A staple of any new-wave dance night (ask a white person), “Ca Plane Pour Moi” made a chart-stopping star out of Belgian singer Plastic Bertrand (né Roger Jouret) and provided him with his most lasting legacy—except an expert linguist has just proved that Bertrand didn’t actually sing on his most famous record. The battle over “Ca Plane Pour Moi” has been brewing for four years now, stemming from a 2006 lawsuit involving original producer Lou Deprijck, who released his own version of the single under the marketing claim that he was the “original voice.” At the time, Deprijck found himself sued by record label AMC.
As a result, a panel of experts was appointed to study the track, and today a linguist announced that, after three months of study, during which he compared the original to Deprijck's 2006 version, he had determined that “the way the phrases end on each record show that the song could only have been sung by a Ch'ti—otherwise known as someone from the Picard region of France. It could therefore not have been Plastic Bertrand—who was born in Brussels—and was surely Monsieur Deprijck.” So it's been settled: Plastic Bertrand was the Milli Vanilli of the punk era.
In light of his testimony, Jouret has now been forced to openly admit that he did not sing the song—although he also claims that the deception was all Deprijck’s idea, who asked him to “shut up” in exchange for a portion of the rights, and promised to re-record a version with Jouret singing that never materialized. He's now talking about suing Deprijck for slander.
Still, the question remains: Maybe Deprijck sang the song, but did he have dance moves like this?