G3000 said:

Wow, Fab looks so different!

Wow. Dude looks 25.

mrjun18 said:

G3000 said:

Wow, Fab looks so different!

Wow. Dude looks 25.

Glad to see Fab is doing OK for himself.

I still don't know why they didn't just give the Grammy awards to the actual singers...

Im not ashamed to admit but I dig their tunes even when the scandal happen I didnt throw away my tape cassette. You know I dont blame them for what they did, imagine someone offers you money, women, and fame but you have to perpetrate a fraud. When your broke and you getting rejected daily that offer is hard to turn down.

It was good music, despite the fact the guys on the covers did not sing the songs, I bought the albums (I also bought the US Remix album with Blame it on the rain) on the sheer musicality of the music. Great melodies, catchy lyrics and funky, streets above the usual Europop offerings.

I still listen to my old copy of "All or Nothing" today, that song, and the 7 minute of Girl u know its true are awesome.

In retrospect...this "duo" more or less represented everything that was WRONG with 88-91 mainstream pop music

followed closely by S, A & W

1sotrue said:

Im not ashamed to admit but I dig their tunes even when the scandal happen I didnt throw away my tape cassette. You know I dont blame them for what they did, imagine someone offers you money, women, and fame but you have to perpetrate a fraud. When your broke and you getting rejected daily that offer is hard to turn down.

DerekH said:

JoeyC said:

I never bought into the whole Milli Vanilli insanity. Back then i hated their image, their music and their fans. Now though, i can and do appreciate the music for what it was(good pop/dance music). I also feel for the guys. They were in a tough position(having Money and fame vs not having it).

The sad thing is that most of the ridicule and wrath fell on Rob and Fab when in fact a lot of people had a part in the deception.

[Edited 1/13/13 18:46pm]

Yeah, Rob and Fab took all the heat for it, when their producer and the record company (and maybe some other people) were in on it, too. What record company is going to offer a contract or put someone on tour before they know if the people can actually either sing, play an instrument, or perform live?

........including Clive Davis, that old slick devil.

AlexdeParis said:

mrjun18 said:

Wow. Dude looks 25.

Glad to see Fab is doing OK for himself.

I still don't know why they didn't just give the Grammy awards to the actual singers...

.......or give the awards to the first runner-up (which I think was Paula Abdul)?

TonyVanDam said:

DerekH said:

Yeah, Rob and Fab took all the heat for it, when their producer and the record company (and maybe some other people) were in on it, too. What record company is going to offer a contract or put someone on tour before they know if the people can actually either sing, play an instrument, or perform live?

........including Clive Davis, that old slick devil.

That old silver balled buzzard is always in the middle of some shit with his pervert looking ass.

vainandy said:

TonyVanDam said:

........including Clive Davis, that old slick devil.

That old silver balled buzzard is always in the middle of some shit with his pervert looking ass.

MadamGoodnight said:

vainandy said:

That old silver balled buzzard is always in the middle of some shit with his pervert looking ass.

That's the hairs hanging from his balls.

AlexdeParis said:

mrjun18 said:

Wow. Dude looks 25.

Glad to see Fab is doing OK for himself.

I still don't know why they didn't just give the Grammy awards to the actual singers...

I never understood that. Not only should they have given teh Grammy to the real singers, the real singers should have become popular. The way it happened is insane

Record company: your music is great, but the public is so shallow you won't sell records if we dont' put someone elses face on the music.

Public: Your music is great, we'll buy 9 million copies

experts: Your music is great, you win the Grammy

Then comes the revelation that different people sang the songs.

Public: we're so shallow we now think your music is crap now that we see your face and won't buy it anymore and we're going to sue you for making us think we really did like the music.

Experts: we're so shallow we now think your music is crap now that we see your face and we want our Grammys back.

Fakes or not, they were my favourite group for a long time, I could not really care too much who did it, just liked the songs. I knew they were kind of fishy when in August 1990 they appeared on a long dead sitcom called "Sister Kate" about a sassy nun who ran an orphanage for poor kids including one called Neville, a little wanna be rasta whose desire was to meet Milli Vanilli.

They came on and spoke like the most "Dot thats gut" German accents and I somehow knew how can they talk like that and sing like English as a first language style on the songs. Also I remember watching live shows and seeing that it looked like they were lip synching the words. Although at the time Betty Boo and several other marginally talented artists were miming along to backing trax.

But when they did come out as fakes, they showed the real singers and particularly the male vocalist, one Charles Shaw an African American living in Germany, but it was obvious English was his first language and it was believable the vocals were his.

As much as we liked watching Pilatus (Who is German with a black GI father and a white German mother) and Morven (A French speaking black man from some French colony), they looked too young and skinny for the deep and kind of rich throaty vocals of the male singers on the records.

Charles Shaw on the other hand was in his late 20s when the songs were recorded and is a large man. In fact he looked a lot like Carl Winslow/younger Philip Banks, and several rather large women (Probably also American or British) were singing with him. Frank Farian was to blame, as these people clearly had vocal talent, yet he was content to hide them beyond frauds as he obviously was uncomfortable with Mr Shaw's and the women's appearances. He knew attractive young men on the cover would move more records that a Carl Winslow lookalike wearing a Beagle Boys Sweatshirt ever would.

So also blame the shallowness of the pop world too, Luther Vandross and other plus sized performers were always relegated to the margins (Weathergirls etc). Still it was a typical pop world reaction even now, how many plus sized artists do you see who are there for freak value (eg Bizarre) have enduring careers (Ruben and Jennider Hudsson come to mind, one or two hits then fade off).

It anything the MV story proves to us all how shallow and disrespectful pop music is to big people. The real Milli Vanilli album in 1991 that had Shaw as the feature vocalist bombed (Although this may have been because of the Rob and Fab deception and the use of the words "Milli Vanilli" had become a taboo one by that stage). Keep on Running did not even chart, and the with a Rob and Fab album also bombed.

Today Milli Vanilli are merely a grubby side note in a Hall of Shame Pop Music History book.

[Edited 1/21/13 16:00pm]

http://vimeo.com/6659561

That link is to the Behind The Music on them it's actually a good one.

I Had no idea that they won the grammy AFTER the lip synchign fiasco.... how strange.

From what i understodo the lip synchign thing happened at the VMA awards and lke within a few days they were castrated.

Gunsnhalen said:

I Had no idea that they won the grammy AFTER the lip synchign fiasco.... how strange.

From what i understodo the lip synchign thing happened at the VMA awards and lke within a few days they were castrated.

At first it was just viewed as a lip synching situation. Not that they weren't singing, just that they didn't sing live. Slowly more and more came out about Rob & Fab

Gunsnhalen said:

I Had no idea that they won the grammy AFTER the lip synchign fiasco.... how strange.

From what i understodo the lip synchign thing happened at the VMA awards and lke within a few days they were castrated.

At first it was just viewed as a lip synching situation. Not that they weren't singing, just that they didn't sing live. Slowly more and more came out about Rob & Fab

Also Fabrice isn't completely untalented:

vainandy said:

MadamGoodnight said:

That's the hairs hanging from his balls.