0:03 having to give back their Grammy.
0:05 [music] It's the only time that has
0:08 happened in music history.
0:11 >> And the best new artist is Millie Vanilli.
0:13 Vanilli.
0:15 >> In the late 1980s, Millie Vanilli was
0:17 the band everyone was talking about.
0:19 >> It's Millie Vanill. Millie Vanill.
0:20 >> Millie Vanill.
0:21 >> MILLIE VANILL.
0:22 >> MILLIE VANILL.
0:25 >> WE'RE GOING to a Millie Vanilli concert.
0:28 But on July 21st, 1989, Millie Vanilli
0:30 got caught lip-syncing on live television.
0:30 television.
0:32 >> More embarrassment today for the pop
0:33 singing group Millie Vanilli.
0:35 >> A lot of singers do that on stage. And
0:37 normally it wouldn't be a big deal. But
0:39 this time it was different because
0:41 Millie Vanilli wasn't lip-syncing to
0:43 their own voices. They were just two
0:45 dancers hired to lip-sync to tracks
0:48 recorded by professional singers.
0:50 And now you probably heard the story
0:52 before, but here's the thing nobody is
0:55 talking about. Some of today's biggest
0:57 music stars are still doing exactly what
0:59 Millie Manili did. They use ghost
1:01 singers to record their tracks and
1:03 pretend it's their own songs. So, we dug
1:06 deep into this story and what we found
1:08 was just shocking. Some of the most
1:11 famous names in pop music are faking it
1:15 and yet nobody seems to care anymore,
1:17 >> which is very common in the music industry.
1:19 industry.
1:21 >> Let me tell you a story. in in the end
1:26 of 87. He has an idea and I think maybe
1:28 >> this is Frank Faren, a German producer
1:29 who wanted to break into the American
1:32 market in the late8s and he knew exactly
1:35 what would sell. Young, attractive
1:37 performers who could put on a show on stage.
1:39 stage.
1:40 So he found two good-looking
1:43 professional dancers, Rob Pilotis and
1:45 Fabric Morbin. They said, "We're working
1:47 on a project and we're [music] thinking
1:49 that you could be good for it if we were
1:51 interested." Hell yeah, we were
1:53 interested. They had the moves, the
1:55 look, the stage presence, everything
1:57 you'd want from a proper pop star. There
2:00 was only one tiny problem. They couldn't
2:03 sing. So Frank came up with what he
2:06 thought was a genius idea.
2:08 >> One click in my mind
2:12 and the crazy idea was was born.
2:14 What if he hired professional singers to
2:17 record the vocals and Rob and Fab? Well,
2:19 they could just pretend to sing.
2:21 >> Rob turns to me saying, "They don't want
2:24 us to sing. They want us to lip sync the
2:26 song." I'm like, "What?"
2:29 >> Since I'm an actor, an entertainer, he
2:32 needed an act who poses as a singer. You
2:34 know, he don't want us to sing. He never
2:35 tried our vocals.
2:36 >> He brought in established session
2:39 singers Charles Shaw, John Davies, and
2:41 Brad Howell. These were professionals
2:43 who would nail every note, hit every
2:45 harmony perfectly, but they didn't quite
2:48 have that look that Frank Faren was
2:50 looking for. So Faren made a deal with
2:52 them. The session singers would get paid
2:55 well, but stay anonymous. Robin Fab will
2:57 become the faces. Let's just stay on
2:58 Frank for a second because this is
3:02 important. Uh Frank Faren is kind of a
3:04 genius and I think you might have heard
3:06 of him because he had already done
3:09 something similar earlier
3:11 in Europe [music] in the 70s and 80s
3:13 with a band called Bonnie M. And with
3:16 Bonnie M, it was actually Fion himself
3:17 who sang on Bunny M's original
3:19 recordings, not Bobby Farrell, the front
3:22 man everyone saw performing. It was a
3:23 huge, huge success. [music] You probably
3:25 heard of Bonnie M yourself. So when
3:27 Frank set out to conquer America, he
3:30 knew the formula would work. Millie
3:32 Vanilli released Girl You Know It's True
3:34 and Blame It on the Rain. The songs
3:37 became massive hits for 2 years. It
3:38 worked [music] perfectly.
3:40 >> 7 million albums sold, this year's
3:42 Grammy for the best new artists.
3:44 >> There are a lot of artists outside in
3:46 the world who can achieve the same award
3:48 that we achieve today. And it's an award
3:50 for all artists in the world. Thank you
3:51 very much.
3:54 Frank Faren was finally cracking the
3:57 American market
4:00 until that one technical error on July
4:03 21st, 1989. [cheering]
4:04 [cheering]
4:06 >> The vocals that were being cued from the
4:10 emulator started repeating [music]
4:16 >> 80,000 people.
4:20 You know, I couldn't repeat it 15 times.
4:22 It got obvious. So I stopped. I
4:32 >> Billy Vanilli [music] turns out to be a
4:40 >> The aftermath was chaos. People were
4:42 confused, suspicious, and demanding answers.
4:43 answers.
4:45 A California woman [music] who bought
4:47 the album for her son is suing to get a refund.
4:48 refund.
4:50 >> For months, they tried to stick to the story.
4:51 story.
4:54 >> You [music and singing] want to get it
5:01 everything.
5:03 >> For the last year, they've been working
5:05 on a new album on the dance steps and on
5:06 the singing.
5:09 >> But in November of 1990, Frank Faren
5:11 held a press conference and dropped the
5:15 bomb. I think it's fair we show the real singer.
5:16 singer.
5:18 >> And just like that, it was all over. For
5:20 the first time in history, a Grammy was
5:23 being revoked. But the biggest tall fell
5:26 on Rob and Fab. They weren't just
5:28 cancelled. They were vilified. Seen as
5:30 immoral human beings who had lied to
5:33 millions of fans. A lot of your fans
5:35 will be very upset by the fact that the
5:38 only way you can explain the sherade,
5:40 the fast, the fakery of the last year,
5:42 two years is money.
5:44 >> It's not. This is fake.
5:45 >> No other reason. That's the only
5:47 pressure that Fabian put on you was finance.
5:48 finance.
5:50 >> Do you live in a project? Did you live
5:51 in a project?
5:54 >> The psychological toll was immense.
5:55 >> You knew that wasn't true when you said
5:56 said
5:58 >> in order to cope with it, we got into
6:01 the alcohol and the drugs. was to numb
6:02 ourselves and to be able to like
6:05 medication, self-medicating.
6:07 >> There was nothing to believe no more for
6:27 Rob Pilates struggled with depression
6:29 and substance abuse and he died of an
6:35 overdose in 1998 at just 32 years old.
6:37 The Millivani scandal became a
6:39 cautionary tale. Everyone thought this
6:41 was an isolated case of fraud in the
6:44 music industry because in 1989 people
6:46 still believed that what they saw was
6:49 real. Authenticity in music meant
6:51 everything. And this was my perception.
6:53 Interesting story. But the music
6:55 industry evolved. They learned. And
6:58 surely this couldn't be happening today.
7:01 But as we kept digging, what we found
7:03 completely changed the way I see the
7:04 music industry today.
7:07 >> Once again, Ashley Simpson.
7:11 >> October 23rd, 2004. Saturday Night Live.
7:12 Ashley Simpson is about to perform her
7:14 second song of the evening. But then
7:25 >> All of a sudden, the wrong track starts
7:27 playing and she does that now famous
7:30 awkward dance and walks off stage. Was
7:32 this just an unfortunate incident of
7:34 lip-syncing gone wrong? Or was it
7:37 something deeper?
7:39 There's something about lip syncing that
7:41 just feels wrong. Like we hate it when
7:42 we're being lied to.
7:44 >> Claims that Beyonce was actually lip
7:46 syncing are now setting the internet
7:48 ablaze. When we see Beyonce sing during
7:50 the inauguration, we expect her to be
7:52 singing for real, right? And when we
7:54 find out she's not, we feel betrayed.
7:57 >> I'm very proud of my my performance.
7:59 >> And it's the same feeling that I have
8:02 every time I hear about identity thefts.
8:04 >> One in 10 American children is the
8:06 victim of identity theft.
8:08 >> I just recently learned that there are
8:10 companies called data brokers. And what
8:12 they do is that they scrape your
8:13 personal information. Everything from
8:16 your phone number to your email address
8:18 to your home address even and then sell
8:20 it online to scammers and fraudsters.
8:22 >> There was somebody out there with my
8:25 information and pretending to be me.
8:27 >> It is almost impossible to stop these
8:30 data brokers unless you use Incogn.
8:32 Incogn is a service that automatically
8:35 contacts data brokers on your behalf and
8:37 gets them to delete your data. And just
8:39 imagine for a second how much time and
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8:44 incogn,
8:46 add your basic info and then they start
8:48 reaching out for you. And within days,
8:52 those gnarly data brokers by law have to
8:54 delete all your information. This is now
8:55 one of the biggest forms of organized
8:58 crime we have. In the US alone, 22% of
9:00 people report being victims of identity
9:02 theft at least [music] once in their
9:05 life. So if you value privacy, I think
9:06 you should test incogn. And you can do
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9:15 plan. And don't wait for your data to be
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9:22 safe. Now talking about scammers, let's
9:24 get back to the greatest scam in the
9:25 music industry.
9:27 >> I froze when I like started doing this
9:28 and I was like, "Okay, I think I've done
9:30 the ho down long enough. Maybe I should
9:30 walk off."
9:33 >> Ashley Simpson or Beyonce weren't the
9:34 only ones lip-syncing. Artists have been
9:36 lip-syncing to their own voices for
9:38 decades. [music] The Beatles even did it
9:40 on the Ed Sullivan show. Artists did it
9:42 all the time on MTV because when you're
9:44 dancing and flipping around with crazy
9:46 choreography, it's nearly impossible to
9:49 sing live perfectly when you're on live
9:51 television. Just think about those Super
9:53 Bowl halftime shows. Hundreds of
9:55 millions of people watching. The stakes
9:58 are huge. So, most performances actually
10:00 do use a lot of lip-syncing. And a lot
10:02 of artists actually do get caught lip-syncing.
10:02 lip-syncing.
10:04 >> Crazy crazy rumors. I keep hearing about
10:07 myself like that. I can't perform
10:08 without lip-syncing. [snorts] Okay,
10:10 which is not true. See, when I appeared
10:12 on the Grammy Awards and sang Baby One
10:14 More Time. I mean, I had some backup
10:16 singers doing the harmonies, but I sang
10:18 all the lead vocals live.
10:20 >> But it was Ashley Simpson's SNL moment
10:22 that went viral. She got mocked mercilessly.
10:24 mercilessly.
10:26 Ashley Simpson went from being a rising
10:28 star to a national joke almost
10:30 overnight. She had to apologize
10:32 publicly. Well, I handled it calm, but
10:33 like when it happened, I was definitely
10:35 like crying and my dad was like, "Come
10:37 on, baby. Get yourself together."
10:39 >> Appearing on shows to explain herself,
10:40 >> but I feel so bad. My band started
10:42 playing the wrong song and I didn't know
10:43 what to do, so I thought I'd do a hoown.
10:44 >> And in the beginning, she was just
10:46 pretending that it was funny and that
10:48 she didn't care. But it didn't help. For
10:50 some reason, people just felt betrayed.
10:52 The incident followed her for years. And
10:55 unfortunately, it has wound up becoming
10:56 the defining moment of her career.
10:59 >> Doing this like I didn't know how to do
11:01 that. For me, it was the most humbling
11:03 experience of my life because [music]
11:07 the whole world thinks everything that
11:08 you just put your heart and soul into
11:10 writing is a joke.
11:12 >> Yet, even with all that backlash, the
11:14 scandal blew over relatively quickly
11:16 compared to Millie Vanilli. Within a
11:19 year, she was back performing. We all
11:21 moved on because by 2004, the music
11:24 industry had fundamentally changed.
11:26 probably best illustrated by one music
11:35 Autotune and other tuning plugins became
11:37 the number one weapon of choice for
11:39 singers. It helped them stay in key.
11:41 Some criticized it as a crutch for bad
11:43 singers, but it was also a creative
11:44 tool. The artist was still the one
11:47 singing, still performing. It was their
11:48 voice heavily processed.
11:51 >> So, the tuning is really, really fast.
11:53 So, we've heard it as a normal
11:54 performance. Now we've got the effect on.
11:57 on. [music]
11:58 [music]
12:00 >> But here's what autotune and other
12:02 easily accessible audio plugins really
12:05 changed. The power dynamic. Before these
12:07 tools, the artist was essential. You
12:09 needed someone who could actually sing.
12:11 But now producers could take on a wider
12:13 range of singers and still make them
12:14 sound good.
12:16 >> Someone singing, maybe some slight note
12:18 slightly out of tune. Our computer
12:19 program can actually change that and put
12:20 it back in tune and give you a perfect
12:22 take. After Ven,
12:24 >> the producers got more power. Artists
12:26 became more of a tool for the producers
12:28 to use rather than the other way around.
12:30 What Mel Vanilli did using completely
12:32 different voices. Surely that never
12:35 happened again in the music industry.
12:39 At least that's what we thought until we
12:41 found some shocking evidence that proved
12:50 This is Jennifer Lopez at the 2019
12:53 Grammy Awards. Multi-platinum recording
12:55 artist, global superstar, someone
12:58 [music] who's built an empire on a music
13:00 career. She's not actually singing on
13:02 many of her biggest hits.
13:04 And this isn't speculation. It's well
13:06 documented and reported within [music]
13:08 the music industry.
13:09 The problem is just that most people
13:11 don't know about it. Let's look at the
13:13 evidence. We can start with the song
13:16 Play. I am
13:18 my soul.
13:20 >> This song was originally recorded by
13:22 Christina Milan in 2000. [music]
13:24 Milan wrote it, recorded it, and it was
13:27 supposed to be her single, but the label
13:29 took Milan's vocal performance and gave
13:31 it [music] to Jennifer Lopez.
13:32 >> Producers tell me, "Oh, Tommy Matah is
13:34 coming in and he's going to listen to
13:35 some [music] music." He hears Play,
13:38 loves it, and he's like, "I want this as
13:40 her single." I recorded the original
13:43 demo. A month later, Tommy Matah gets it
13:44 for Jennifer. [music]
13:46 >> Then there's I'm Real and Ain't It
13:48 Funny. Ashanti has claimed for years
13:50 that she performed lead vocals for both
13:53 massive JLo hits, not background vocals,
13:55 [music] the lead vocals. The pattern
13:57 goes beyond just a few songs. Several
13:59 industry insiders are claiming the same
14:01 thing, that Lopez's actual vocal
14:03 contributions to her own albums are
14:05 [music] minimal. But here's what's
14:07 fascinating. It's not really a secret.
14:09 Mariah says she often sleeps just 3
14:11 hours a night. When told Lopez claimed
14:13 to get eight, Mariah [music] said,
14:15 quote, "If I had the luxury of not
14:17 actually having to sing my own songs,
14:18 I'd do that, too."
14:19 >> Music journalists have [music] reported
14:22 on it for years. The information is out
14:24 there. Yet, Jennifer Lopez continues to
14:26 be celebrated as a recording artist.
14:28 She's been the judge on American Idol
14:29 for Christ's sake.
14:31 >> I love working creatively together with
14:33 other people. So, [music] but I'd never
14:34 thought about being a judge, so this was
14:37 this was all a big surprise for me.
14:39 >> Evaluating other people's singing, she
14:41 headlines tours and festivals where
14:43 people are paying a lot of money to hear
14:46 and see her perform. And her fans, well,
14:48 many of them know.
14:49 Social media is full of discussions
14:52 about Lopez's use of ghost singers. The
14:54 information isn't hidden. And this
14:56 creates a weird situation because
14:59 Jennifer Lopez is essentially doing
15:01 exactly the same thing Milivani did,
15:03 building a career on other people's
15:05 voices. I guess the difference is just
15:09 execution and the era. Selena Gomez has
15:11 faced questions about her actual vocal
15:13 contributions. Industry insiders suggest
15:15 much of what we hear involves
15:17 significant help from uncredited
15:19 singers. The same even goes for Britney
15:22 Spears during her peak years. And these
15:24 are just the cases we know about. How
15:25 many other artists are using ghost
15:27 singers without any acknowledgement?
15:29 When Millie Vanilli was exposed, [music]
15:31 it was a scandal that destroyed careers.
15:33 But when pop stars do it today, it's
15:35 barely news. So I guess the question is
15:37 what changed? Why did Rob Pilotis and
15:39 Fab Morvin get destroyed for doing
15:41 exactly what Jennifer Lopez has built
15:42 her career on?
15:44 >> About the fans backlash, you know,
15:46 running over your records, returning them.
15:46 them.
15:48 >> Yeah, I understand. I really understand
15:49 them. I have to say I understand them.
15:52 In the late8s, fans knew Millanilly
15:54 through music videos and occasional TV
15:56 appearances. The relationship was
15:58 distant. So when the music turned out to
16:00 be fake, there was nothing else to
16:03 sustain the connection. Jennifer Lopez,
16:05 on the other hand, has over 200 million
16:07 Instagram followers. They see her
16:09 working out, her family moments, her
16:12 daily life. Her fans feel like they know
16:13 her personally.
16:14 >> Pretty. I'm saying you you're used to
16:16 seeing me kind of like the little old
16:18 lady at home and then when I get up and
16:19 start dancing you're like, "Oh, right. I
16:21 forgot she could dance."
16:23 >> And when you feel connected to someone's
16:25 personality and brand, does the
16:27 credibility of their work matter as
16:30 much. I think it's deeper than just
16:31 social media. Look at what happened in
16:33 the 2010s.
16:36 A new type of superstar emerged and
16:39 started to dominate the charts. Avichi,
16:41 Calvin Harris, David Geta, they're
16:43 producers. They don't sing on their own
16:45 songs and everybody knows it. So what
16:46 happened in the 2010s was that the
16:49 producer became the artist. The singer
16:52 became more of an accessory, the face of
16:53 the brand. But that's not all. The
16:55 average hit song today has like 10
16:58 writers and four producers. And when the
17:00 song credits look like a Marvel movie
17:02 end credit, why is the voice sacred?
17:04 People couldn't care less about who
17:06 writes or who sings. They care about the
17:09 song, the celebrity, the icon, the
17:12 personality. Authenticity became
17:14 irrelevant. And it's not just music. Our
17:17 entire culture shifted
17:19 in 1990. We believed that what we saw
17:22 was real. We believed in authenticity
17:24 because we hadn't yet learned to
17:25 question it. When the Millie Manili
17:28 scandal hit at the worst possible moment
17:29 because that [music] was the exact
17:31 moment where culture turned against
17:34 polish and perfection. Grunch was about
17:36 to explode. MTV was launching the real
17:39 world. Compare that to today where being
17:41 real can actually hurt your career.
17:43 >> This is not what I look like right now.
17:45 This filter should be illegal. Here's
17:46 the real me.
17:48 >> People on social media use filters to
17:50 make themselves [music] look completely
17:52 different than they actually are.
17:55 >> Makes me look like a better person. So,
17:57 it's like,
17:59 I don't know, sucking my face up that
18:00 way or that way, you know, like it
18:02 doesn't matter as long as there's
18:03 something there.
18:05 >> Music is tuned and quantized. [music]
18:07 advertising no longer reflects the
18:09 actual products we're buying. And I know
18:10 what some of you might be thinking. I I
18:12 have friends who tell me that why do you
18:14 care? Their argument goes something like
18:17 this. That music's core purpose is to
18:19 move people, create joy, provide
18:21 connection, and if a Selena Gomez
18:23 concert accomplishes that, does it
18:25 really matter if she's lip-syncing to
18:27 someone else's voice? We've never had a
18:29 problem with this in other entertainment
18:31 industries. In Hollywood musicals,
18:33 actors have lip sync to professional
18:46 >> Nobody considered this deceptive,
18:48 >> but that wasn't ever particularly talked
18:50 about because they didn't Hollywood
18:52 didn't want to destroy the illusion.
18:54 >> And now we have deep fakes, AI content,
18:57 and social media manipulation.
18:59 Why is music the one area where
19:01 authenticity should still matter? Maybe
19:03 getting shocked and upset about ghost
19:07 singers is like being shocked that Marll
19:10 use CGI. Of course they do. Maybe I have
19:12 to look at it more as I look at
19:14 professional wrestling. Like I know it's
19:18 fake, but I love the spectacle anyway.
19:20 But I just can't accept that. And here's why.
19:34 >> This is what I'm talking about when I'm
19:36 talking about authenticity. When I hear
19:39 Johnny Cash, I know it's him. There's
19:41 just something in his voice that cannot
19:44 be faked. The gravel, the pain, the
19:47 lived experience. Adele, Freddy Mercury,
19:50 Kurt Cobain, these voices are
19:52 fingerprints. So when I see Jennifer
19:54 Lopez on stage and hear someone else's
19:56 voice, what am I actually experiencing?
19:58 When I listen to Millanilly, who am I
20:02 really connecting with?
20:04 >> The promise of music has always been
20:06 simple. This person singing these words.
20:08 Sharing their voice with you. And when
20:10 that basic contract gets broken, when
20:12 the person you see isn't the person you
20:15 hear, we lose something that goes way
20:17 deeper than just entertainment. But
20:19 here's what really bothers me. We've
20:22 normalized this loss of trust. We live
20:24 in a world where models don't look like
20:26 their photos. Where influencers present
20:27 lives that don't exist. Where
20:30 politicians sell visions that bear no
20:32 resemblance to reality. Where everything
20:35 is filtered, processed, optimized for
20:37 consumption. And I can speak for myself.
20:39 Somewhere along the way, I just stopped
20:41 fighting back. I accepted that
20:44 authenticity is old-fashioned, naive,
20:46 unrealistic. in the middle of a nearly
20:48 scandal happened at a moment in time
20:50 when we still believe things could be
20:53 real and should be real when discovering
20:54 that something was fake actually
20:57 mattered. But that innocence is lost.
20:59 We've become so accustomed to being lied
21:01 to that we stopped expecting [music] the
21:03 truth. Millie Vanilly didn't just expose
21:05 a scandal in the music industry. They
21:08 exposed a turning point in our culture.
21:10 The moment when we decided that feeling
21:12 real was good enough, even when it
21:14 wasn't real at all.
21:17 Oh, one more thing before I let you go.
21:18 We did a video about Aussie Osborne
21:21 recently, and we're really, really proud
21:23 of it. And for some reason, we feel like
21:24 it hasn't gotten the attention it
21:27 deserves. If you want to watch it, it's
21:28 here. And if you like this video, I
21:31 promise you, you will love that one. And
21:32 check out the incognite through the link
21:35 in the description, incogn.com/asapark.
