Milli Vanelli: The Biggest Pop Fraud In Music History
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The vibrant music of the 1980s and 1990s is well-known. There were too many ideas and artists of this age to name them all. Likewise, there are too many stories to include them all. Yet, one particular historical event that led to Milli Vanilli losing their Grammy win is a story that ought to be remembered.
This is significant because it is the only instance in the Grammy Awards' history where an artist's Grammy has been revoked. With the way the music industry was developing in the 1980s and 1990s, it must have been challenging enough to achieve adequate recognition, let alone achieving three US number one hits with their tracks "Blame It on the Rain," "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You," and "Baby Don't Forget My Number”.
Milli Vanilli achieved precisely that, winning a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1989 (some sources online state that it was 1990).
The glory lasted as long as it takes for the truth to come to life. Apparently not too long.
As soon as it became known that Milli Vanilli was a bogus musical project orchestrated by producer Frank Farian, the couple was dogged by scandal.
Actually, other vocalists sang the group's hit songs. Morvan and Pilatus received a lot of criticism for their roles in the fraud because they were the group's public faces. In 1998, Pilatus apparently overdosed on booze and pills and died as a result.
The group was scheduled to perform live on MTV at Lake Compounce on July 21, 1989, in the 20,000-person capacity of the park's recently opened amphitheatre. A glitch with a hard drive prompted the backing recordings to skip, jump, and loop as the band ascended the stage to perform its landmark hit, "Girl You Know It's True," revealing that Milli Vanilli had been lip-syncing the song instead.
The incident drew more attention to the couple, and as a result, their record producer, Frank Farian, eventually acknowledged that Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus of Milli Vanilli never sang on the records.
This narrative offers an intriguing look at the underbelly of that artificial world of celebrity, including its occasionally tragic and dishonest schemes.
Also read: How Domi & JD Beck are revolutionizing jazz music for the modern era
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