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Post by wildojinx on Aug 27, 2019 14:38:22 GMT -5
Could something like this happen again, or has the internet killed any chance of it?
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Aug 27, 2019 14:45:52 GMT -5
I mean, we COULD get another payola scandal or game show fixing scandal, just like this, but after the fallout of the first time, it's really not worth it, especially since people can chart with wildly mediocre singing voices as it is if they have the right kind of hook or production. It isn't worth it.
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Post by DiBiase is Good on Aug 27, 2019 14:47:57 GMT -5
I know it was a different age but Milli Vanilli wasn’t the first. Shit, it wasn’t even the first involving Frank Farian, who put the band together. A decade earlier he created Boney M, where the male singer wasn’t using his own voice (it was actually Farian doing the singing). Could it happen today? Sure. Sia has become a huge star and you never see her face when singing.
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Post by Confused Mark Wahlberg on Aug 27, 2019 14:58:38 GMT -5
I don't think so.
Guys with thick accents singing in perfect English would have about 100 YT videos breaking down how fake they are, then another 100 reaction videos.
Those guys wouldn't last ten minutes before someone figured it out.
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Post by carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) on Aug 27, 2019 15:03:59 GMT -5
I don't think it's the internet, I just think people are cynical. Maybe BECAUSE of Milli Vanilli. I think most people wouldn't be surprised if any given singer wasn't really singing.
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Post by Alice Syndrome on Aug 27, 2019 15:08:51 GMT -5
I think certainly the part that wouldn't happen these days is Farian being able to leave them holding the bag on it and go back to middling mediocrity. Twitter, Tumblr or similar would chew him alive and never let him forget it on any single project he ever did.
Hell, Rob and Fab would probably get a legit fanbase for their return in that situation when people realised he'd basically forced them into it.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Aug 27, 2019 15:25:17 GMT -5
I mean... we have singers now that either lip synch all of their performances pretty widely known...
or those with weaker voices hiding it under massive amounts of autotune... so... it probably wouldn't be seen as big a deal as it was....
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Post by Hit Girl on Aug 27, 2019 15:28:45 GMT -5
I have it on good authority that Taylor Swift is a fraud and her singing voice is actually done by two black male models from Germany.
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Post by Dr. T is an alien on Aug 27, 2019 15:34:00 GMT -5
I never quite got the point. I mean, sure it was pushed as though the buff Germans were the singers but its not as though virtual bands hadn't been a thing for a really long time (hell, The Archies had two Top 10 songs in 1969, including a song that topped the charts). To me, the only real issue was whether the real artists either got credit or at least well compensated with the understanding that they would not get credit.
Thing is, no one really learned anything as it literally was one year later that Martha Wash was suing C+C Music Factory for making it look like the delicious Zelma Davis sang her part in "Gonna Make You Sweat".
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Shark
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Post by Shark on Aug 27, 2019 15:42:19 GMT -5
I think the closest we'll get is the hoopla over Britney Spears lip syncing during her concerts.
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Post by Mozenrath on Aug 27, 2019 15:53:15 GMT -5
I think the closest we'll get is the hoopla over Britney Spears lip syncing during her concerts. I never really got that criticism of her and some other dancing acts, given you'd figure the choreography is much more important than the singing on most of her stuff.
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Post by A Platypus Rave on Aug 27, 2019 15:53:21 GMT -5
I think the closest we'll get is the hoopla over Britney Spears lip syncing during her concerts. or Ashley Simpson's jig on SNL
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Post by Shark on Aug 27, 2019 15:58:31 GMT -5
I think the closest we'll get is the hoopla over Britney Spears lip syncing during her concerts. I never really got that criticism of her and some other dancing acts, given you'd figure the choreography is much more important than the singing on most of her stuff. That was the only time she'd do it too. The slow tempo songs, she'd actually sing. I never got it either.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2019 16:00:05 GMT -5
Being honest I've never really understood the uproar over it. I mean, maybe it's just me but you're still getting the music, what's it really matter what the public face of it is?
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Aug 27, 2019 16:00:11 GMT -5
As others have pointed out, there’s really no incentive to go to the effort of creating this sort of situation again. Pick who you want to be the face of the music, make it perfect via studio tools, then have them lip sync to a backing track live.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2019 16:22:53 GMT -5
Being honest I've never really understood the uproar over it. I mean, maybe it's just me but you're still getting the music, what's it really matter what the public face of it is? Plus, Lip Sync Battles exists.
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Post by Jedi-El of Tomorrow on Aug 27, 2019 17:01:32 GMT -5
I think the closest we'll get is the hoopla over Britney Spears lip syncing during her concerts. or Ashley Simpson's jig on SNL It would have probably just been a quick joke for people to make if she wouldn't have thrown her band under the bus. Had she said "Yeah, I lip synched" right away, it would have blown over, but she put blame on her band. And then there was the Orange Bowl.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2019 17:03:36 GMT -5
I think certainly the part that wouldn't happen these days is Farian being able to leave them holding the bag on it and go back to middling mediocrity. Twitter, Tumblr or similar would chew him alive and never let him forget it on any single project he ever did. Hell, Rob and Fab would probably get a legit fanbase for their return in that situation when people realised he'd basically forced them into it. It'll never happen as Rob Pilatus died over 20 years ago (suicide I believe.) Edit: Appears to have been an accidental OD. I could've sworn that he jumped out of a building but that might just be mandella effect.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Aug 27, 2019 17:33:40 GMT -5
No, because crap singers have hits with auto tune all the time and lip sync 'live', they don't need to pretend anymore. That sad, Fab and Rob could sing, they just had thick accents at the time, which they could have overcome with coaching, but Farian had no intention if ever using then as anything more than faces for his session band. He gave those two kids a taste of fame then hung them out to dry when they started to actually want to contribute to their music. m.youtube.com/watch?v=3UDpQ0eS-vEFab is still performing, solo and occasionally with the actual vocalist who performed the Milli Vanilli tracks. He's still fab after all these years. Using dancers or models wasn't uncommon in Europe around that time, dance music was full of hits where they'd have some no talent pretending to sing along to samples of folks like Martha Wash, uncredited and often done without permission. It was common practice, so it's kind of amazing there was any kind of outcry over it in the states, especially after the long series of bubblegum hits performed by session bands and Phil Spector's various groups where bands were having hits they didn't perform and weren't even aware of.
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Post by DiBiase is Good on Aug 27, 2019 17:58:55 GMT -5
I’m not a fan of Frank Farian but I don’t blame him for everything. Morgan and Pilatus were informed right from the start that although they were supposed to be recording artists, when it turned out their voices weren’t strong enough, the versions released would be by session singers. They were happy to take the money given to them then and helped to carry on the facade. They did more than anyone else to perpetuate the lie. It’s easy to blame it on being young and naive but from everything I have read, they were fully aware of everything that was happening and they made the decision. Of course, it’s sad that Pilatus died but I don’t think Farian has any “blood on his hands” there.
And at right around the same time, Black Box released the massive hit that was Ride on Time. They tried to convince us that a voice like that was coming out of this beautiful model when it was obvious to everyone that it just wasn’t the case. And then Loleeta Holloway heard the song and thought “that voice sounds familiar”. In a bizarre coincidence, when Ride on Time topped the charts in the UK, the song at #2 was Pump up the Jam by Technotronic and Felly. Felly however was yet another model brought in to lip-sync and appear in the video. The real vocalist was Ya Kid K, who was the featured artist on the next Technotronic single (and many others after).
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