Milli Vanilli

Milli Vanilli (lur) at the 1990 Grammy Awards

Milli Vanilli was a by Frank Farian produced Discopop - duo consisting of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus was. The duo's initial great success ended in scandal in 1990 when it became known that they had not sung any of their songs themselves. Their part only consisted of dancing to the songs played via playback and sung by other artists and moving their lips synchronously.

development

The single Dansez mentioned in the discography was released in 1987/88 under the band name Empire Bizarre . Pilatus and Morvan were hired by Ralph Siegel for this band . The title was not a commercial success.

Frank Farian later offered the two interpreters to work on his Milli Vanilli project.

In 1988 Milli Vanilli had a guest appearance in the ZDF series Das Erbe der Guldenburgs . In the last episode of the second season ("Das late Glück") they appeared with Girl You Know It's True and Baby Don't Forget My Number . It was first broadcast on February 17, 1990.

The first album All or Nothing (1988) was successful across Europe. In the USA , the album title Girl You Know It's True was number 1 on the Billboard charts for seven weeks , something that no other formation from Germany had achieved before. The title song of the same name was a cover version of the formation " Numarx " from 1987. Milli Vanilli's worldwide success continued to grow when one of the actual singers, rapper Charles Shaw , told a reporter the truth about the playback band. Shaw later withdrew his testimony when Farian paid him off.

For their second album, Milli Vanilli won the 1990 Grammy Award for "Best New Artist". Pilate compared himself to Paul McCartney , Elvis Presley , Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan .

scandal

After winning the Grammy, the duo hired US attorney John G. Branca to advise Farian on the production conditions for a second record. Farian refused and clarified the matter to the lawyer. The end of the band heralded the American tour of Pilatus and Morvan, which they started against Farian's will. During one performance the playback tape stopped, which revealed to the audience that the two dancers did not sing themselves. On November 14, 1990, Farian announced that the two actually couldn't sing at all. They just moved their lips to the singing of Charles Shaw , Brad Howell , John Davis and others. Farian himself had also sung along, as was the case with his greatest success Boney M. Jodie Rocco and Linda Rocco acted as choristers . Linda Rocco became known as the lead singer of the disco band Masterboy in the late 1990s .

After the scandal

In the USA in particular, the scandal was covered intensively in the media. The group was stripped of the Grammy Award, the record company Arista Records deleted the duo from their repertoire and a US court guaranteed compensation for every buyer of one of the two albums.

Farian re-formed the musicians behind the band plus the singer Gina Mohammed under the name "The Real Milli Vanilli". The album The Moment of Truth reached the top 30 of the German album charts, but could not repeat the successes of the previous album. On the new album, Farian detailed the singers for the individual songs.

In the USA Farian did not want to release the second album under a name associated with Milli Vanilli and instead formed the new group Try 'n' B , in which, however, two members of "The Real Milli Vanilli" were represented with Gina Mohammed and Ray Horton . supplemented by Kevin Weatherspoon and Tracy Ganser . The US version of the album - titled Try 'n' B - contained seven slightly modified versions of songs from the album The Real Milli Vanilli . The international version of the album (Sexy Eyes) only contained three new versions of the songs by The Real Milli Vanilli and eight new tracks, of which the Dr. Hook cover version Sexy Eyes was a chart success in Germany.

The two lead singers Ray Horton and John Davis are touring the world as solo artists after the scandal and appear among other things with songs from "The Real Milli Vanilli". Ray Horton also pursues various duo projects with artists and producers such as B. Ozoda, Movetown, Red Lyard, and Sven Andrew.

Overview of band members of the different groups

Band name	Active time	Members	producer
Empire bizarre	1987-1988	Fab Morvan , Rob Pilate	Ralph Siegel
Milli Vanilli	1988-1990	dance only: Fab Morvan , Rob Pilatus ; vocals only: Charles Shaw , Brad Howell , John Davis , Jodie Rocco , Linda Rocco , Frank Farian and others	Frank Farian
The Real Milli Vanilli	1991	Jodie Rocco , Linda Rocco , Gina Mohammed , Ray Horton and others	Frank Farian
Try 'n' B	1992	Ray Horton , Kevin Weatherspoon , Jodie Rocco , Linda Rocco , Gina Mohammed , Tracy Ganser	Frank Farian
Rob & Fab	1993	Fab Morvan , Rob Pilate

Discography

See also : Try 'n' B

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)						Remarks	[↑]: treated together with the previous entry; [←]: placed in both charts
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US	R&B
1988	All or Nothing - The First Album / 2 × 2 (LP 1, UK)	DE4th gold (39 weeks)DE	AT3 platinum (36 weeks)AT	CH5 gold (12 weeks)CH	UK6th Silver + platinum (25 weeks)UK	-	-	First published: November 14, 1988
1989	All or Nothing - US Remix Album / 2 × 2 (LP 2, UK)	DE4 (28 weeks) DE	-	CH3 platinum (19 weeks)CH[UK: ↑]		US- × 6 Six-fold platinum US	-	First published: June 26, 1989
	Girl You Know It's True	-	-	-	-	US1 (78 weeks) US	R&B8 (61 weeks) R&B	First published: March 7, 1989
1990	The Remix Album	-	-	-	-	US32 gold (20 weeks)US	R&B80 (8 weeks) R&B	First published: May 15, 1990
1991	The Moment of Truth - The 2nd Album	DE19 (13 weeks) DE	AT6th gold (12 weeks)AT	CH19 (5 weeks) CH	-	-	-	First published: February 10, 1991 The Real Milli Vanilli

More albums

• 1990: Keep on Running (unreleased)
• 1993: Rob & Fab (as Rob and Fab )
• 1998: Back and in Attack (unpublished)

Compilations

• 1989: Maximum Milli Vanilli - The Hits That Shook the World
• 1992: Girl You Know It's True
• 2006: Greatest Hits (release: October 13th)
• 2013: Girl You Know It's True - The Best of Milli Vanilli

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)							Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US	R&B	Dance
1988	Girl You Know It's True All or Nothing - The First Album	DE1 gold (28 weeks)DE	AT1 (18 weeks) AT	CH2 (18 weeks) CH	UK3 silver (15 weeks)UK	US2 platinum (26 weeks)US	R&B3 (20 weeks) R&B	Dance3 (11 weeks) Dance	First published: June 25, 1988
	Baby Don't Forget My Number All or Nothing - The First Album	DE9 (17 weeks) DE	-	CH11 (11 weeks) CH	UK16 (11 weeks) UK	US1 gold (21 weeks)US	R&B9 (15 weeks) R&B	Dance10 (8 weeks) Dance	First published: December 10, 1988
1989	Blame It on the Rain All or Nothing - US Remix Album	DE3 (23 weeks) DE	AT8 (20 weeks) AT	CH22 (4 weeks) CH	UK52 (10 weeks) UK	US1 platinum (23 weeks)US	R&B14 (16 weeks) R&B	-	First published: July 13, 1989
	Girl I'm Gonna Miss You All or Nothing - The First Album	DE2 platinum (27 weeks)DE	AT1 platinum (18 weeks)AT	CH1 (23 weeks) CH	UK2 silver (16 weeks)UK	US1 gold (21 weeks)US	R&B20 (14 weeks) R&B	-	First published: July 22, 1989
1990	All or Nothing All or Nothing - US Remix Album	DE17 (10 weeks) DE	AT14 (8 weeks) AT	CH22 (5 weeks) CH	UK74 (2 weeks) UK	US4 (15 weeks) US	R&B54 (6 weeks) R&B	-	First published: January 20, 1990
	Keep on Running The Moment of Truth - The 2nd Album	DE4th gold (26 weeks)DE	AT2 gold (19 weeks)AT	CH8 (11 weeks) CH	-	-	-	-	First published: November 24, 1990
1991	Too Late - True Love The Moment of Truth - The 2nd Album	DE25 (4 weeks) DE	AT26 (1 week) AT	-	-	-	-	-	First published: April 14, 1991 The Real Milli Vanilli

More singles

• 1989: Megamix
• 1991: Nice 'n' Easy (The Real Milli Vanilli)

Video albums

• 1990: Milli Vanilli in Motion (US:× 2Double platinum )

Awards for music sales

Golden record  Canada 1989: for the single Girl You Know It's True 1989: for the single Girl I'm Gonna Miss You 1989: for the single Blame It on the Rain 1990: for the video album Milli Vanilli in Motion  Spain 1989: for the album All or Nothing Platinum record  Netherlands 1989: for the album The Remix Album 1989: for the single Girl I'm Gonna Miss You

2 × platinum record  Spain 1990: for the album The Remix Album Diamond record  Canada 1990: for the album Girl You Know It's True

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	silver	gold	platinum	diamond	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Germany (BVMI)	-	3 × gold3	platinum1	-	1,250,000	musikindustrie.de
Canada (MC)	-	4 × gold4th	-	diamond1	1,155,000	musiccanada.com
Netherlands (NVPI)	-	-	2 × platinum2	-	200,000	nvpi.nl
Austria (IFPI)	-	2 × gold2	2 × platinum2	-	150,000	ifpi.at
Switzerland (IFPI)	-	gold1	platinum1	-	75,000	hitparade.ch
Spain (Promusicae)	-	gold1	2 × platinum2	-	250,000	Sólo éxitos: año año, 1959-2002
United States (RIAA)	-	3 × gold3	10 × platinum10	-	9,700,000	riaa.com
United Kingdom (BPI)	3 × silver3	-	platinum1	-	810,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	3 × silver3	14 × gold14th	19 × platinum19th	diamond1

Artist awards

RSH gold

• 1989
• 1991: in the category "German Production Male"

Movies

• Milli Vanilli: From Fame to Shame , Documentation Germany 2015

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 29, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ http://www.swr.de/imperia/md/content/swr2/sms/november/051129-manuskript.rtf
3. ^ Full cast and crew for "The Legacy of the Guldenburgs" Das late Glück (1990). In: IMDb. Retrieved December 31, 2012 . 
4. ↑ http://www.christianthiele.com/?p=150
5. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: Chartsurfer UK US

Web links

• Milli Vanilli at Allmusic (English)
• Milli Vanilli at Discogs (English)
• The Real Milli Vanilli at Discogs (English)
• Milli Vanilli Experience
• Fabrice Morvan's website
• Frank Farian's website
• TV report with interviews (Sat.1)