Monday November 29, 2021 “Girl You Know It’s True” Milli Vanilli
You know my fascination with band names, which are usually arrived at foolishly, randomly, by accident and even when gotten to methodiclly they can be odd, quirky or just stupid.So this week let’s tke a look at some of the truly strange names that bands have selected to serve as their public musical identities.
Given that as a discussion point could there be a better place to start than with the provocateurs of truth Rob Pilatus and Fab Moravan, Milli Vanilli and their Grammy winning (and then Grammy revoking) song “Girl You Know It’s True”.
Most of you will remember when these two handsome, young men burst onto the scene with an infectious album of pop songs and dance oriented videos that exploded onto MtV and the record charts and at that time our major interest was only which one was Milli and which one was Vanilli.
It of course never occurred to us that perhaps these beautiful looking ‘singers’ were neither Milli nor Vanilli and in truth I don’t think it really mattered, until they won a Grammy and their lip synching caught them in the untruth that they had been living.
And as an additional matter of truth, “Girl You Know It’s True” wasn’t even an original song but was lifted from a European dance hit from a Maryland-based band The Numarx. So who was Milli Vanilli, it was singers John Davis and Brad Howell and rapper Charles Shaw, and these are the guys who actually perform on the track...true that.
Of course the odd band name and ‘scandal’ didn’t slow sales as this song would eventually sell more than seven million copies.
Stay safe and well...and what's the big deal with having people pretending to be musical artists...can you say The Monkees.