Milli Vanilli & the Grammy They Had to Return | Story Walk | 66

A podcast to walk to when you need something to entertain and distract you. Story, scandal, and steps.

This is a 15-minute guided story walk about Milli Vanilli, the lip-sync scandal that rocked the music world, and what really happened to the two men behind the illusion. 

You can do this walk outside, or at home on a treadmill or walking pad. There’s background walking music to keep your pace. 

You’ll wake up your heart rate and your metabolism, getting between 1,800 and 2,000 steps in without even noticing.  

What we're talking about while we walk:

• The 1989 concert glitch that started the downfall of Milli Vanilli: 80,000 people, one skipping track, and one very memorable exit
• Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan: the faces, the braids, the fantasy
• Frank Farian, the German producer who built the whole illusion from a nightclub in Munich
• The Grammy win in 1990, and the shocking Grammy revocation that had never happened once in 33 years of Grammy history
• The press conference producer Frank held alone, and how Rob and Fab found out the same way the rest of us did: from the news
• What happened to Rob Pilatus after the scandal
• How Fab Morvan eventually made peace with the music, and why he says the joy people felt dancing to it was real

And because I cannot just tell a straight story without wandering off, I also detour into:

Teaching high-impact aerobics in an aqua unitard and high-top Reeboks, my pretend 80s husband... if you’ve listened before you know exactly who that is, “Rasputin” by Boney M, possibly the greatest walking song ever recorded, and why you might catch me dancing down the street.

This walk is a little different. A little nostalgic. A little sad. A little wild.

But if you need a story to pull you through your walk today, check i out. Put in your earbuds, lace up your shoes, and go for a walk.

And tap Follow so the next walk is waiting for you.

If you know someone who’d love this, a fellow 80s fan, a true crime lover, or just someone who needs to move more, send them this episode.

PS. Connect with me on social media at @yourwalkingpodcast.

Transcript

VOICE: 0:02

Today's walk is something different. It's a story walk. You can walk outside or inside on a treadmill or walking pad. Start out at an easy warm-up pace. It's July 21st, 1989. There's an outdoor concert at Lake Compounce Theme Park in Bristol, Connecticut. There are 80,000 people packed in front of the stage. It's sticky, it's loud, and everyone's just waiting for the beat to drop. Parents, kids, and teens in neon. They had big hair, bigger shoulder pads, and lots of hairspray. Then two of the newest big pop stars step onto the stage. Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan. Milli Vanilli. They're in those long, swishy coats. Braids are swinging. They're dancing, posing, and smiling for the cameras. And then, it happens. The backing track skips. You hear it loop. Girl, you know it's. Girl, you know it's. Girl, you know it's. Over, and over, and over. Rob keeps going for a second, and then you can see it hit him. He hears the glitch. His brain goes, oh no. He throws his hands up, and runs off the stage. The track keeps playing. The crowd mostly keeps dancing. They don't really know what just happened. But that tiny skip, that little loop of, girl, you know it's... was a loose thread that was about to unravel a global pop illusion. Pick up the pace just a little. Find a comfortable, steady stride. Shoulders are down. Your hands are loose. Imagine we're back in 1989 in an aerobics class. The music's pumping. And we're following that steady 80s beat. So to understand Milli Vanilli, we have to go back a bit. Back to the fabulous 80s. Now in the late 80s, I was teaching aerobics. I was wearing my aqua unitard, my high-top Reeboks. And on the radio, it was wall-to-wall dance pop. Madonna, Paula Abdul, Duran Duran, and of course, my pretend husband. Now if you've listened to me before, you know who that is. But before we get to the guys of Milli Vanilli, you need to know about the man who created them. German producer named Frank Farian. And he was a wizard behind the curtain. Frank knew how to make pop music work. He had huge hits with Boney M's Rasputin, Ma Baker, Rivers of Babylon. And by the way, Boney M was one of my favorite bands growing up in Norway, and I still remember all the lyrics to their songs. Ra, ra, Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen. And they're really good to walk to. So if you've ever seen me dancing down the street, I'm probably listening to Boney M. Frank had a pattern. He used powerful studio singers on the records. And then the people you saw on stage sometimes lip-synced to those vocals. It was kind of an open secret in the disco era. Hold your pace. Stay with that strong, steady, Boney M beat. So when Frank spotted two guys with presence and looks dancing in a nightclub in Munich, his mind started churning. Rob and Fab, they were dancers, models, full of charisma. They had thick accents, not much English, and they weren't exactly powerhouse singers. But in the MTV era, that didn't matter. It didn't matter to Frank either. Because Frank had an idea. His pitch to the guys was basically, you don't have to sing. I have the voices, you give me the faces, the moves, the energy, and I'll make you stars. And that's exactly what he did. Pick up your pace a little bit, make it brisk, but you could still talk in short sentences. Chest up, shoulders down, hands loose. Now behind the scenes, real vocalists recorded the tracks. And on the stage and in the videos, it was Rob and Fab, lip-syncing, dancing, selling that fantasy. And that plan, it worked. Girl You Know It's True hits, then Blame It on the Rain. And just like that, Milli Vanilli was everywhere. Their albums sold millions. They made TV appearances, they were on magazine covers, and they did world tours. They won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1990. Just think about that for a second while we hold our pace. Two guys who didn't sing a note walked on stage to accept a Grammy for their vocals. Now Fab later said that at the Grammy ceremony, they were both constantly living in fear of being found out. They were waiting for the unraveling that they knew was coming. They just didn't know when. The record label had marketed Milli Vanilli as a whole package. Talent, looks, moves. But there were tiny clues. Some people noticed that the accents didn't match the voices and some live performances seemed a little too perfect. You know, but most fans didn't care. We were just dancing in living rooms and aerobics classes. In my classes, we were lip-syncing. Girl, you know it's true, ooo ooo ooo, I love you. Off-key for me. So for a while, the illusion held. Hold that brisk pace. Follow the music. Take a deep breath in through your nose. Get that oxygen flowing into your lungs. And then exhale through your mouth. Going to roll those shoulders backwards. Big, big, big rolls. Get all that tension out. You're going to get a Grammy for shoulder rolling. And then roll them forward. Great big, big rolls. Get more tension out. Crackety-crockety-pop. Not lip-syncing those rolls. Stay with it now. Then Rob and Fab, they wanted more control. They wanted to sing on their next album. And they wanted to be recognized as real artists, not just faces. Frank was not happy. The guys pushed hard enough that Frank realized he had a problem. If they kept demanding to sing, the whole thing would fall apart. So, good old Frank decided to get ahead of it. Go a little bit faster. Then in November 1990, Frank called a press conference, but he didn't bring Rob and Fab. He just walked out there alone. And Rob and Fab found out about the press conference, essentially the same way the rest of the world did, from the news. Frank never warned them and he never bothered to call and he told the press very calmly, they never sang a note. It was all fake. The world lost its mind. So the Grammy was revoked and that had never happened before. Not one time in 33 years of Grammy history had the Recording Academy ever taken an award back. Not for bad behavior, not for scandals, not for anything. But for this, they picked up the phone, held an emergency vote and within days, that award was gone. Milli Vanilli accepted that award in February 1990. By November, it was erased. And if you search the Grammy database today, Milli Vanilli doesn't even exist. The Best New Artist list jumped straight from Tracy Chapman in 1989 to Mariah Carey in 1991. They were literally deleted from the record books. And here's one more thing that Fab said publicly: Even before the Grammy was revoked, he and Rob wanted to give it back. They felt they didn't deserve it. But no one was listening at the time. We're going to try to speed it up into some intervals. Not too many. Not too hard. Get ready. Push it a little faster. Walking strong. Walking steady. Feel a push. So for everyone watching, it was a wild music scandal. Late night jokes. Parodies. Bits on talk shows. But for Rob and Fab, it was their whole life unraveling. Stay with it. 20 more seconds. Feel that push? OK, we've got 10 more seconds. And back it off just a little. Still a brisk pace. Rob and Fab were humiliated publicly. They tried to come back as themselves as Rob and Fab, actually singing this time. But the world didn't want any of that. They wanted the hair, the jackets, the fantasy. And once that illusion was gone, the industry just moved on. OK, get ready. One more set of intervals. Pick it up faster for 60 seconds. Feel that push. Stay with it. Follow the beat. Of course, you don't have to. If you don't feel like going faster, don't go faster. It's all up to what you're feeling. Stay with it. Push it. Push it. Push it. Almost there. 20 more seconds. 10 more seconds. Push. And release it. Slow it back down a little bit. Still walking, still working. And poor Rob took it the hardest. He made several suicide attempts after the scandal. When the tabloids found out about Rob, they made jokes. Actual jokes. And Fab later said there was an interview where a reporter laughed about one of Rob's attempts while they were sitting right there. And that was the moment he realized they'd stopped being seen as people. They were just a product. And products don't have feelings. Stay with that steady pace. Rob struggled with addiction and depression for years. He had legal trouble. He went into rehab programs. There was even a warrant out for his arrest in California. And here's the saddest part. By 1998, Rob had turned a corner. He and Fab had actually recorded a new album. This time, their real voices. And they were about to head out on a promotional tour. But the night before the tour started, Rob was found dead in a hotel room near Frankfurt, Germany. He was just 32 years old. It was an accidental overdose of alcohol and prescription medication. And their album was never released. Stay with that pace. Shake out your hands. Bring the shoulders down away from your ears. By today's standards, it might not have been such a big scandal. The music industry is a business first and foremost. And if you've watched Taylor Swift struggle to gain control of her masters, girl, you know it's true. Back it off just a little. Fabrice is still out there. He went into recovery. He turned his life around. And he no longer feels shame about it. He said that the music was real. The joy people felt dancing to it was real. And he's made peace with that. Which is a good thing and it makes sense. Fab is still singing. He's teaching. And he survived. He owns his own story now. Now take one big breath in through your nose. And let it go. Slow your pace just a little bit more. So this was a different kind of walk for us today. A little music history. A little bit of 80s nostalgia. Because you know me and the 80s. And a little pop culture scandal to make the time go by. Because sometimes we need to distract ourselves during our walks. And if you liked escaping into a story today, tap follow. So the next walk is waiting for you. And if you know someone who would enjoy this, send them this episode. Roll those shoulders backwards. Again, big, big, big rolls. We'll get all that tension out. Sometimes when we walk or we move or even when we're working, we bring our shoulders up and they get really tight. And now roll them forward. Big rolls all the way. Draw a big imaginary circle. And thanks for walking with me today. And I'll see you next time.