Milli Vanilli- To defend, or not to defend? Easy question, definitely NOT.
We had people freaking out in the discussion after Kyle's rockumentary because Rihanna sang songs she didn't write. Well, these guys didn't even really sing, so, hopefully we don't talk about this in class, I'm kinda scared to image what would happen!
This controversy ties in with what Janel and Josh wrote about in their rants, about artist images and how they use them to sell music and how you shouldn't choose your music because of an image.
Milli Vanilli was formed to make money, plain and simple. The singers they had weren't pretty enough, so they hired models (Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan) to pretend to be the group and lip sync. See, it wasn't about the music, it was about having a pretty face to sell that music. For awhile, this was working for them. Milli Vanilli released their first album, sold millions, and were making money. Everything was going as planned. Rob and Fabrice let the fame soak in and thought, hey, maybe we can actually sing now! They pressured their producer to let them sing on the next album, but all they did was frustrate him and he revealed everything to the public. Uh oh, the charade was up! After this, it was all downhill. They lost the public's trust, money, and even got their Grammy taken away! Each time they tried to release a new album, it was poorly received. And to top it all off, one of them died from a combination of drugs and alcohol. So much for making money if you ask me. Can anyone say karma?
I can compare this to situations in TV shows and movies, where somebody steals the credit from another person. Watching this kind of stuff drives me CRAZY! I can't stand it! It's not fair at all! I could never do that, because it would weigh heavily on my conscience. I think Milli Vanilli was horrible for taking the credit of other singers. I hate that it was about the money and not the music.
It was really stupid of them to attempt this scam, because many, many artists are successful because of their music and NOT their looks. For example, I like Bullet For My Valentine. I think these guys look scary, but I love listening to their music. Many people enjoy their music, and they are quite popular.
So, the morale of this post is, looks aren't everything. And that what goes around comes around!
Lucky 13
15 years ago
1 comment:
Interesting, but don't mistake for one second that the original singers for Milli Vanilli weren't in on the scam. They made a great sum of money, without the pressures of performing in public!
This relates so closely to what happened at the Nagano Olympics, where they staged their own Milli - a prettier substitute was put on stage to sing at the opening ceremonies while the singer sang from behind the stage.
Gotta ask, with all of this talk of packaging a product - would you buy a book with an ugly cover? Would it catch your eye and make you look at it? First impressions make for a lot in marketing - as long as the first impression doesn't strive to be the only one(as it was in Milli Vanilli), I think we're OK.
9/10
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