Bought the Record? Then Stop Whining

Three cheers!

For once, the system works and justice prevails! The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences moved quickly and heroically this week in stripping Milli Vanilli of its ill-begotten Grammy award in the wake of the outrageous revelation that Vanilli’s two “lead singers” never sang a note on the album or on subsequent concert. . . .

Oh, forget it. Who bleeding cares, huh?

As far as I’m concerned, the only “controversy” about Milli Vanilli is that the “group” won a Grammy Award in the first place. But now we’re hearing that disappointed fans are stomping into record stores--Milli Vanilli tapes, LPs and/or CDs in hand--demanding their money back. Requesting refunds for the very same “music” that up until a week ago they thought was just about the sweetest sound this side of Heaven’s Gate.

Equally incredible is a lawsuit filed in Oakland--and you can bet this won’t be the last one--suing the band, the record company, concert promoters and presumably the parking lot attendants because group “leaders” Rob Pilatus and whatever-the-other-guy’s-name-is were lip-syncing in “live” performances. (This suit also alleges that the quasi-Vanillis lip-synced--the faint-hearted should skip this sentence--in their music videos !!!! If lip-syncing in music videos becomes a crime, the entire music business will go to jail. That’s the way they are made, kids.)

Get off the bloomin’ high horses, OK folks? If you bought an album because you like the music, why should it affect your enjoyment of that music if the hunky models on the album cover didn’t really sing it? It’s still the same music--get it?

As to the recording academy and its self-righteous breast-beating about maintaining the “integrity” of the award--where were they when the bloody thing was nominated? This is the organization with a 30-year history of honoring imitation Vanilli flavorings.

It was over this very category--best new artist--that I swore off paying any serious attention to the Grammys in 1978. That year, Grammy voters at least made one respectable nomination in that category by including Elvis Costello, who has since proven himself the most prolific, most consistently challenging and rewarding singer-songwriter in rock possibly since Bob Dylan. (Come to think of it, Bobby didn’t win a Best New Artist Grammy either, nor did the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bruce Springsteen or . . . ). Instead, that year the recording industry gave its highest honor for a freshman performer to . . . A Taste of Honey. If A Taste of Honey ever winds up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it will only be in the display for Fastest Disappearance Without a Trace.

And ripped-off Milli Vanilli concert-goers? Aren’t these the same people who snapped up tickets to the group’s “concert” last May at Irvine Meadows, screaming their heads off and then writing whiny letters castigating rock critics who had the audacity to suggest that any applause should be reserved for the fine folks at TDK?

The bitter pill that must be swallowed by any of the 7 million or so folks who bought Vanilli’s “Girl You Know It’s True” album and now feel betrayed is that it’s your own damned fault. Fact is, you went to a concert hoping to hear exactly what was on the album (these folks are the first to gripe if a dance-pop performer’s concerts don’t sound just like the record) and that’s exactly what you got. So can it already.

Those who liked the music will still like the music. Those who were responding instead to the image of two gorgeous guys singing pulsating dance-pop tunes--ah, there’s the rub.

Pop audiences, encouraged by the music industry itself, demand their singers conform to a standard of physical perfection that’s every bit as hollow as most of the music associated with it. No matter how gorgeous your voice may be, if you don’t look like you belong on the cover of GQ or Playboy, forget it. Conversely, if you look great, who cares what you sound like? We can always fix it in the mix.

That’s why videos of new pop phenom Wilson Phillips show two of the three women singers frolicking in scenic locations, outfitted in revealing, body-hugging fashions; the third, who doesn’t possess a Cosmopolitan cover-girl’s looks or body, is dispatched in fleeting cutaway shots, draped in yards of black to hide her imperfect body.

I’d rather listen to three minutes of a wrinkled, overweight, 50-something-year-old black singer named Katie Webster, pounding out old blues tunes on her very own piano than to sit through two hours of throbbing, vacant Milli Vanilli music--live or digitally reduced to perfect 4 3/4-inch shiny aluminum discs.

Milli Vanilli epitomizes the youth-pop world’s credo of surface beauty over substance. The fact that the band’s two ersatz lead singers were faking is all-too fitting, since most of this genre’s music only imitates the human emotions it pretends to address.

Were audiences genuinely yearning for truth and honesty in the records they buy, Milli Vanilli’s album wouldn’t have sold three copies to begin with.

You want the real thing? Try Bob Dylan’s latest album. Go see a Neil Young concert or Bonnie Raitt if you want to be assured that the singers on stage aren’t just moving their lips. Girl, you know that’s true.

But Milli Vanilli complaints? Don’t make me laugh.