Milli Vanilli Lost Their Grammy For Lip Syncing Someone Else's Songs
20 Years Ago Today, Milli Vanilli Lost Their Grammy For Lip Syncing Someone Else's Songs Lip sync fails are not uncommon these days. But November 19, 1990 saw the culminating moment of one of the most shameful not-actually-singing debacles in pop music history: it was the day Milli Vanilli was stripped of their Grammy. Milli Vanilli started as the brainchild of German producer and songwriter Frank Farian. In early 1988, Farian recorded a group album with a slew of vocalists, but, finding them unmarketable, recruited dancer/models Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan to front the group when the album was released in the summer of that year. Note that singing is not, at this point, on their resume. If the European record didn't necessarily state that the handsome frontmen were the ones actually singing the songs, by the time the American album, reworked extensively by Arista Records, was released in early 1989, all trace of the original vocalists had vanished. After a string of ...