New milli vanilli documentary on paramount plus this week

Lots of jokes were made about the group when they got caught as a lip syncing group to studio singers voices. The music was good and won a Grammy. Maybe they were just ahead of their time. Can't go to a concert today without seeing the artist lip syncing at some point. I saw a Frankie Valli concert a few years ago. He is almost 90 and he was lip syncing to his own voice, but the voice was from a concert that he did when he was in his seventies. Times change. If this were to happen today, it probably would not even be a blip in the news.

Here is an interview with the surviving member promoting a new documentary about the pop duo simply titled Milli Vanilli. It will premiere exclusively on Paramount+ on Wednesday, October 25, 2023. It promises to tell the true story of Milli Vanilli, who rose to fame in the late 1980s and then fell from grace after it was revealed that they did not sing on any of their records. The documentary features interviews with Fabrice Morvan, the surviving member of the duo, and other people who were involved in their career. It also explores the impact of their scandal on the music industry and the culture at large. I plan to watch this


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adOi3mADCgI

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Originally Posted by milven

Lots of jokes were made about the group when they got caught as a lip syncing group to studio singers voices. The music was good and won a Grammy. Maybe they were just ahead of their time. Can't go to a concert today without seeing the artist lip syncing at some point. I saw a Frankie Valli concert a few years ago. He is almost 90 and he was lip syncing to his own voice, but the voice was from a concert that he did when he was in his seventies.

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While 'lip syncing' in concert might not raise too many eyebrows [especially in the case of Frankie Valli given his age], it's another story when the people involved never sang* on their recordings either live or in the studio the way that Milli Vanilli did. Other acts that got caught using session singers on their records [and backing tapes during their performances] include Black Box & C+C Music Factory and they had to pay for fooling their audiences too. Anyway, enjoy the Milli Vanilli documentary on Paramount.

* A few years after the scandal, Rob & Fab did record another album where they did their own singing for the first time [and appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show to promote it]. According to VH-1's Behind The Music Special on Milli Vanilli, the company they made the album for went bankrupt so the public never got to hear the LP they made.

Will definitely check this out. Their story has always intrigued me

For those interested; there's a new Milli Vanilli compilation coming out on Nov, 17th in conjunction with their documentary. Info from the SecondDisc.com-

The Best of Milli Vanilli [35th Anniversary] [Arista/Legacy]
CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

1. Girl You Know It's True
2. Baby Don't Forget My Number
3. Blame It on the Rain
4. I'm Gonna Miss You
5. Keep On Running
6. All or Nothing
7. Can't You Feel My Love
8. Dreams to Remember
9. Ma Baker
10. Hush
11. Money
12. Is It Love
13. More Than You'll Ever Know
14. Take It As It Comes
15. Girl I'm Gonna Miss You [U.S. Single Version]
16. Girl You Know It's True [U.S. Single Version]
17. Baby Don't Forget My Number [Radio Mix]

Tracks 1, 3 and 14 from Girl You Know It's True [Arista {U.S.}], 1989
Tracks 2, 4 and 6-13 from All or Nothing [Hansa/BMG {Europe}], 1988
Track 5 from The Moment of Truth [Hansa/BMG {Europe}], 1991]
Track 15 from Arista U.S. single AS1-9870, 1989
Track 16 from Arista U.S. single AS1-9781, 1988
Track 17 from Hansa European 12" 611 841, 1988

I finished watching the documentary tonight...loved it! There were parts of their story that I never knew about. Fab Morvan comes across as a very mature and wise human being. The documentary left me with some unanswered questions, so it led me to lookup an in-depth interview he did several years ago with VladTV. I recommend checking it out, if you want to learn more.

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Originally Posted by carlo

I finished watching the documentary tonight...loved it! There were parts of their story that I never knew about. Fab Morvan comes across as a very mature and wise human being. The documentary left me with some unanswered questions, so it led me to lookup an in-depth interview he did several years ago with VladTV. I recommend checking it out, if you want to learn more.

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I enjoyed it too. Yes, there were unanswered questions but it was also informative. Thanks for the info about the Vlad TV interview. I did not know about it and looked it up, found it, and bookmarked it to watch later. Maybe some of the unanswered questions can be found there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqmO9VE0PuY

Not many people seem interested in this documentary because they think of Milli Vanilli as some sort of pathetic joke. But these guys were victims, used and abused & never deserved the ridicule or punishment. Although it looks like they were starting to believe their own their own importance after winning the Grammy.

I do have unanswered questions. When the Grammy was taken away from Rob and Fab, should it have been given to the session singers? And suppose Someday We'll Be Together got a Grammy and years later it was discovered that two Supremes were not on the record. Would the Grammy be taken away from Cindy and Mary. Or taken away from the Crystals, or the Archies, or from Alvin, Simon and Theodore of the Chipmunks :confused::rolleyes:

I wonder how Clive Davis was able to come out with his rep intact.

Hey Milven,
Glad you enjoyed the doc too. Yes, that was the interview I had found that was posted by VladTV, that I had referenced in my previous post. Thanks for posting the link. I agree with your assessment on Milli Vanilli. I suppose there was far too much outrage at the time to even consider giving Milli Vanilli's Grammy to the session singers instead. The Supremes never won a Grammy, they were only nominated separately for Baby Love and Stop! In the Name of Love.

I also found it interesting that Clive was able to come out of it with his rep almost unaffected. Per the documentary, it sounds like he and his minions played a lot of the blame game.

Carlo, I just watched the Vlad TV interview. It was a good supplement to the documentary. Fab is a very likeable person. At the end of the interview, Fab gave good advice to up and coming artists telling them not to sign contracts without the advice and consent of a lawyer because the record industry has a history of corruption and cheating its artists and probably always will.

Artists have been ripped off for over eighty years in this industry in one way or another. Even Sinatra got ripped off.

Sinatra had a lot of trouble getting out of his contract with Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. He signed a three-year deal with Dorsey in 1940 for something like a hundred dollars a week. but the contract also stated that Sinatra had to pay almost half of his earnings to Dorsey and his agent for the rest of his life. Sinatra soon became more popular than Dorsey and wanted to pursue a solo career, but Dorsey refused to let him go. Sinatra eventually managed to break free from the contract. The exact details of how he broke away are still unclear and disputed. Sinatra himself never liked to talk about it and denied that he had any involvement with the mob.

I would love to see a documentary about the underside of the music industry

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Originally Posted by milven

Carlo, I just watched the Vlad TV interview. It was a good supplement to the documentary. Fab is a very likeable person. At the end of the interview, Fab gave good advice to up and coming artists telling them not to sign contracts without the advice and consent of a lawyer because the record industry has a history of corruption and cheating its artists and probably always will.

Artists have been ripped off for over eighty years in this industry in one way or another. Even Sinatra got ripped off.

Sinatra had a lot of trouble getting out of his contract with Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. He signed a three-year deal with Dorsey in 1940 for something like a hundred dollars a week. but the contract also stated that Sinatra had to pay almost half of his earnings to Dorsey and his agent for the rest of his life. Sinatra soon became more popular than Dorsey and wanted to pursue a solo career, but Dorsey refused to let him go. Sinatra eventually managed to break free from the contract. The exact details of how he broke away are still unclear and disputed. Sinatra himself never liked to talk about it and denied that he had any involvement with the mob.

I would love to see a documentary about the underside of the music industry

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Wow, never heard the Sinatra/Dorsey story before. I am reminded of the Drifters and Dominoes stories where the guys were put on low salaries, expected to pay expenses from their low salaries and were left with almost nothing. After Clyde McPhatter left the Dominoes, he got the lions' share of the monies and later on George Treadwell managed the group and ruled with an iron fist.

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Originally Posted by lockhartgary

... George Treadwell managed the [Drifters] and ruled with an iron fist.

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That's an understatement. Once, while the Drifters were appearing at the Apollo, Treadwell fired the entire group and replaced them with a whole new group, which included Ben E King

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Originally Posted by milven

That's an understatement. Once, while the Drifters were appearing at the Apollo, Treadwell fired the entire group and replaced them with a whole new group, which included Ben E King

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Allegedly one of the Drifters cussed out the owner of the Apollo and a local D.J. Treadwell got fed up and fired the entire group.