Milli Vanlli to Collaborate with Rascal Flatts on New Album
The 90’s deadlocked R&B pop band Milli Vanilli will be collaborating with country pop trio Rascal Flatts on an upcoming project called “Vanilla Flatts“, with an album tentatively scheduled to be released in the Fall according to representatives of both groups. Rascal Flatts’ Gary LeVox, Jay DeMarcus, and Joe Don Rooney are said to be excited about the upcoming project, while Milli Vanilli’s Fab Morvan is said to be “excited to have any work, at all, whatsoever.”
The idea for the collaboration came about when Rascal Flatts frontman Gary LeVox reached out to Milli Vanilli’s Fab Morvan to get advice on how to handle the recent lip sync scandal the group found themselves in after admitting to pre-recording their recent performance on the 2014 ACM Awards. “Fab Morvan was very understanding and helpful when Gary called,” says Rascal Flatts spokesperson Annie Frankenfurter. “He was able to give Gary and the rest of Rascal Flatts some perspective of how to handle, and not handle the public backlash.”
Milli Vanilli was one of the biggest bands in all of popular music in the late 80’s and early 90’s, and were awarded the Grammy’s Best New Artist in 1990 as both a critical and commercial favorite. Then it was found out the duo hadn’t sung any of the music on their debut album Girl You Know It’s True. Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus were stooges hired for their looks by producer Frank Farian in Germany who was looking to feature the work of vocalists deemed unmarketable. The ruse was exposed by LA Times writer Chuck Phillips, and resulted in a public backlash and the eventual implosion of Milli Vanilli.
Much of the music of Milli Vanilli has endured in popular culture however, and apparently the members of Rascal Flatts are big fans. “Gary and Rascal Flatts found a lot of strength in this crisis by going back and listening to Milli Vanilli’s work,” spokesperson Annie Frankenfurter continues. “And the trio and their label Big Machine Records were surprised to find out just how similar Milli Vanilli’s music sounds to the pop country music of today, and specifically the music of Rascal Flatts. As Gary was confiding in Milli Vanilli’s Fab Morvan amidst the scandal, they found they had so much in common musically that they felt the calling to collaborate.”
In true Milli Vanilli fashion, their contributions will be done solely by other uncredited artists, which is especially helpful since the second Milli Vanilli member Rob Pilatus died of a drug overdose in 1998. “Basically they’re two overhyped bands best known for their hair,” says Frankenfurter. “And joining forces should create the type of vacuum of substance that thrives in today’s music marketplace.”
April 9, 2014 @ 8:09 pm
Hee. 😀
Given pop-country’s current resemblance to ’80s hair metal, a Milli Vanilli revival wouldn’t be too far-fetched for a logical next step (then maybe a country equivalent of New Kids on the Block before we finally get to the next coming of grunge).
April 9, 2014 @ 8:36 pm
I imagine “grunge country” wouldn’t sound much unlike Aaron Lewis.
April 9, 2014 @ 11:51 pm
No grungtry, please! -__-
April 9, 2014 @ 8:15 pm
guffaw
Frank Farian didn’t do anything wrong, he was just a victim of bad timing.
April 10, 2014 @ 12:44 am
Nowadays, any ‘country’ act can collaborate with anything.
April 10, 2014 @ 3:48 am
I thought one of the Milli Vanilli guys killed himself…..
April 10, 2014 @ 1:23 pm
ME TOO!
April 10, 2014 @ 6:26 am
Zzzzzzzing!!!!!!!!!!!
April 10, 2014 @ 6:40 am
lip synching on tv music shows is a given. I don’t know how many people remember american bandstand, but those shows were 100% lip synch. Some bands had fun with it by not playing or walking away from their instruments. Anyone who expects real live music, when watching a tv show is fairly ignorant. These shows are just advertisements: scripted, meticulously planned, and presented. There is no time to sound check 10 different performers in a two hour show, no room for a bad mic, or wireless guitar. It is ALL backtracked or lip synched to some degree.
April 10, 2014 @ 8:18 am
The one thing I always thought was fascinating about the Milli Vanilli scandal was how everyone I knew threw out their albums as soon as they were exposed.
But the only thing that actually changed was that we now knew that the guys who sang the songs weren’t who we thought sang them. Charles Shaw, John Davis, & Brad Howell recorded it. The studio recordings were still the same songs. It’s just now we knew it wasn’t Milli Vanilli singing. The live shows were totally bogus, but the cd all my friends had was still genuine (minus the liner notes and pics)
So basically everyone throwing out the albums were doing so because the IMAGE of the group changed.
I mean, I was pissed off too (and I’m glad they lost their Grammy), but to this day I still enjoy “Blame it on the Rain” once in a while. I just do so knowing it’s not Milli Vanilli singing.
April 10, 2014 @ 8:49 am
When I first read this, I wasn’t sure if the article was a joke? And once I read it again, I’m still not sure if the article is a joke, or if the project is a joke? But it certainly seems like something these dudes would do.
April 10, 2014 @ 10:28 am
Girl, you know it’s true.
April 10, 2014 @ 9:07 am
Rob_Pilatus was 32.
April 10, 2014 @ 11:23 am
When will Rascal Flatts disappear? They are now an aging boy band that looks and sounds like a desperate housewife. Next thing you know one of them will come out of the closet just for the attention they so badly want.
April 10, 2014 @ 1:22 pm
not to be morbid but i thought they were dead…died of an od or something…and i thought this was joke when i saw title
April 10, 2014 @ 4:36 pm
“were stooges hired for their looks”
Doesn’t that sum up the current crop of country singers?
April 10, 2014 @ 8:23 pm
how come i cant like this more than once?
April 11, 2014 @ 10:36 am
Glad you liked it!
April 10, 2014 @ 8:44 pm
If Milli Vanilli were around nowadays, they wouldn’t have to hide it and no one would even care. All these pop bands and singers may actually sing, but they’re still just pretty faces singing other peoples’ songs.
April 10, 2014 @ 10:49 pm
Criticizing people for singing songs written by others is not valid unless you want to include George Jones and George Strait as one of the “pretty faces” that you mention.
April 12, 2014 @ 7:54 am
Should this have been posted a week or so earlier for April first?
April 16, 2014 @ 5:13 am
One day you’re gonna get your fingers burnt Trig! One day some arse is going to see one of these stories and think to themself, “Hmmm, that’s a damn fine idea … “