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How the Record Industry Ruthlessly Punished Milli Vanilli for Anticipating the Future of Music
Milli Vanilli, a pop duo act from Munich, will never enter the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. They were hot back in 1990, and even won the Grammy for Best New Artist. Their debut album eventually sold ten million copies. But Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus, the two musicians who performed as Milli Vanilli, are remembered today as a scandal and blot of shame on the music business.
What terrible thing did they do to get blacklisted and cancelled? You may already know, and if not, I’ll tell you.
“Milli Vanilli’s Grammy was rescinded—the first and only time that has happened in the history of the award. I note that Bill Cosby still has his eight Grammy Awards. Even after Phil Spector’s murder conviction, nobody took away his prizes and honors.”
But allow me to put matters in context first.
Looking back on the music stars of that era, it would be hard to create a greater scandal than, say, Michael Jackson. He was eventually arrested and charged with child molestation. Although Jackson never got convicted, the cumulative evidence is very troubling—even so, he gets plenty of airplay nowadays and is still lauded as the King of Pop. A high-profile musical celebrating his artistry opened on Broadway earlier this year.
The songs are great. I won’t deny it.
Jackson escaped a prison sentence, but many other music stars have served time for high-profile crimes without losing their fans. When R. Kelly recently got convicted of kidnapping, sexual exploitation of a child, and racketeering, his sales soared 500% in the aftermath. I’d prefer to disagree with those glib experts who claim “all publicity is good publicity”—but it’s hard to argue with those numbers.
Just a few weeks after the Milli Vanilli scandal, Rick James was charged with kidnapping and sexual assault—and then got arrested again for similar abuses three months later while out on bail. He continued to make recordings after his release from Folsom Prison, and returned to the Billboard chart. Health problems, not James’s criminal record, finally curtailed his career. And in 2020, his estate got a big payday by selling his masters and publishing rights to the Hipgnosis Song Fund.
Other music industry legends have committed murder or manslaughter. Suge Knight won’t become eligible for parole until 2034, and Phil Spector died while incarcerated for murder in 2021. The latter was widely praised in published obituaries, and his recordings remain cherished by fans.
And now let’s turn to Milli Vanilli.
Milli Vanilli with their Grammy Awards (Ron Galella/Getty Images)
Milli Vanilli haven’t fared so well. You might even say they have been wiped out of pop music history, lingering on merely as a joke or worse. But no one got raped or murdered by their antics. They didn’t even trash their hotel rooms or get arrested buying weed.
So what did they do that led to permanent cancellation?
Their crime was posing as vocalists on their recordings, when they didn’t actually sing. When they went on the road, they lip-synced on stage. And—if I can be blunt—their greatest transgression was making the people who vote on Grammy awards look foolish.
Producer Frank Farian came up with the name Milli Vanilli for Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus—who really were aspiring singers. Farian didn’t think their vocal work was strong enough for his project, but he liked the way the duo looked on stage. Strutting around in colorful outfits with their long braided hair swinging in time to the beat, Morvan and Pilatus captivated audiences. And they looked very cool in music videos.
Fans should have been suspicious as early as July 21, 1989, when a hard drive malfunction at a Milli Vanilli concert caused the music to skip, with part of a line from their trademark song (“Girl, you know it’s”) repeating over and over. Nowadays we might call it a sample or a loop, but in that time and place it was an embarrassment.
"I knew right then and there, it was the beginning of the end for Milli Vanilli," Pilatus later remarked. Even so, the duo kept their career going another 16 months before the scandal broke. In the meantime, their breakout single, “Girl You Know It’s True” became a genuine hit, and their debut album sold six million copies.
It was too late to change course now—and at every concert they continued to lip-sync to pre-recorded tracks. Until the truth came out. . .
The media was shocked—shocked!—to learn that pop video stars had been selected just for their charisma, dance steps, and looks, not their music abilities. Here’s what the LA Times had to say:
“Words like embarrassment or sham or hoax were too mild. Milli Vanilli was a scandal fueled, like most scandals, with ambition, greed and mendacity….” The same article breathlessly quotes Pilatus stating: “We sold our souls to the devil.”
The sad fact is that the two performers wanted to sing their own songs. Their producer was the skeptic, preventing the duo from contributing to their own album. And what recourse did they have. "We lived in a project,” Pilatus explained. “We had no money. We wanted to be stars."
Tensions caused by the deception soon reached a breaking point. Farian fired the duo when they demanded that he let them sing on their next album. In the aftermath both producer and singers shared all the messy details of their deception.
“Rob and I never meant for it to go this way,” Morvan later explained. “Our producer tricked us. We signed contracts as singers but were never allowed to contribute. It was a nightmare. We were living a lie. The psychological pressure was very hard. It was like we were trapped in some golden prison.”
“They can sing up to Pavarotti’s high C,” insisted vocal coach Seth Riggs. “Not as well as Pavarotti, but they did do it.”
Clearly the songs sound the same, no matter who is singing the vocals. If the album was great, why does it matter who does the singing? Back in the 1960s, the Archies had the bestselling hit single of the year, and they were just cartoon characters. The Monkees are acknowledged nowadays as cultural icons and innovators, although much of the heavy lifting was done behind the scenes by studio musicians and songwriters Boyce and Hart—Mike Nesmith even announced in an interview: "Tell the world we don’t record our own music."
But Milli Vanilli’s music is judged by different standards—without the nostalgic adulation enjoyed by those other artists. Yet just consider how much they anticipated the music scene of the current moment.
The notion of studio musicians actually performing hit songs for make-believe stars, so unusual back at the time of the Archies, is now a big business. The Japanese pop star Hatsune Miku is just a hologram, and anime pop singers are a major cultural trend—they have fans clubs and social media accounts just like flesh-and-blood performers. In other instances, holograms now replicate actual human musicians, but perhaps with even more duplicity than Milli Vanilli.
The holograms are often constructed using stand-ins as models—because there simply isn’t precise enough biometric data from dead pop stars. So the end result is actually a computer-built simulation of an impersonator. Milli Vanilli, by comparison, are paragons of authenticity. At least they appeared on stage and in video.
I’m no fan of lip-syncing—the worst crime committed by Milli Vanilli—but it’s naive to claim it isn’t pervasive in the music business. And I feel sorry for anyone who thinks music videos provide an accurate documentation of how a song is performed in the studio. They would do better to put their faith in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Hit videos are created by large teams, and the musicians often engage in the most ludicrous play-acting. No one expects otherwise.
And then consider all the recent algorithm-driven attempts to recreate the voice or instrumental sound of a dead star. Kenny G actually released a duet with Stan Getz in which the latter’s sax work was a computer construct. (And I wrote about it here.)
That’s an extreme case, but even conventional pop and EDM albums nowadays are created and ‘enhanced’ with so much technology, that it’s hard to say whether you could ever really witness an authentic live performance. Some hit stars merely show up on stage with a bank of sound equipment in front of them, and work the technology.
But I’m especially puzzled by the aftermath of the Milli Vanilli scandal. According to Pilatus and Morvan, the head of their record label—the esteemed Clive Davis—knew they weren’t singing on the tracks. But Davis’s career didn’t suffer from the fraud. Producer Frank Farian, the mastermind behind the fiasco, went on to enjoy an amazing career—his Wikipedia page boasts that he has “sold over 850 million records and earned 800 gold and platinum certifications.” It mentions in passing that there has been “controversy during his career,” but the general tone is adulatory and respectful. He even has a fan club.
“Back then it was fraud. Nowadays it’s a winning formula for Instagram and TikTok.”
Milli Vanilli have no fan club. Their Grammy was rescinded—the first and only time that has happened in the history of the award. I note that Bill Cosby still has his eight Grammy Awards. Even after Phil Spector’s murder conviction, nobody took away his honors and prizes. You can display those statuettes in your prison cell, as far as I know—perhaps some artists have actually done that.
As for Milli Vanilli, the duo actually got more press coverage as fraudsters than they ever received as musicians. The scandal totally eclipsed the renown, and still does today.
The two singers tried to recover their degraded careers under a new name, Rob & Fab, and they did a credible job on stage. But the music industry and fans were not in a forgiving mood. Their new album only sold around two thousand copies.
Another comeback attempt, with the support of Farian, came to a sudden and tragic conclusion when, right before the tour, Pilatus died of an overdose in a Frankfurt hotel room. He was just 32 years old.
Morvan has lingered on at the fringes of the entertainment business. He has worked as a DJ, rapper, singer, dancer, fashion designer, even a motivational speaker. He is now in his fifties, with time to reinvent himself again, but that can’t change the past—he will always be best known for a scam that someone else plotted, and he supported reluctantly.
If I were in a particularly cynical mood, I might claim that Milli Vanilli anticipated the future of the music industry better than any other new act from that era. Even the sound and ambiance of their old videos would fit in nicely with the songs on current rotation. True, they put more faith in technology than authenticity, but couldn’t you say the same for the algorithm-crazed music business of the current moment? By the same token, they knew how to act the part of celebrities, with the right attitudes and moves, while relying on a team of helpers to fill in the gaps—much like most superstars do today. Most important of all, they had more skills as influencers than vocalists, but that too shows how much they were ahead of their time.
Back then it was fraud. Nowadays it’s a winning formula for Instagram and TikTok.
After considering all this, many of you will decide it still was wrong. Musicians ought to possess musicianship, you will tell me. Record labels should reward talent, you insist, not just looks. The Grammy Awards should celebrate performers of impeccable artistry, who can deliver the goods live in concert, without manipulation and fraud. The whole industry needs to embrace honesty and ability.
But if you believe those things—and maybe I do too—we have much bigger problems than Milli Vanilli. If it were up to me, I’d give them back their Grammy. We need more forgiveness in our society, and a good place to start is with these two poor performers. Then we can move on to the larger tasks at hand.
That’s how the industry should have responded to the scandal thirty years ago. But it’s not too late to start now.
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