And now you won't even need the singer!

Incredible! Where will it stop?

 

Jamie,

No musicians, no singers, no big cash outlays to artists - right?

Just 'talented' software....

Bob

 

Re: Re: And now you won't even need the singer!

Or talented operators!

 

Hey, it works for Pixar! Finding Nemo's "acting" was waaaaay better than the one to be found on 90% of this summer's "blockbusters"

 

Wow. Now I can sing with the right voltage settings!!

 

Sorry to veer this off-topic, but this touches a nerve...

The fact that everyone suddenly went from loving MV to loathing them once they were exposed only proved what producer/creator Frank Farian knew all along: that people bought the records for the image and not the music. I think it was the fact that MV made people realize this that is what caused the resulting outrage. It certainly wasn't the first time this had happened. Many of the male vocals on Boney M's records (which were huge in Europe) were actually Farian and not the exotic-looking guys on the cover. And of course the Monkees couldn't play any instruments in the beginning. Unfortunately, most people didn't want to accept that the image-oriented pop music exists because of public demand, so not much has changed. Most folks continue to view music as pure entertainment and not art, so very talented-but-average-looking artists and performers will never get noticed. The studio musos who Farian assembled to create MV's sound continued to put out records under the name The Real Milli Vanilli. Nobody gave them the time of day.

Yes, obviously the Grammy should not have gone to MV (or to Farian either, since he was hardly a "new" artist at the time). But awards don't exist to give praise to the best -- they are created by the industry, for the industry, to legitimize and promote the kind of product that they want to sell more of.

"Girl You Know It's True" is the same song now as it was when it was released -- but it remains ridiculed as opposed to being absorbed in the current retromania that has taken over much of the airwaves. The only thing that has changed is that people know something about that record that they didn't before. I guess it's like how your opinion of an individual you've known a long time can change so drastically when you learn something very surprising about them, even though it was that way all along.

BTW, I always thought MV were absolutely dreadful, but that's irrelevant to my arguement.

Getting back on topic: it was only a matter of time. Dance music artists have already been piecing together tracks from vocal sample libraries, so this is just the next step. But let me ask this: in an age where even folksy recordings have the vocals comped, phrase quantized and pitch corrected, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?

 

> And of course the Monkees couldn't play any instruments in the beginning.

Well no, they just weren't allowed to. They did sing, though.

Does all this mean people with "interesting" voices (Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joe Cocker") will have them "fixed" from now on?

 

The song "Girl You Know It's True" and other songs should have been credited to the actual musicians, vocalists, who were older and more experienced. They got the back seat really. I don't think that's fair.

Milli Vanilli was a lie. That's what made people upset. Those people didn't even sing.

The people who make the music should get some credit.

 

Yeah, but they probably got paid, too... which happens so seldom in the music industry that you can see why they kept quiet.

It was only a lie because people didn't want the truth -- that the music was performed by a bunch of ordinary-looking folks.

 

I'm not upset at anyone here. Musically, I couldn't care less about horrid 80s fluff like MV. What makes me furious is how the consuming masses are the ones that demand these disposeable, superficial, larger-than-life illusions -- but then turn around and reject them because they aren't "legit" and bemoan how they've been cheated and tricked. It's like complaining that bubble gum has artificial flavour. There was even talk of a class-action lawsuit for every CD sold -- why? The musical content on the discs hadn't changed; isn't that what people bought them for? Bunch of frikkin' hypocrites...

MV was no different than much of the crap out today*. The only thing that seperates them is that they got found out -- exposed by the same man who created the illusion, because they knew they had to come clean and demanded to sing on what would've been their next album. They threatened to spill the beans, so he decided to pull the rug out from under them first.

We all know now how Motown used to never credit the musicians, and often swapped in other performers as deemed necessary, like that Supremes song which only has Miss Ross. How were they any different? (okay, the music was better, I concede that...)

*Actually, given that 80s fluff like MV and New Kids were largely creations of one producer, whereas today's pop is designed to filled target markets and each segment outsourced accordingly, actually implies that MV had more artistic integrity than today's stuff... now isn't that a scary thought?

 

It's already happened; but few were living above the collective numbness that our society exists in to notice. And I would still argue that it's not the fault of the machines, or even the people who operate them -- but the consumers that fuel the demand for the product in the first place.

 

The whole thing sickens me.

 

This could get messy.

Graham, you make some great points. Sometimes in making a pop record, you have to make up tricks to make things work well. In the case of MV, true, maybe the artists got paid, but they don't get recognition they deserve. If the Motown F-Bros' musicians were familiar to people, I think they would have felt that their sense of accomplishment was better. Money may mean something when you get paid a sum after recording, but when the record hits Platnum, I am SURE that the original vocalists didn't get paid on records sold. MV got paid a lot of money to dance and to look sexy. This is (and I have to veer into MHO) what's wrong with pop today and how people become successful.

In watching the "Standing In The Shadows Of Motown" movie, some of those guys died sad knowing no one knows who they are or what they did.

And Graham, weather you think the music is crap or not, when you post opinions that "I couldn't care less about horrid 80s fluff like MV", it's thread-crapping. I know somehow you don't mean it to be that way, but you cannot dismiss even the most horrid music. That's wrong. Morally and for the forum, you can't go saying MV was crap. BAD!

Hell the vocals were smoking. Just like C&C music factory. That vocalist from the Weather Girls was who sang, and if she's still in small gay clubs doing shows, she certainly didn't get royalties for her work, just a small amount of money.

And a song like "Make You Sweat" made HUGE money, even for car ads. It went into someone else's pocket. IMHO, that's sometimes a standard practice, but it's kinda sad.

 

uhh.. no. This post never happened.

 

Sorry, my bad. I got a little carried away -- I just wanted to point out that I'm not defending them because I liked the music, but because the whole thing happened because of the record-buying public's unrealistic expectations.

"That vocalist" is the heavy-set Martha Wash, originally in a disco act called Two Tons Of Fun and also backing vocalist for Sylvester. Sadder still is that Marsha sang on not only C&C, but also Blackbox's "Dreamland" album (except "Ride On Time", which used vocal tracks ripped from a 70s disco number by Loleatta Holloway). Blackbox were HUGE in 1990; those songs were played EVERYWHERE. She was also on another big hit from the time that I can't remember. Point is: sang for three different acts that had huge hits in the space of a couple of years, but got credit on none of them. Blackbox gave her credit on a video compilation that they put out a year or so later, but that doesn't really make up for an album that sold millions.

Later on in the 90s, Martha finally got a record deal. The album flopped.

(drifting further off-topic) Blackbox was a MV-esque sham, but even after I found out, I still loved those records (and still do). Even though the lyrics made no sense, and the sampled stut-stut-stut-stutter vocal effects were kinda annoying even then, the music itself was much more than the 2-note tunes normally found in club fodder. There really hasn't been anything as good as "Ride On Time" since.

Not too long ago, MuchMusic's RetroBoogie show aired The Weather Girls "It's Raining Men", C&C's "Gonna Make You Sweat", and Blackbox's "Everybody, Everybody" all in a row. Obviously someone in the programming department was doing a Martha tribute...

 

That would be Martha Wash. She sued Cole & Clavilles because of that.

She also did vocals on "Power" by the group Snap.

 

And hey, Don Kirshner summoned Ron Dante to create the Archies' music because he had many troubles with the Monkees wanting to perform their own music.

 

Yep Yep.

If she went and did a Jazz album on a small label, she could have gotten more money possibly!

I think this behavior makes interesting Pop records, but the ways and means doesn't pay. After you've been to the cleaners 2-3 times and paid expenses, it's better to just have talent than fake it.

One of the MV's committed suicide. The guy could have been happy as a building contractor or something in Munich. It CAN'T be all good.

 

But isn't that was what MV claimed as well; that they could sing, but they weren't allowed to?

I never heard them actually try, so I have no opinion on whether they actually had any talent or not.

 

It wasn't very good. In fact, they took the complete WRONG approach. They both have very thick German accents that they couldn't sing away from.

If they made something with a latin feel, they could have shed their old audience for a new one. The songs I heard were interesting, but the sad lyrics and the accent threw things off keel, artistically.

Not that accents were bad, but their English wasn't going to make a clear winner of a record.

MV really took it on the chin really bad. They lost gigs and a lot of their earnings. They had properties they couldn't afford suddenly and one of them just couldn't go on.

 

The other one was the first hit single by Seduction, "You're My One and Only (True Love)."