to say I liked their first album. I could not stand their version of "It's Your Thing" though.

DesireeNevermind said:

I think he got caught up in drugs, too