World’s Worst Songs: Milli Vanilli

We thought about trying to find a photo of Milli Vanilli to go with this post, then we decided to go with some cute kittens instead. Enjoy. (Getty Images/Dan Kitwood)

If we ever established a Hall of Infamy to honor the World’s Worst Songs, we might need to dedicate a wing to Milli Vanilli for lifetime achievement.

Milli Vanilli was a highly-successful duo. Their five singles all made the top five in Billboard, and three of them hit #1 in a white-hot span of four months in 1989. They were a slam-dunk choice for Best New Artist at the Grammys in 1990.

Around Grammy time that spring, Rob Pilatus told Time magazine, “Musically, we are more talented than any Bob Dylan. Musically, we are more talented than Paul McCartney. Mick Jagger, his lines are not clear. He don’t know how he should produce a sound. I’m the new modern rock ‘n’ roll. I’m the new Elvis.” Even after the incredulous reporter gave Pilatus a chance to explain himself or retract what he’d said, he did not.

Then the whole thing blew up. A few months later it was revealed that neither Pilatus nor his partner Fab Morvan sang on the records for which they had been honored. They’d been hired by producer Frank Farian because they looked the part, but when they started acting like prima donnas, Farian blew the whistle on them. They were stripped of their Grammy and hit with lawsuits; although they tried making records on which they actually sang, those records went nowhere.

When the scandal was revealed, fans ceased to be fans, and Milli Vanilli’s songs disappeared from the air. Not that those songs had been particularly great to begin with. Rolling Stone had named Milli Vanilli the worst band of 1989, and their album Girl You Know It’s True worst album of the year. Nevertheless, the public once had lapped them up — Girl You Know It’s True did eight weeks at #1.

We might pick any one of the five Milli Vanilli singles to signify their lifetime achievement, and I ought to know, because I listened to all of them while writing this post. “All or Nothing” seems appropriate enough.

Listen to and debate more of the World’s Worst Songs.