Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, this is Jeff Johnson from a film by
podcast and you are listening to the wildly popular Surely
you Can't Be Serious podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody, and welcome back to this Surely you Can't
Be Serious podcast. Ladies and gentlemen. I am here today
to tell you a tragic tale of a young black
orphan who has taken advantage of by a rich white man,
only to be crucified in the public and everyone sided
with the rich white guy. What the heck? And the
poor hero dies penniless and alone, far far too young.
It is a tragedy talking about today the definition of
a tragedy. But before we go there, I got a
joke for you. Ready, Yes, you got to hear this
whole one out right, so we know how hot it
is here in Oklahoma. And so I looked at my
phone and it had this forecast for rain and I
was like, Siri, surely it's not going to rain today.
And Siri goes, it is going to rain today, and
don't call me Shirley, and I was like, what the heck?
And then I looked and my phone was in airplane mode.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good. That's pretty good, okay, d So We
got a new executive producer on this particular podcast. He
goes by the name Z. I don't know his first name,
but his last name I think is Zastro.
Speaker 2: That is a cool Z last name.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: If I had that net last name, I would go
by Z as well.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, welcome aboard Z. It is good to have
you with us. Guys. If you are interested in becoming
an executive producer like z is, all you have to
do is go to our Patreon page. It's patreon dot
com slash Shirley Podcast, and for as little as five
bucks a month, you get access to all of our
Patreon episodes where we talk about one hit wonders and
novelty songs, and we've done some kind of cool, crazy
episodes in the last few days that if you want
to just see what we're doing, you can go and
sign up for free.
Speaker 1: Go sign up for free. Well, you got to lose nothing.
Go over to Patreon, sign up follow Surely you can't
be serious podcasts.
Speaker 2: And if you do decide to join and you start
listening to these episodes and you're like this sucks that
month that whatever you sign up for, we will pay
you back for that month. And wish you well along
the way.
Speaker 1: We think some of our best stuff is over there
on Patreon.
Speaker 2: Come check us out. Yeah we have five bucks. Yeah,
fantastic family of folks. So now onto our episode. This
is a new series that we're starting, Okay, and we've
decided to call this one quote unquote the band Are
they worth the hate? So for this episode, we're talking
about Millie Vanillion. Are they were the hate? Probably in
the future where you're going to hit bands like Creed,
are they worth the hate? Nickelback? Are they worth the hate?
I mean, you never know what's going to happen over
the years, and we're definitely gonna talk about that on
this episode. But I can remember as when I was
a kid that Barry Manilo was like the ultimate joke
of a musician, right Like it was like everybody like
if they wanted to make fun of your song, and
you were like, sounds like Barry Manilo. My kids love
Barry Manilo. They love Copa Cabana, they love Mandy, they
love all of those songs because it turns out they're
good songs. Just that sometimes people get hate, bands get hate,
and maybe there's a good reason, and maybe there's not.
That's right.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to dive into it. Because I'm a
song guy. I'm not really an artist guy. So if
the song stands on its own, I tend to kind
of celebrate that song. And I am proud to celebrate
some of these songs from the summer of eighty nine.
This was one of the biggest selling albums of nineteen
eighty nine, and the players in this are very interesting.
We got to decide who takes the blame on this.
Is it Rob and Fab is it Frank Farrion? Is
it the record producers? Are we gonna blame the rain?
We've got to figure out who to place the blame on.
And I have my opinions and hope that you guys
will listen with open hearts and ears to hear what
we have to say on this. All right, D So
we're going to go track by track today through the
Girl You Know It's True album, which was released in
America in March of nineteen eighty nine. The interesting thing
when you kind of dig into this, you realize that
there was a previous album that they released only in
Europe that was called All or Nothing. That's what kind
of got them going. But they decided when they were
coming to America, the record companies over here, the record
producers over here, decided that album is not strong enough
for America, and so they kind of scrambled it up,
added some songs, and made it sort of its own
new debut album just for America.
Speaker 2: Right. And I mean, when we're talking American record label,
we're talking about Clive Davis here. I mean, we're not
talking about small American label. We are talking about the
freaking man, big.
Speaker 1: Dogs in this conversation today.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are a few record producers who get
their name mentioned specifically in an Aerosmith song, and Clive
Davis is one of them. I'm Gonna make You a Star.
And well, it seems to be that that's a pattern
that we were going to see in this episode as well.
Speaker 1: All Right, so before we dive into the stories on
this album, I just want to give you a quick
overview of Girl Your Notes True.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: That album was released March ninth of nineteen eighty nine.
It goes six times platinum, forty one weeks in the
top ten, sells eight million copies worldwide. It's number one
in the US for seven weeks, and it's not an
exaggeration to say this is one of the biggest debut
albums of all.
Speaker 2: Time, without question. I remember these guys exploding onto the scene,
and they were everywhere you look.
Speaker 1: They were everywhere. So I've got a funny story. I'm
gonna throw deaf Dave under the bus here for a second. Okay,
Dave and I we like to talk Casey's Top forty.
He knows a lot about Case's Top forty, and so
I threw him this question a few weeks ago without
him having the knowledge that we're going to cover Milli
Vanilli this week. So I said, Dave, all right, I've
got a question for you. If you took all of
the singles from a band or an artist, and you
ranked them with one being the highest total, right, you
can reach number one. I said, with a minimum of
five singles, who do you think has the cumulative lowest
score possible? And he thought for a minute. He said, Okay,
I've given this some thought. He goes, this is somebody
that came out of nowhere, came in like a shooting star,
burned brightly, and then something caused them to go away quickly.
I'm like, he's got it. He's absolutely got to figure
it out. Yeah, and he goes Nirvana. Well that's not
that's not a bad comparison. No, it's not. And it
follows all that criteria. But here's the deal. Okay, Milli
Vanilli had five singles. They had a number two hit,
three number ones, and a number four. Five total singles,
their average cumulative ranking on the Hot one hundred is
one point eight.
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
Speaker 2: Probably few bands in the world like I mean, especially
if you consider how many songs they released in total.
Like you take any other band who had two or
three albums, the odds start diving, right.
Speaker 1: We looked at the Beatles, we looked at Michael Jackson.
It doesn't compare.
Speaker 2: It's not even close. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: They might be the top of the heap.
Speaker 2: It could be, all right.
Speaker 1: So the first song on the album is the number
two hit girl.
Speaker 4: You know it's true, all.
Speaker 1: Right, d I don't care who you are. That's a
great pop song, right there. I am dead serious. That
is a great that's a hit right there.
Speaker 2: Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen. Whenever we started talking
about this episode, I was the one dragging my feet
a little bit and then after doing some research, I
was like, Okay, this is actually a pretty good story
that we need to tell. And then once I really
dove into it, I'm like, this is a story that
needs to be told for sure.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: But then Jason started talking about the worth of their
songs and how good they were, and I was like, whoa,
whoa wa, whoa whoa.
Speaker 5: Bro.
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's pop Candy Goo and.
Speaker 1: He's Pop Candy Goo. But you can't reach the heights
that they reached without good.
Speaker 2: Pop songs, I know. But then I pointed out the
same thing is true for New Kids on the Block,
which you have a resounding hatred for. But it's literally
the same formula.
Speaker 3: You know, it is.
Speaker 1: The same format.
Speaker 2: And I told you the reason that you hate New
Kids on the Block and love Billy Vanilly is because
you saw the New Kids on the Block is a
bunch of short, somewhat twelve year old yeah guys like yourself.
And so you're like, I could beat this up by
a guy up in high school. And then you look
at Milli Vanilli and you're like, I will never be
a tall, model esque dreadlocked black man.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: So that's why you love Millie Vanilli even though they're
making the same music as New Kids on the Boy.
Speaker 1: Well, that might be fair, that might be fair. But
I'm telling you that is a that's a hit song.
I listen to it, I hear it. I think that's
a hit.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm gonna blow some minds here. This song
is a cover song.
Speaker 1: I could not believe that.
Speaker 2: So what do you know about the group New Marks?
Speaker 1: The group consists of Bill Peedaway, Junior, Sean, DJ Spen Spencer,
Rodney cool Rod, Holloman cool Rod, and k y Oda Yano.
I do know that Bill Petaway was working at a
gas station when he wrote this song. Girl, you know
it's true.
Speaker 2: They are from Maryland. All the rock. This is like
when when Wayne and Garth we're in Delaware, right, Yeah,
these these guys. It was a Baltimore band who first
recorded this song, and nobody listened to it.
Speaker 3: We got to hear it every time.
Speaker 5: When you and everything you do, you understand.
Speaker 3: Together.
Speaker 1: What do you think of that one?
Speaker 2: It's very similar, Like it's the same bones. The guy's
voice is even pretty similar.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have that sparkle that Frank Farrion gave to it right.
Speaker 2: So New Marks releases this one after they had released
a song called Rhymes Deaf, which actually had kind of
a little bit of success in America. This was their
second release. It didn't do as well in America, but
over in Germany it kind of got a following, which
is probably where Frank Ferrian first heard the song.
Speaker 6: Guaranteed right, Girl, Girl, Girl, you know it's true.
Speaker 1: By the way, Bill Petaway Junior is credited with discovering
Tony Braxton while she was singing a song at his
gas station.
Speaker 2: Fantastic how about that? That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So New Marks had made a little bit of
an impact in the music world. This song reaches number
two on April first, nineteen eighty nine. Curiously, it's kept
out of the number one spot by Eternal Flame by
the Bengals, which I'd love to talk about it sometime
because rumor has it that Suzanne Hoffs recorded that song
in the nude but it blocked rock Settes the look. Yeah,
and so I think rox Sett's reason to be pissed
about that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard the song set a drift on
Memory Bliss by PM don No, let me play that
for you real quick to see if you recognize it.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's spot on.
Speaker 1: Okay, that little drum beat right there. They call it
Ashley's roach cliff and it plays in PM DON and
they use it at least three times on this album
for Girl, and it's true.
Speaker 2: Three different songs, yeah, three different songs. Yeah. That's their hooky,
that's their hookie.
Speaker 1: Ban, it's their thing.
Speaker 2: That's Frank Farion's thing. So Frank Farrian, here's this song.
And he thinks to himself, I can do this. I
can make this a better song, and I can make
it a hit. And so then all he has to
do is he has to find people to sing it. Now,
who is this guy, Frank Farrion. We have talked about
him in the past. Back when we did our Top
five of nineteen seventy eight, I told you that a
new discovery for me was this band called bony M. Yes,
I remember that, and you were like, Frank Ferry and
I'm like, who's that? Yeah, And so it turns out
that bony M who Their music is freaking awesome.
Speaker 1: I love it, Rah Rah Rasputine.
Speaker 2: That was my favorite song, was the right. But as
I was listening to you know, I'm looking for these songs.
I've got the headphones in and this one comes up
in like a some seventy eight playlist that I tuned into,
and I'm listening to it, and then I'm like, oh,
this is good. And then I look at the album
cover and I'm like, WHOA. I would not have guessed
that this was a black guy singing the song because
it sounds like a white guy's voice. Turns out my
intuition was correct.
Speaker 1: Mister Frank Ferry and himself sang on bone EM's album.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he sang rah Rah rasputine. He sang the resputant song.
And then they hired a African American. I mean he
was from the Caribbe and I believe dancer model to
come and lip sync. I mean, it's the exact same
scenario that we're talking about with Millie Vanilli ten years earlier.
Speaker 4: It's crazy.
Speaker 1: It's the same formula and it worked back then. Why
would it not work again?
Speaker 2: And here's here's why what happened to Milli Vanilly didn't
happen to Bonim. Bonim never won a Grammy. That's it,
and we'll get to that in a little while.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: So ironically, Millie Vanilli's first hit is a Way. It's
a song that has the word true in it, even
though it is a complete lie.
Speaker 1: That's true. It was a complete lie and as sort
of poetic justice that this was the song that they
were performing in Bristol, Connecticut on July twenty first, nineteen
eighty nine. When it starts going girl, you know it's girl,
you know it's girl. You know it's skips and skips, skips,
and it outs them as lip syncing.
Speaker 2: Right, except that some how it kind of flows under
the radar for quite a while. I mean, you got
literally thousands of people in the crowd. I mean I
realized this is before social media, But how did people
not know? I mean, this was an MTV event, I mean,
down down, Julie Brown was there, I know, And why
the heck wasn't somebody manning the CD player? Like, if
you have this massive secret that this band and these
guys are lip syncing and they're fake playing to this song,
you gotta have somebody ready to hit stop and play
again if the something happens to the CD.
Speaker 1: Without a doubt. As we get into this story, I
think what they did was marketing genius. Frank Farrion was
a mastermind at creating an image and a song and
a video and a movement. But what he did a
terrible job at is protecting the secret.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He didn't want them to go. He did not
want them to come to America. He did not want
them to do live performances, if we can call them that.
He didn't want that to happen. He saw the danger
that was out there.
Speaker 1: He was afraid they were going to quote unquote f
it all up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so we ready for song number two?
Speaker 1: Ready for song number two?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: The song number two on the album is Baby Don't
Forget My Number, another humongous song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, guys, the first song on the album hit
number two. Let's see what we can do with the
song number two.
Speaker 1: Second single goes all the way to number one July one,
nineteen eighty nine. We just hit the thirty fifth anniversary
of it like a week ago now, then number one
that week, Baby Don't Forget My Number. It blocks good
thing by the fine young Cannibals.
Speaker 2: They're angry.
Speaker 1: Well, they hit number one the next week, so they're okay.
It did block Buffalo's stance by Nina cheriotough.
Speaker 2: Oh, and he was one of the ones that was
up for the Grammy.
Speaker 1: When they won, they stole a number one hit from her,
and they stole a Grammy from her conceivably. Yeah, this
song was written by Frank Ferry. Fuck so the real
singers on this album is an American singer named Brad Howell.
You have a rapper named Charles Shaw. And the interesting
thing Charles Shaw he couldn't keep his mouth shut, so
he got fired, and then they brought in this other
guy named John Davis to replace him. Nobody even noticed.
Speaker 2: These are different guys than the guys who sang on girl.
You know it's true? Like I mean, I feel like
I should have known better. I mean, if you just
listen to fab talk for about thirty seconds, you gotta
say to yourself, how does a guy who can barely
speak English rap faster than I can. It's no joke,
like it's it should have been patently op. I mean,
I guess when I listened to George Michael speak, he
doesn't sound like it sounds when he sings, and so
maybe I thought it was a mel Tillis thing or something.
I don't know, but I mean listening to the rap
on this song and knowing that Fab, I mean he
is from France. He speaks French, and I mean, give
it up, he speaks English. I don't speak two languages, right,
but I can tell you that if I tried to
rap in French, you would know, you would.
Speaker 1: Know, and not to mention the voices deeper. Rob has
a Bavarian accent. Fab has a French accent. None of
it matches up right, we were We took it, hook
line and sinker.
Speaker 2: So shall we begin the tragedy of these poor guys.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it, because it really is monumentally tragic.
Speaker 2: I mentioned the beginning of this episode a poor orphan
black boy. He is born from this union between a
black American serviceman and a dancer in Germany aka stripper probably, yes, probably,
and he gets put in an orphanage. This, I mean
orphanages still existed in the sixties in Bavaria, Germany apparently,
and so for his first four years of his life
he's in an orphanage. He finally gets adopted by this family,
but because this is Germany, there are not a lot
of other people around with skin as dark as his,
and so his school makes would call him Kunta Kente.
It was tragic. I mean, he has a tragic beginning,
a tragic upbringing. But he's a guy who loves to
perform and he loves to sing, and all he wants
to do is go be either a dancer or a musician.
Speaker 1: He's got these beautiful green eyes. As he grows up,
he's got super chiseled and got a model asque body.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and so he's got some stuff to work with. Yeah.
And then of course you've got Fabrice Morven, who everybody
calls fab right now. He grows up in Paris, moves
to Munich whenever he's a young man, and Rob is
already there at this point, and Rob suddenly sees another
black guy and it's like, Hey, what the I'm the
black guy. I'm the token black guy in here. What
are you doing here? Yeah? But fab is such a
kind and gentle guy. I mean, listening to him talking interviews,
I can see how he just he looked to Rob
as an older brother, and Rob kind of took him
on as a younger brother. And I think there were
a difference of age of maybe three or four years.
And that's the other thing. Rob's birth is questionable, whether
he was born in sixty four or sixty five, like
on his death certificate. Some of them said thirty two,
some of them said thirty three. We don't know exactly
which year he was born. But so they start hanging
out together. They do dancing together. He's break dancing like
they're building something. But I mean they are dirt poor.
They are living in squalor together. Yeah, bab was homeless.
Speaker 1: For a while, and they sat around there like, you know, what,
what do pop singers look like?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What can we do to make ourselves look like pop singers?
Speaker 2: So they're looking at pictures of Share, of Madonna, of
Michael Jackson, and there's something unique about all of those folks.
Speaker 1: They all have long hair.
Speaker 2: They all have great hair, and.
Speaker 1: So they got the hair extensions and it makes them pop,
It makes them stand out.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, everybody.
Speaker 1: The girls love the long hair.
Speaker 2: So then they start getting jobs as back up dancers.
Speaker 1: So they sing back up on the German version of
Solid Gold, and I saw them backing Sabrina Seleerno.
Speaker 2: Sabrina Salerno, Ohohnes sake, she's like Samantha Fox on steroids.
She's smoking. Yeah, still majors according to your Instagram. My gosh,
Jason's over here stocking her Instagram majors at fifty eight. Anyway,
she's singing on the German version of American Bandstand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're dancing the background.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've got their they start their own group. Rob
sings and plays the bass while he's singing. I mean,
this is this is is not as though these guys
had nothing going for them. They've got a lot of
great look, they've got some amount of talent, and then
infamy happens.
Speaker 1: So Frank Farian takes notice of them. Now, Frank Farian
is like the German Mutt Laying. He is producer extraordinary.
He's responsible for bonym and all these other well known
European acts. He's big name over there. And he takes
notice of them and says, hey, guys, I think we
need to work on a project together. And they're like,
Frank Farian, right of court? What where do I say?
What are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Let's like Rick Rubin calling me up and going, hey,
I really like you and Jason's voice. Would you like
to come and do an album with me? But we're
not worthy. It's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: They go to meet with him, they bring out this
record contract. Frank Varian says, here you go, guys, here's
the record, you know, the standard Richard Famous deal. And
they don't even read it. They're just like, whatever, dude.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, what are you gonna They have nothing
to lose in their minds. I mean, because I mean,
I've been in that spot where you know, you're barely
making rent. You know, what's the worst that can happen.
They're gonna take away my five hundred bucks I make
a month. I mean, that's who cares.
Speaker 1: So they sign this contract. They also gave him like
ten thousand Deutsche marks.
Speaker 2: They gave him a bunch of money to go, like
get themselves even prettier than they already were, and to
get out of the rat hole that they were in.
Speaker 1: So they are fired up. They're like, this is amazing.
Frank Ferry's going to produce our album. You know, he said,
they're going to write the songs for him. Great, when
we're gonna perform this and they said. Months go by
and they hear nothing.
Speaker 2: They're just out there spending their Deutsche marks.
Speaker 1: So Frank's girlfriend who's also his CFO, and kind of partner.
Her name is Ingrid Segaith, Yes, and she calls him
and she was kind of like a mother figure to
them through this whole deal.
Speaker 2: She I mean her nickname is Millie Milli yeah.
Speaker 1: In that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they call it Robin Fab and they say, hey,
come in here, Fab said, they they brought him in.
They hit play and girl, you know it's true. Is
coming through the speakers right with the singing, with the singing,
with the singing, not just the music, and he's like,
first of all, Fab was so excited. He's like, because
I could tell this is a great song. I could
tell this is an amazing so I couldn't believe it
was for us. But then Rob and Frank started to
talk really fast in German and Fab couldn't keep up
with that that language barrier, and it got heated, and
he's he's trying to be like, what's going on here now?
And Rob says, they don't want us to sing, and
Fabs like, what do you mean they don't want us
to sing? What are we doing here? If they don't
want us to sing? He's like, they want us to
lip sync. At that point, they had already signed the contract.
They had already been given money, and they had been
given money to support them during those months. So okay,
you guys don't want to do this, you got to
pay us back. And they're like with what, I mean?
Speaker 7: What? No?
Speaker 2: Right? I mean, what do you do if you're I mean,
these guys are in their young twenties. They're young twenties.
I mean, remember what you were like in your young twenties.
If somebody who has age and tons of experience suddenly
tells you, hey, those thousands of deutsch marks that I
paid you, you don't have to sing, I mean, you
don't have to do this, but you got to give
it back. And then you're panicked, like I don't have
anything to give you, Like how am I supposed to
do that?
Speaker 1: And it's not like they've got mom and dad right
there to say, hey, mom and dad, I got screwed
in this deal. What do I do?
Speaker 2: They don't have mom and dad, they don't they don't
have that. Fab says that it was actually Millie, it
was actually Ingrid who was the one that said, listen,
you guys are gonna have to pay the money back
if you don't do this, and she denied it. She's
like no, I never I never told them that. But
whether it was her or not her, the message was clear.
If you want to have the rich and famous contract,
you have to do it our way.
Speaker 1: And so Fab says, all right, we'll do it for
one song, one song, and that song was girl you
know it's true yep. And it goes through the roof bananas,
bananas yep in Germany all the way to number one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So now the game has changed drastically.
Speaker 1: He said. We began to love the lie.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and how could you not? All right, next song?
Speaker 1: Okay, So the next song on the album is called
more Than You'll Ever.
Speaker 8: Know ro.
Speaker 2: Man I Got from the House. Okay.
Speaker 1: So that one's a little funkier, it's upbeat, it's fun,
but good call not making it a single.
Speaker 2: The first line of the song is, hey, you know
Rob the word Mike? What's up? Man? Did they just
out Fab and just say, oh, we are actually talking
to the real singer. Who's Mike?
Speaker 1: I have no idea who Mike is. Who is Mike?
I don't know.
Speaker 2: So this was not a single unless you had the album.
You don't know this song.
Speaker 1: Here's the other thing you and I are working hard
to talk about all these songs. Yeah, you can't find girl,
you know, it's true. On Spotify. You can't buy the album.
You can't buy it. This is not available when the
hoax was brought to light, pulled it.
Speaker 2: They pulled the record, they pulled the whole friggin' showdown.
Speaker 1: And it has never been put out again. Now they've got,
you know, ways of listening to their singles and stuff
like that, but that album is not available.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is an album called The Best of Millie
Vanilli thirty fifth Anniversary that came out last year. And
I'll tell you this, Millie Vanilli has one point three
million monthly listeners on Spotify. Is that crazy or what?
It's crazy?
Speaker 1: All right? So we talked about how Brad Howe, Charles Shaw,
a guy named John Davis were the real singers, right.
You had Linda and Jody Rocco as the background singers.
They're the girls that you hear singing prominently. Which when
I watched the CLUBEAMTV clips and stuff, I'm looking at
the girl singers and like that ain't them either, you.
Speaker 2: Know that's all right. It's they're twins, right.
Speaker 1: They're twins. Yeah, And the interesting thing when they were
recording this album. They're pretty out spoken, they're American girls.
They're like, where is Robin fab We want to see them,
we want to know them, we want to talk to them.
And they were basically like, oh, they just record at night,
and so everybody was kept.
Speaker 2: Just missed them. It's like Superman Clark, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: But yeah, So, like they would record all day the
background vocals, and then they would usher them out and
then they would bring in the ugly guys to.
Speaker 2: See call them the real singer. Let's call them the
not beautiful men.
Speaker 1: How about that Brad and Charles and John.
Speaker 2: Somebody he's beautiful to his mama.
Speaker 1: They would sneak him in the basement and they would
bring him in to sing the actual vocals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so at this point, as I mean, we've
got to keep in mind that we've got this this
German version of the album that has come out right,
and then girl, you know it's true hits big. They realize, oh,
we can we can make a lot more money with this.
The record company from America gets involved and they're like, hey,
we're doing this whole thing over again, and we're going
to do it even better and even bigger, and all
the publicity, all of that is going at one hundred
thousand miles an hour. That's right.
Speaker 1: So you and I talked off air about this girl.
You know, it's true. Is this massive hit in Germany,
but there's no album really to go along with it
in the US. And so Arista, the record company in
the US, is like, we need to build a new album.
They need to come to the States, they need to tour,
and we need to get this thing going because every
week that it's not here, we lose a million dollars.
Speaker 2: Right. Keep in mind, at this point, Arista doesn't know
the secret.
Speaker 1: So when this hits, MTV blows up in America.
Speaker 2: Like I cannot erase the image from my mind to
these guys dancing the way that they dance and bouncing
off of each other, and it was there was nothing.
There was nothing like this on MTV before these guys
came along.
Speaker 1: It's true.
Speaker 2: And everybody, especially the girls, ate it up. Yeah, I
got a story for you on that one. I speaking
of girls ate it up. So after this, I have
a buddy and this friend of mine, and we started
talking about Millie Vanilli. A couple of years ago, and
he said, oh yeah, I went to high school with
this girl and like it was her dream to keep
this PG for thirteen to go down on Robin fab
And in nineteen eighty she made that dream come true
when they hit the Oakliss leg of their tour. Did
she yes?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 2: Now I don't know with if you know, I can't
really put myself in her position, Thank goodness, but I
can't imagine how you got to feel when you find
out the truth after having gone to that effort to
do that act.
Speaker 1: I wonder if they forgot her number after that. So
let's talk about the fourth single on the album or third,
depends on where you first heard this album. It released
in the United States. That song is called Blame It
on the Ring. Okay, so let's clarify this a little bit.
This song was not on All or Nothing, not on.
Speaker 2: The original one. It was on the US remix album
All or Nothing, but it wasn't on the original.
Speaker 1: It wasn't on the original European album. This was written
explicitly for the girl you know It's true album when
they knew they had a hit and they had to
come up with an album super quick. So when Arista
got involved, they started reaching out to all their songwriters,
and so they reached out to the incredibly talented and
amazing songwriter Diane Warren.
Speaker 2: And we've talked about her music of all things, when
we talked about The Last Dragon, because she is the
one who wrote Rhythm of the Night by DeBarge.
Speaker 1: Okay, listen to this lineup. We went through it on
The Last Dragon, but it's worth talking about again. So
when they called her, they said, hey, we got this
band named Millie Vanilli. They've just had this massive hit
called Girl. You know it's true. And she said, well,
I've got this song that I think is really good.
I know it's a hit song. I gave it to
the Jets. Remember the Wolfgrams we talked about in our
Patreon epps no.
Speaker 2: One of our Patreon early Patreon EPs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had a few hits, you know, crush on You.
Speaker 2: And Yeah, I don't know that's why they're the one
hit wonders.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, But they sat on it and they
didn't do anything with it, and that made her mad.
She's like, I know that's a hit song. The Jets
aren't doing anything with it. But Diane Warren had written
Solitaire by Laura Brannigan. She had written Rhythm of the
Night by DeBarge, Nothing's going to Stop Us Now by Starship,
Who Are You Run To? By Heart? I Get Weak
Belinda Carlisle, look Away by Chicago, If I Could Turn
back Time by Cher When I See You Smile Bad English,
Unbreak My Heart by Tony Braxton. I Don't want to
miss a Thing by Aerosmith. That is a murderer's row
of massive hits.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So she's talking to Clive Davis and she's like,
I've got the perfect follow up song for this. I
mean it sounds like the same rhythmic piece.
Speaker 1: Girl, you know it's true. Blame it on the rain.
Speaker 2: There you go. Now.
Speaker 1: The American producers talked about how they usually like to
kind of be involved in the recording process. Frank Ferrian's like, no,
you guys, stay over there, I'll record it, produce it,
and i'll send it back to you. That raised some
red flags, but they were trusting him to do what.
Speaker 2: He was doing. What are you going to do when
they're making a million dollars a day?
Speaker 1: Seriously, So this song goes number one. It's number one.
November twenty fifth, nineteen eighty nine. It's another number one
hit the Billboard chart November twenty fifth, nineteen eighty nine.
Blame It on the Rain hits number one. It spends
two weeks at number one. It blocks when I See
You Smile by Bad English, which is another Diane Warren song,
but it keeps them from achieving the number one status.
It blocks love Shack by the B fifty twos, which
was a huge song.
Speaker 2: Huge.
Speaker 1: What do you think of this song? Be?
Speaker 2: I don't know why you're asking me this question. I
told you in nineteen eighty nine. I'm listening to the
Lennard skinnerd that one, and I am not listening to
pop radio. I mean, I couldn't avoid it. It was
out there. I probably had it stuck in my head
about one hundred times more than I ever wanted it
to be. It's not what I call high quality music.
It's just pop radio goo. But it's okay, Okay, there's
a lot pop radio goo that I do like.
Speaker 1: This song was featured on an episode of Full House.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's important.
Speaker 1: They kind of hold hands on the same level of
pop goodiness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: Next song on the album, song called Take It as
it comes.
Speaker 2: Okay, So if that's your first time hearing this song,
you and I are in the same boat. Okay. I apologize.
There's never been an album that we've covered that I
haven't listened to the whole album, and usually multiple times
before I do the album. But I didn't feel it
necessary with this particular group and this particular question.
Speaker 1: There you go, that's fine. This is not a great
song anyway. But let's continue with the Millie Vanilly story.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Charles Shaw, who was the original rapper on the Girl
you know It's true song. Yeah, he gets a little
bit mad because money is pouring in now Robin Fabs
start to believe they need more money. Charles Shaw's like, hey,
somebody needs to pay me. Yeah, and Frank Farian is not,
in my opinion, he's not wise enough to buy off
their secrecy. He brings Charles Shaw in and says, I
told you to keep your mouth shut. You've talked to
all these people, said that their lip sinking. You're fired,
You're cut off. I don't want to talk to you again.
I don't want to ever see you again. I don't
think that's the way you treat somebody who you're trusting
to protect a golden goose.
Speaker 2: I think it was The Godfather where they said two
people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: Like if you have a huge secret that is worth
a million dollars a day, you don't piss off somebody
else who knows the secret, right, like, give them some
of that money. Man. Although I'm advocating for the lie, right,
for paying off the lie. That's what I'm doing right now.
But just as far as bad business decisions go, this
was among the top. In this this whole story.
Speaker 1: So tras Shaw goes to a German newspaper and says,
their lip syncing, I'm the real singer, and nobody cares.
Speaker 2: Oh. And not only not only that, but when he
does that, Frank Farrian says he's lying. Right, He says
he's lying. Like Frank Ferryan like sticks to his guns
and says, this guy's lying. He is not the guy
who's singing. He doesn't know what he's talking about. This
is totally untrue and you should stop publishing this stuff.
Speaker 1: And at this time I meant, really, let's be honest.
The artists were happy, the record company was happy, the
fans were happy.
Speaker 2: Everybody's happy except the guy who sang the song.
Speaker 1: Except the guy who sang the song and got screwed.
Speaker 2: And all he's asking for is a little piece of
the pie. Yeah, and it would have been wise to
pay it, absolutely would now. Interestingly, this and in this
segment of the story, we have the introduction of a
new character because they have a new manager. And when
I say new, they said to him when they met him, hey,
we've never had a manager before. And he's like, I've
never managed the band before, so that's great, let's do this.
Speaker 1: So this is really where the tragedy begins, in my opinion.
His name is Todd Headley, and he's like happy to
be with them and have and happy for their success,
and he's just thrilled to be a part of this ride.
Speaker 2: And he has no idea, he doesn't.
Speaker 1: Know the secret. And he's like, why hasn't anybody recommended
them for the Grammys?
Speaker 2: I mean, these songs are great, these.
Speaker 1: Are great pop songs. They're at least as good as
the field. I think somebody should put them in the.
Speaker 2: Ring here, right, I'm the manager.
Speaker 1: And nobody really shuts him down. But they also don't
really get excited about it. Well, he calls the Grammys.
He's like, what do I need to do to get
these guys nominated? Like, well, I have to just fill
out a little piece of paperwork and fax it in.
So he does it, and they get on the ballot.
Speaker 2: The murderer is sneaking up the stairs.
Speaker 1: And the people who know are now sweating bullets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because at this time, you can't be a record
exec and live this story for very long without having
the hairs on the back of your neck stand up
and go, wait a minute, there's something fishy going on here.
Speaker 1: But again, the green is just flowing into the bank account.
Speaker 2: All right. It's it's real hard to make noise when
you're making so much money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the record company freaks and they get mad
at this guy, and he's like, why is everybody mad
at me for getting them on the ballot for being
a Grammy artist. Yeah, Well here's the field.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I thought this was interesting. They're going up against the
Indigo Girls.
Speaker 2: Love the Indigo Girls at that time. Great, Oh yeah,
closer to fine.
Speaker 1: But it's not exactly like they're blowing up MTV.
Speaker 2: No, they're very indie, underground kind of music. Sure, Yeah,
ton Loke who is blowing up MTV.
Speaker 1: He had a big nineteen eighty nine Yeah, sold to Soul. Yeah,
they had a big hit, Yeah, one big hit, back
to Life. Yeah. And then Nina Cherry Buffalo Stance.
Speaker 2: Buffalo Stance, And I mean, to be fair, of all
of those bands, Vanilli has the greater staying power even
with their catalog completely removed.
Speaker 1: Well, and their resume is stronger. Yeah, they got based
on the fact that they're actually singing their songs.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, yes, if you if you don't forget
that piece of.
Speaker 1: Information, yeah, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so. But I mean then the question
comes up, well, what would have happened had Nina Cherry
won instead of lost? Would she have had more big
hits or Indigo Girls or Tone Lok or any of them.
Would they have had a greater career had they won
the Grammy at that moment? And who's to say, I
don't know.
Speaker 1: I think that Nina Cherry might be the most pissed
off by everyone at this deal. Next song. Next song
is called It's your Thing.
Speaker 2: It's your Things. It do what you want to do.
I can't tell you suck.
Speaker 9: It, do what you want to do.
Speaker 1: This is like AI if you told AI to recreate
a dance version of the Isisley Brothers. I'm not a
fan of this version.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, the Isisley Brothers version is definitely better and
several and this song has been covered like a dozen
times at least this by the way, it was a
response to Motown's chief Verry Gordy, demanding hold on his
artist after the Isley's left the label in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 1: Barry Gordy, who we talked about on our last Dragon
episode and who we just talked about on our last
Patreon is the father of Rockwell, somebody's watching me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And guys, if you don't know the Verry Gordy
family tree, signing up for our Patreon is worth the
money just for that family tree alone. All I'm gonna
say is President of the United States and the unbearable
weight of massive talent. That's it. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Okay, we cover that in it last month the Patreon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go check that out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, quickly, let's roll on to the next song
real quick.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: That song is called Dreams to Remember.
Speaker 2: Hello, Babe, I'm running out of.
Speaker 8: I'll never forgive you.
Speaker 3: You've missed this Heart of My.
Speaker 6: Home wood bound y.
Speaker 2: So as a first time listener, I gotta say I
smell a hit here. I don't know how this was
not a single.
Speaker 1: I agree. I think it's This is betchy Miami.
Speaker 2: Vice Feel followed up with some very white style lyrics.
I mean, I'm digging this could have been on the
Makeout List of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. This is a cinema after dark
special right here.
Speaker 2: It's good, but it's good. It is good.
Speaker 1: I like it. Dreams you remember it is kind of dreamy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I really dig a great sax music
to it. I'm pleasantly surprised at that song.
Speaker 1: When they look back on nineteen eighty nine, there are
dreams to remember, but there's also a nightmare just around
the corner.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So do they win the Grammy? And when they won
the Grammy, they hung themselves because you can't. It's like
whenning the Oscar. You can't fake the Oscar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's too big, it's too big.
Speaker 1: They are a victim of their massive success.
Speaker 2: And the thing is, this is really interesting the way
that you phrased it, especially because you said they hung
themselves it's not clear, but had they walked the line,
and had they been less aggressive, I'm not even sure
that winning the Grammy would have outed them. But when
they win the Grammy, their heads in. I mean, they've
already inflated to one hundred times what they were when
they were young men. At that point they realize, hey,
we are a cash cow and without us, a lot
of people lose a lot of money. And so what
we're going to do this is really it. This is
as you say, where they hung themselves. What they decide
to do is they decide to put pressure onto Frank
Farrion to sing themselves on the album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So they become obnoxious and arrogant and they tell
Frank Faryon, look where the guys we're going to sing?
Speaker 2: Right? And he says, no, you're just not I mean
just flat out no, you're not good enough. And they say,
you're either going to put us on the album or
you're going to give us one hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
which I mean, why would you only ask for one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars? I haven't no idea, but
at that point you think, again, if I was Frank
Ferrion and and we know he's the bad guy in this,
but if I'm him, I'm gonna say the same thing.
I'm not gonna let these two idiots push me around.
They're not gonna threaten me. I'm freaking Frank Farrion.
Speaker 1: Dang it, that's it. I orchestrated this thing. Now, you
guys are just players, You're just a costume.
Speaker 2: And so what does he do? How does he get
out of this situation? He plays the card that they
threatened to play, and he comes out with a big
press conference with the real singers sitting in front of him,
and he tells the world guys never sang any of
their songs.
Speaker 1: The truth sets him free, and he comes out smelling
like a rose on this deal, which is nut.
Speaker 2: Like the You Go Go Judd. If you don't want
to watch that whole Milli Vanilli documentary, watch what the
media does to these two guys because they have to
come out and say something after they've been outed, right,
they have to come out and say something. And there
they are, young twenty guys who don't know what the
heck they're doing. It's obvious when they get out there
that that's the case, the media crucifies them, like there's
so much vile and hatred coming and nobody, nobody in
the crowd thinks to say, wait a minute. You have
a rich, very well connected, very powerful producer who has
lied to you, and you have these guys who were
living in squalor who were given this opportunity. Who's the
real bad guy here?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Nobody says it at the time, including me. I'm just like, yeah, well,
whatever that figures.
Speaker 1: It's really tragic because they are still a punchline thirty
five years later when you talk about music scandals, they're
at the top of the list.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Frank.
Speaker 1: Farrion made millions of dollars and nobody even said boo
to him.
Speaker 2: Right. He comes out with the real million Vanilli just
a little while later, where he tries and which is
this is the crazy part? He's like, this is the
real Millie Vanilli And he has new songs that he's
written in a new album. And you know who he
brings out is the real Millie Vanilli again, people who
are not actually singing on the album. He's lying again.
It's crazy.
Speaker 1: He's Darth Vader in this story.
Speaker 2: He is the Emperor he is. He is Palpatine man.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. I don't know what happened behind
the scenes. I don't really remember, but if I am
the record company in America, I sue his balls off.
But the fact that they didn't that says a lot.
Speaker 2: That means that means they knew. That means they knew.
Speaker 1: Here's the other thing. Rob is really the guy. He
overplayed his hand. He was right. They can't do it
without those two guys. He wasn't planning on not doing it.
He thought that they would be forced into, you know,
counting to his demands. He was wrong, and he paid
a heavy price. Let's talk about that after we talk
about this next song. The next song on the album.
It's the fifth single. This song is called all or Nothing?
Okay do When I played you the song all or Nothing,
you were like struck by lightning.
Speaker 2: Like the first four notes and I'm like, wait a minute.
And then I was like I know that, I know,
I know this, I know and you were like you're
going through the mental jukebox right now, and I'm like,
dang it, And I said, I took a bathroom break,
I went now, and I'm commute and I'm like, I
could hear the guy's voice. I can't think of what
the words are, but I'm like, and I get back
up here, and I'm like, Okay, the guy sounds like
the guy from the Schoolhouse Rocks when a bill becomes
law thing. Yeah, and and the chorus is like rider,
rainy Rana rain and pony rah rah.
Speaker 1: You did all that. We even tried to sing it
into SoundHound.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just don't have the voice to sing that song.
But but then you were like, wait a minute, here
it is.
Speaker 1: So here's the nugget on that. Yeah, the fact that
you recognized it. I guarantee the guy who wrote that
song recognized it.
Speaker 2: I mean, anybody who's familiar with the song, it's unmistakable.
Speaker 1: So here you go. In December of nineteen ninety, singer
songwriter David Clayton Thomas sued Millie Vanilli for copyright infringement,
alleging that All or Nothing used the melody from his
nineteen sixty eight song Spinning Wheel.
Speaker 7: Spinning Wheel, Got Tombo round Tomkin about your tumbles. It's
some crying a painted pony. Let the spin and wheels.
Speaker 1: It's the same. SAME's the cheters well.
Speaker 2: I think we've kind of this is minor in comparison
the rest of the story.
Speaker 1: So that was the fifth single, the fifth and final
single from this version of Millie Vanilli, and it did
it chart. It reaches number four. It tops out February
twenty fourth, nineteen ninety, number four on the charts.
Speaker 2: And that's just months before they're outed.
Speaker 1: They're outed in November of nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: God, now they're outed, they're crucified. Yes, Frank keeps his money,
Clive Davis keeps his money. They get Jack Squad, They
try to do their own album called Rob and Fave.
They sign up with the wrong record label to start with,
and well they're not that good to put another notch
in belt.
Speaker 1: So that song is called we can get it on.
Speaker 3: Girl.
Speaker 2: What I feel for you?
Speaker 5: I would think that you would you want you want
to have to beg when I.
Speaker 2: Know that it's honestly not that bad.
Speaker 1: It's about the same level of the other crap that
we got at the same time.
Speaker 2: I mean his voice. Recognizing his voice at this point,
he does sound more like New Edition, like he does
not have that that deep voice that we heard on
the Millie Vanilli album. He's got a more you know,
prepubescent voice, but it's still a decent voice. They do
the video right, they do it in black and white.
They've got the shirts off showing off their physique, and
they've got girls with their tops off.
Speaker 1: And their favorite videos.
Speaker 2: Spinning in sexy clothes. I mean it's not a bad
video either. Yeah. The problem is the record company just
a producing this record, goes bankrupt. They expected to sell
a million copies because I mean, just pure interest, right, yeah, curiosity.
So let's see if these guys can actually sing. Yeah,
they sold two thousand, no decimal point problem, they're not
twenty thousand, not two hundred thousand, q two thousand. Goodness,
I feel like I could sell two thousand, like of
my own music at like local concerts and clubs. Like,
how do you not go out and do something? I
guess they're out of money, that's it, right, They they
blew their wad on this production, which is not a
bad again, not a bad song. But then you got
no money to tour, no money to market, and your
record company goes belly up and they're not making any
more of these records. That's it. And so now the epilogue,
they are back down to nothing.
Speaker 1: Before we get to the fallout, let's talk about the
third single, another number one hit. This song is called
I'm Gonna Miss You.
Speaker 5: I know from the stock you would waved, but still
a hand play the god wro around.
Speaker 8: With your magic smile. You can't be hanging on the
levels across.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, how sadly prophetic that line is.
Speaker 1: Wow, yep, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: And the I don't think it's girl I'm gonna miss you,
it's going I'm gonna miss all those girls.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was from Oklhom City.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at any girl they chose, and now they're as
you said, a punchline of laughingstock.
Speaker 1: This song hits number one September twenty third, nineteen eighty nine.
It blocks Heaven by Warrant If I Could Turn back
Time by Share and eighteen in Life by skid Row.
Speaker 2: Three humongous banger songs.
Speaker 1: I don't think Warren or skid Row I ever got
that close again, So they've got a reason to be
upset as well.
Speaker 2: Sure, it's probably why Jennie Leane started drinking. Sorry, that's
that's bad taste joke. Sorry about that. Lighting it up
a little bit.
Speaker 1: Here, all right, and then the last track on the
album is a remix of girl you Know It's True,
which is fine. Let's listen to that real quick, just
kind of the long dance version of girl you Know
It's True, which is fun. That's the best song on
the album anyway, and they doubled down on that. But really,
let's talk about what happens after the complete bottom falls
out on these two guys.
Speaker 2: So their album doesn't sell at all. I mean, and
these guys have lived as brothers since before they became famous,
right like, they have lived as close companions. They are
best friends. And part of the fame that comes with
being a rock star is the drugs. You may suddenly
not be a rock star anymore, but that doesn't mean
that you suddenly one want to stop doing drugs or
number two can stop doing drugs. The problem is is
that you can't do the really expensive drugs anymore. You
got to resort to some cheaper stuff, and very popular
at that time was crack. And so Rob gets in
a pretty bad way to the point that Fab his
brother has to say, we need to separate and spend
time apart because we're going in different directions here.
Speaker 1: After they do the spearmint and gum commercial which you
and I talked about.
Speaker 2: How long will a flavor can't free shut of us
with bubble gum glass?
Speaker 3: How long.
Speaker 2: To sing themselves can't gum the last? If you don't
remember that they're sing an opera, Like there's an opera
and you've playing and then you come in and it's
Millievanilli Robin Fab doing their routine dance where they're jumping
and their big shouldered, bright colored jackets, just the most
iconic Millie Vanilli things that you can do. And then
the record starts skipping.
Speaker 1: It's embarrassing, But like you said, they needed money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean you've at that point. What can
you do to try to save face except make fun
of yourself? You you have to self deprecate at that
point because you there's no more pride to be had.
Speaker 1: So Rob has a thousand dollars drug habit, one thousand
dollars a day. Fab is running around, he's doing his
own thing. He ends up back in la and he
is at the viper room and he sees a guy
stumbling around across the street and he looks over.
Speaker 2: This is what like six seven years later, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is many many years later. Yeah, they hadn't talked,
they hadn't seen each other, hadn't been around each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he looks and he's like, oh my gosh, it's Rob.
And he runs across to get him to, you know,
help him. And he's like, is this your place right
here here? Rob, it's fab Let me help you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, this is where I'm going. It's a
crack house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a crack house. Yeah. I mean Rob not
only had drug issues, he had gotten arrested for some
robbery things or theft things. I mean, it was just
you gotta again, you gotta ask, you gotta ask yourself.
If I was him, if I was in my young twenties,
I dreamed of being a musician. I was given that opportunity,
only to have it snatched from me in the beginning
because I was told I can't sing well enough to
sing on my own album, and then told I can't
even get out of the contract I signed because I
have to pay back this money and then to suddenly
be very self aware that you are a fraud who
is making buckets of money from your fraudulent behavior. What
can you do except escape. You have to escape, and
drugs was the way to do it for him. And
then of course when it all comes crashing down, you
still have that need, you still have that addiction. Now,
Frank Farian paid for him to go to rehab. He did.
That's kind of a small token in all of this.
In my mind, Rob.
Speaker 1: Went to rehab eleven times in the last seven years
of his life, and Frank Farion did carry some of
those bills. He ends up in a hotel in Germany.
He calls Ingrid. They're still talking apparently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was like a mother to him. She was.
She said.
Speaker 1: He would sometimes just ask her to hold him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they would sleep in the same bed. It was,
but it was not a sexual thing. It was he
just kids, an orphan. Can you imagine. He just wanted
somebody who just would cuddle him, you know.
Speaker 1: So he checked into a hotel, he called her, and
then after not hearing from him, she went to check
on him, and on April third, nineteen ninety eight, he's
found dead in his hotel room at the age of
like you said, thirty two or thirty three.
Speaker 2: It's tragedy. It's an absolute tragedy.
Speaker 1: Now there is a bit of hope at the end
of this story.
Speaker 2: Yeah there is. We've lost one of the two, but
the other one comes out of this and he does Okay,
he does okay. I mean he's not a big star,
but I mean he's one of the few people that
can realize that that's not what life is all about.
He tries several times to make it in music, but
then just decides, Hey, I'm just gonna do the music,
and he does other jobs as well, and he ends
up running into this very beautiful lady in Amsterdam, yep,
and he's like, hey, you just you know, you need
to know who I am. You know that's gonna come up.
And she's like, I don't care, you know, I don't.
It doesn't bother me. And they get married, they have kids,
and I gotta say, I watched a video of him
performing live, like not in the studio, not with all
of the stuff, live on stage with the band singing
blame it on the rain.
Speaker 1: He did, and it was good and the crowd was
warm to him.
Speaker 2: And I enjoyed his voice.
Speaker 6: Now you wish text you still had her, and you feel.
Speaker 7: Like, good fool.
Speaker 4: Her uncle.
Speaker 3: We just don't feel.
Speaker 9: Gotta something gotta play it on something.
Speaker 3: Blame it on the rain was falling, falling.
Speaker 2: The guy has learned to be real, to be humble,
to accept who he is, but he has also learned
to not give up on his dream of being a musician.
Speaker 1: Well, good for him, good family life, children, and he
came out the other side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so d is this?
Speaker 1: You gotta ask the question, are they worth the hate?
Speaker 2: Not? Rob and Fab for sure, not Robin Fab. I
agree with you. The situation itself is worthy of some distaste.
Although with the auto tune and everything else that goes
on with music for the last twenty years of the
twenty first century, this is kind of minor. You know,
it's kind of a minor deal.
Speaker 1: And you and I talked off air. There's no way
that Bonie m and Millie Vanilli are the only two
artists who have cheated us in this way somehow. Oh
sure there are others like this.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you have ever seen a group perform
live and you're like, why do they sound so bad? Well,
it's because the studio is a unique creature that can
create an entirely different sound. And there are some musicians
and singers that are talented enough that they don't need
that studio magic. But studio magic has brought us some
incredible songs. It just turns out that there's a lot
of smoke and mirrors behind that, and that's what we
have here. We have very pretty presentation, we have very
catchy music that's very well produced. Those are the three
ingredients that you need to have a hit song and
make lots of money as a record company. It just
happens to be that the guys who look like they're
singing are not actually singing.
Speaker 1: Well, this was a fun one to go back through.
I told you that I have. I'm such a big
proponent of eighty nine. I have such fond memories. That's
the year I got my driver's license and we're hanging
out and we're listening to the radio, and we got
our top down and we're turned up. I remember driving
to a birthday party with a friend of mine and
we had baby don't forget my number cranked up. Yeah,
because she liked it and I thought she was cool,
So right, So I have fond memories. Those two guys
are not worth the hate. Frank Farrian, he's the bad
guy in this situation.
Speaker 2: Deserves far more of the hate than he received. Yeah, yeah,
without a doubt. There's a couple of movies. There's the
documentary movie that you can get I believe it's on
Hulu or Netflix right now on Paramount Plus, Paramount Plus.
And there's also a movie that came out last year
that is I mean, it's not a documentary, it's a
biopic and you have actors playing Rob and Fab and
it looks good.
Speaker 1: It does look good.
Speaker 2: What's weird is that? I mean, this is a movie
that was made in Germany, appropriately enough, that's not the
weird part. It's been released over there, it's in English.
But even though it's had a release date published a
few times, those release states keep going by and we
never see the music. So my guess is that the
Arista Records, or the real singers, or any number of
people who were burned by this situation don't want this
movie to be a successful movie, right. I know that
that Headley is that is a name, It's Headley that
I think he's a producer on it. I think that
the sister of one of the singers, Davis whatever, his
first name was, Davis John Davis, his sister might be
a producer on it. As well, So there are people
who are connected and fab was a consultant on the
movie as well.
Speaker 1: But this is a story that needs to be more understood.
Speaker 2: I think, and I want to see that movie. It
looked like a good movie. So guys, tell us what
you think. Melli Vanilli. Are they worth the hate? Yes,
I mean you can feel like I do that this
is pop candy music and not worth the listen. But
that's really not the question that we're asking. Are they
worth the hate because of what happened? That's the question
for us. And if you want to hit us up,
you can get us on Twitter or x or whatever
it is now at Shirley Podcast. You can get us
on Facebook. At Shirley Podcast, you can even email us.
Be warned if you email us and you suggest an episode,
we might recruit you to be a host. So that's it.
Stack asked Chuck Bryan or David Wright. You know, these
guys get roped in. But if you feel like, hey, no,
you guys are wrong or you're right or whatever, email
us about what your favorite food is to eat, because
we both love food and we will respond to you.
Hit us up Shirley Podcast at gmail dot com. Jason,
what we got coming up next week?
Speaker 1: Do you and are tackling the best sequels of nineteen
eighty nine. Oh, we've talked about how nineteen eighty nine
is a great summer full of sequels. They gave the
audience what they wanted, and we're tackling to the biggest.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Next week, we're tackling Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
Fantastic versus Lethal Weapon two.
Speaker 2: When those two movies are connected, I know the connection
between those two movies. You guys will have to tune
in to find out what that is.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Diplomatic immunity, guys, it's been fun. We will see
you guys next week. We can't tell you how much
we appreciate that you've listened all the way to the end.
Speaker 1: I'm a love jew girl, girl Okay,