Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia - Blame It on the Feign, Part 1
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4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2021
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For a musical project that’s synonymous with deceit, Milli Vanilli sold an awful lot of records. They also have quite a legacy: a blend of pop, dance and rap that now seems commonplace but was still relatively novel in 1989. If you’ve danced to Europop that fronts like hip-hop, you’re living in a world Milli Vanilli helped create.
In this episode of Hit Parade, Chris Molanphy breaks down the history of Milli Vanilli mastermind Frank Farian’s musical career: from his days with Boney M, a hit-making, half-real, half-fake group that was a precursor to his later scheme; to his enlistment of European model–dancers Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan to be the faux-frontpeople of Milli Vanilli. From MTV News to Behind the Music, the Milli Vanilli story has been told and retold. But the Billboard chart feats achieved by Rob and Fab, and their accomplices, reveal just how addicted America was to their music—and maybe, how they won that Grammy.
Hit Parade episodes are now split into two parts, released two weeks apart. For the full episode right now, sign up for Slate Plus and you'll also get The Bridge, our Trivia show and bonus deep dive. Click here for more info.
Podcast production by Asha Saluja with help from Rosemary Belson.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening Ad-Free on Amazon Music. |
| 0:03.4 | Hey there, Hit Parade listeners. |
| 0:05.8 | What you're about to hear is part one of this episode. |
| 0:09.6 | Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. |
| 0:13.6 | Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? |
| 0:17.8 | Sign up for Slate Plus. |
| 0:19.5 | You can try it for a month for just $1, and it supports not only |
| 0:24.4 | this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go to slate.com slash |
| 0:32.0 | Hit Parade Plus. You'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full the day it arrives. |
| 0:38.3 | Plus, Hit Parade The Bridge, are bonus episodes with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia. |
| 0:47.1 | Once again, to join, that's slate.com slash hit parade plus. |
| 0:52.8 | Thanks. |
| 0:53.5 | And now, please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode. |
| 1:03.6 | Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine about the hits from |
| 1:10.3 | coast to coast. I'm Chris |
| 1:12.2 | Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song Number One series? On |
| 1:18.5 | today's show, do you recognize this funk instrumental I'm playing? This is The Soul |
| 1:25.0 | Searchers, led by Washington, D.C DC Go Go Music Pioneer Chuck Brown with their |
| 1:30.9 | 1974 jam Ashley's Roach clip don't feel bad if it's not ringing a bell yet it wasn't a big |
| 1:39.4 | chart hit but part of this song was a hit, part of many, many hits. |
| 1:46.0 | In just a few seconds, we're going to hear a drum break that should be instantly familiar if you listen to hip-hop about 30 to 35 years ago. |
| 1:56.7 | Here it comes. |
... |
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