Uncategorized

Anyone Remember Milli Vanilli?

September 20, 2005

Who doesn’t? The two look-alike dreadlocked German male model singers were caught in an international controversy and humiliation when they were exposed by the media for lip-synching their way to a Grammy (Best New Artiste) and three American Music Awards (Best Fake Singers, Best Artiste Most Likely to be Models, Artistes Having Most Influence on NKOTB)

They released two albums with some sweety dancey songs like “Baby, Don’t Forget My Number“, “Girl You Know It’s True“, “Look Ma, I Can Lip-Synch” and “But, Hey, Our Listeners Are Pretty Dumb“.

I remember my best bud Vicky is really into them back in school. He would listen to his cassette over and over again on his mini-compo (yeah, when was the last time you heard the term ‘mini-compo‘?!). He would also watch their videos (probably taped from ‘\’Top of the Pops‘) and tried to emulate their cheesy dance moves. Kinda hard to dance like them when Vicky had short hair.

Then after winning the Grammy (I remember watching that edition, they spoke English with an accent like Adolf Hitler, but sang without any accents… go figure… anyway, I have to close this parentheses…) came the shame of it all. They became an international joke, and condemned by everyone.

I a bit of google searching the other day, and found that the two guys, Fabrice Morgan and Rob Pilatus did try to make a comeback a few years after that, but things didn’t go so well. Rob (I couldn’t really tell the two apart) tried to commit suicide and later died of drug overdose. The other guy, Fabrice (yeah, this guy must have got beaten up a lot as a kid in school) tried to launch a solo career a few years ago. He has his own website that also has a pretty good write-up on Milli Vanilli’s history. For other sites, you can check out here and here.

My friend Vicky, was a little disappointed after the whole lip-synching fiasco back then. But he got over it pretty quickly. A few weeks later he was raving about MC Hammer or Vanilla Ice or something like. Now Vanilla Ice was big back then… (“Ice, Ice, Baby… Vanilla Ice, Ice, Baby…”)

36 Comments

  • nicktay

    September 20, 2005 at 6:34 am Reply

    Yes yes, Milli Vanilli…And then after they were exposed, the real band who sang the songs came up with an album. They called themselves “The Real Milli Vanilli”..to bad they didn’t go very far…hehe

  • mahagurusia

    September 20, 2005 at 6:43 am Reply

    Milli Vanili? Yup, exposure came at the same time as Jason Donovan, then mac tukul and vanilla ice.

    However Ice ice baby’s bass is still a good music to rock my ICE (Nope silly, its not deep sea fish on ice) 🙂

  • lilian

    September 20, 2005 at 7:58 am Reply

    The hair, the braids, the looks. Who cares if they can’t sing huh? LOL! After going down the supermarket aisle, you are going down memory lane pulak. Oh ya, the other chap of Duran Duran oso lip sync hor?

  • simon

    September 20, 2005 at 8:04 am Reply

    nicktay & james – my friend Vicky ALSO bought the tape by the Real MV. He said it was lousy.

    mahagurusia – jason donovan? ahahaha… that MR. Kylie Minogue…!

    nilesh babu – all our teenage dreams die out one by one, man… so sad…

    Lilian – WHICH duran duran chap LIP-SYNCH?!! NOOO-OOOOO!!!! Not Duran Duran!!!

  • mudslinger

    September 20, 2005 at 8:26 am Reply

    ba-ba-ba-ba
    ba-ba-ba-ba-baby…
    don’t forget my number.

    hahahahahaha! stupid lah MV. but sure was fun…

    hey the other day wasn’t MC Hammer on the MTV Video Music Awards? Maybe next we could have Eminem coming up with a song “featuring” Vanilla Ice. that would be something….

  • Pat

    September 20, 2005 at 8:43 am Reply

    Wow, really brought back college days memories 🙂

    Lip synch or not, they sure don’t make songs like those anymore. Pop nowadays are just total crap. My listening nowadays are reduced to Hoobastank, Michael Buble, Missy Higgins, U2 and Norah Jones. And oldies, lots and lots of oldies from the 80’s and 90’s 😀

  • mahagurusia

    September 20, 2005 at 2:15 pm Reply

    I custom tailored a pair of mc. tukul pants, aka aladdin style. Its so huge that one can hide 10 chickens in them. Doing the hammer time in them was fun! Now, nobody tell a word to the world, ok?

    On 2nd thought, maybe I should dig them out, nope I am not gonna wear them (will never fit!) and ebay them. Could be a gem in the making? 🙂

  • anjali*

    September 20, 2005 at 2:20 pm Reply

    Eh, how come you know so much wan? Hmm…I somehow have a weird feeling that Vicky and Simon are the same person. 😆

    I also big time TOTP kaki back then. 🙂

    Hey Simon, do a Top 10 Trivia on the 80s lah.

  • simon

    September 20, 2005 at 2:58 pm Reply

    fashionasia – i say, you oso big fan aa?

    mudslinger – MC Hammer came on for like 2 minutes and sang two lines. Very disappointed. I thot the Black Eyed Peas were going to join him, it was either cancelled or edited out.

    shan – modern talking! i forgotten about them! “You’re my heart… you’re my soul…”

    Pat – yeah, you know you’re old when you start to blog about MILLI VANILLI.

    lilian – Aiyoo! ith Frankie Goes to Hollywood very ghey wan lar! their song ‘Relax’ got banned wat… Geroge Michael’s group is called Village People’Wham!’.

    sexymum – YEAH, BABY!!!

    yuin – they always come on [V] and radio one… just watch for it…

    sashi – but sashi, didn’t you also have the dreadlocks and koyak jeans look back in then also? i remember wat… 😛

    mahagurusia – wear them, take a pix and post it up! i believe they were called ‘diaper pants’.

    anjali – my pals watched TOTP on VHS every week. I’ve never even seen an episode… 80’s trivia? If i start, you’ll never hear the end of it!

  • VioletEyes

    October 16, 2005 at 9:48 am Reply

    Oh I remember them very well. They were my favorite band back when I was 6-7 and I saw them in concert twice. And neither time could I tell they were lip synching, lol. I still like the music, though. I figure, if you liked the music before the scandal, why dislike it just because the frontmen weren’t the real singers.

  • NICK RANGI

    May 2, 2006 at 6:20 pm Reply

    fake singing bastards why? why? why? why? why? nah all good, its just why do they dress like women MILLI VANILLI FAKE SINGERS SINCE 1988!!

    from Nick rangi

  • Kel

    July 26, 2006 at 10:13 am Reply

    Yeah, we have a radio programme here in Oz that has a show every afternoon, called where are they now. They managed to track fabrice Morgan down about two weeks ago, and there is a movie about the Milli Vanilli deal in production, he is nringing out another album – keeping very busy.

  • Darren

    February 12, 2011 at 3:13 pm Reply

    “The other guy, Fabrice (yeah, this guy must have got beaten up a lot as a kid in school)” Didn’t Vicky (who is male) get beaten up also?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *