What should’ve been a cautionary footnote about truth-telling in the music business—the most truth-iest business of all—has extended its run beyond all logic, and it continues this week. The background on Milli Vanilli for those unfamiliar: The West German duo released a couple of albums in the late ’80s that spawned a bunch of pop hits and won them a Best New Artist Grammy, but it turned out that they hadn’t sung a note. Nowadays they could just synthesize whatever came out of their mouths into something listenable; back then, they had to hire other, less attractive singers to actually perform the songs, and the truth eventually came out, shaming everyone involved. There was enough weirdness after that revelation to spawn a great Lifetime movie, including something called The Real Milli Vanilli and the crime spree and tragic death of Rob Pilatus, one of the original fake two. Now, instead of letting sleeping dogs lie—and just years after “Milli Vanilli” ceased being a relatively popular way to call something a complete fabrication—Fab Morvan has teamed up with one of the actual singers of the Milli Vanilli hits, John Davis, for an album called Face Meets Voice: A True Milli Vanilli Experience. (No word yet on whether that Experience will also be a ride at the yet-to-be-announced Milli Vanilli theme park.) In completely unrelated news, The A.V. Club releases a list of the year’s Least Essential Albums each December, so keep an eye out for that.
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