[Today: The unique artistry of Milli Vanilli...]
Milli Vanilli has entered the American vernacular as shorthand for a faker, a dupe, a con artist – which is perhaps a greater achievement than many of their late-80’s musical brethren can claim. Hey, Milli Vanilli means something – it might not be positive, but the idea of this band persists, particularly in major league baseball, where every team seems to field a few steroid cheats who are the athletic equivalent of Milli Vanilli (Sammy Sosa anyone?). By not even providing the vocals for their own album, they were natural godfathers to the current mob of untalented hacks using ProTools and AutoTune to sound like they can sing. In many ways, Milli Vanilli were ahead of the curve – if they were to appear on the scene today, it would be mere weeks before they enjoyed their own reality TV series (in fact, they were featured on the very first episode of VH1’s Behind The Music).
The group’s debut, Girl You Know It’s True contained enough shitty synth-pop that, naturally, it produced three #1 hits, sold 10 million copies, and won them the best new artist Grammy for 1990. But Fab and Rob (the lads on the cover) didn’t panic, they simply held press conferences even though they couldn’t speak a word of english without thick German accents. Even as a dopey 20 year old, I remember hearing these guys talk and having a WTF!? moment, wondering how they were singing the smooth R&B that was all over the radio and MTV. It was like hearing Arnold Schwarzenegger accept an award on behalf of Teddy Pendergrass. From there a few well-placed questions cut through the tissue of lies behind this album, they were exposed as frauds, the Grammy was returned, and they were effectively ruined.
Their story took a dark turn in 1998, when Rob was found dead in a Frankfurt hotel room from an overdose combo of alcohol and pills. His death was ruled an accident, but he’d attempted suicide before, and it’s hard to see that attempt not being related to his former group’s spectacular and very public flameout. His ex-bandmate, Fab Morvan, explained on his MySpace page that “…we were just a couple of kids who were unsure about how we could achieve our dreams, but once we found the way to do it… the rest, as they say, is history. Our album, Girl You Know It’s True, sold more than 14 million copies around the world and we were all over MTV.”
Universal Pictures currently has a Milli Vanilli biopic in development. Screenwriter Jeff Nathanson told Variety that “I’ve always been fascinated by the notion of fakes and frauds, and in this case, you had guys who pulled off the ultimate con, selling 30 million singles and 11 million albums and then becoming the biggest laughing-stocks of pop entertainment.” I for one look forward to this upcoming cinematic triumph, for it will expose Milli Vanilli for a second time – not as cheats and hacks, but as savvy hustlers who figured out that the star maker machinery runs on lies, guts, and style, long before that became obvious to the rest of us.
