# The band that did the most with the least "musical" talent **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2007, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104 "2007-07-17T08:09:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/61 "2007-07-18T14:12:38Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] Eh, I’m not sure we can count Milli Vanilli. You can’t blame the actors hired to perform the stage show for not being singers. [/QUOTE] But that is the point. They did the most (won a Grammy) with the least (no apparent ability in anything). Every other band that gets mentioned here has had someone say, “Oh, but X was actually a good musician,” or, “Y may not have been able to play but they had great song-writing skills.” Milli Vanilli seems to be the only group that actually had NO abilities, yet still made a name for themselves. We are looking at (accomplishments)/(ability). When the divisor is zero they go to infinity. ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/62 "2007-07-18T14:14:23Z")
[QUOTE=saoirse] I agree with this. The actual musicians weren’t bad. The frontmen were basically good-looking actor/dancers who had no musical talent. [/QUOTE] Arghh. Should have previewed. OK, what do we actually define as Milli Vanilli then? ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/63 "2007-07-18T14:33:20Z")
[QUOTE=Etumretniw] Ok, so not a band, but an artist, hope that counts. Elvis Presley. Incredibly famous, but IMO almost completely without talent. He wrote VERY few of the songs he sang, and AFAIK none of the famous ones. Granted he had a good voice, and his looks surely made him popular among the ladies, but a musician he was not. Don’t think he was very good at playing the guitar either, but not completely sure there. [/QUOTE] But having a good voice is one aspect of musical talent, and Elvis had a GREAT voice. He might not have been a songwriter or an instrumental musician, but he FELT those songs, and his tone and phrasing conveyed a lot of emotion and style (see also Sinatra, Frank). There are legitimate reasons to trash Elvis in retrospect, but lack of talent is definitely not one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/64 "2007-07-18T14:53:54Z")
[QUOTE=flight] Arghh. Should have previewed. OK, what do we actually define as Milli Vanilli then? [/QUOTE] > **[Milli Vanilli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli_Vanilli)** > > Milli Vanilli (/ˈmɪli vəˈnɪli/) was a pop act from Munich, Germany, founded in 1988 by the producer Frank Farian. They combined pop, rap, R&B, disco and dance music. Farian hired Brad Howell, John Davis, Charles Shaw, Jodie Rocco and Linda Rocco to sing on the records, and had Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus dance and lip-sync for performances. Milli Vanilli's debut album, All or Nothing, was released in Europe in 1988 and repackaged by Arista Records for the US as Girl You Know It's True in 1989. It... Milli Vanilli was a creation of a guy named Frank Farian, who created the group, and hired the dancers as frontmen. Of course, it’s not exactly a music industry secret that attractive people with limited talent are hired to perform the actual songs, while some producer is the real musical talent behind those hit songs. But usually the front person actually sang the track that the producer used in the final mix, even if it takes a lot of technical wizardry to make it sound good. The real scandal of Milli Vanilli was that the two guys who were the ostensible frontmen didn’t do anything except dance and lip-synch and pose for album covers. But even if they had actually sang the tracks, it still would have been Frank Farian who “really” created the songs. The two frontmen didn’t “do the most” with limited musical talent, musically they didn’t contribute anything to Milli Vanilli. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/65 "2007-07-18T15:22:05Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] …But usually the front person actually sang the track that the producer used in the final mix, even if it takes a lot of technical wizardry to make it sound good. [/quote] One little irony is that, by hiring a singer who could sing, Farian didn’t need to apply so much wizardry to the track. > [@](#): > > The real scandal of Milli Vanilli was that the two guys who were the ostensible frontmen didn’t do anything except dance and lip-synch and pose for album covers. But even if they had actually sang the tracks, it still would have been Frank Farian who “really” created the songs. The two frontmen didn’t “do the most” with limited musical talent, musically they didn’t contribute anything to Milli Vanilli. I actually thought that was hilarious. The music was as good as it had been before (which was not very, IMO), but the fact that it was created by unphotogenic artists was the scandal. Apparently a CD made by ugly people is worth $3 less than one made by beautiful people, if we cuse the settlement of the suit as a guide. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/66 "2007-07-18T15:41:19Z")
Yeah, Milli Vanilli was a weird, weird scandal. It’s exactly the same album as it was before. And there are plenty of album covers that have beautiful people who had nothing to do with the album, like that Tiajuana Brass album with the girl covered with whipped cream. And there are groups that feature dancers as an integral part of their live show. And there are groups that are essentially one guy who does everything, but he hires session musicians when he tours. And people lip-synching to their own vocal tracks isn’t unknown. Milli Vanilli just combined all these into one unpalatable package. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/67 "2007-07-18T16:35:26Z")
[QUOTE=saoirse] I actually thought that was hilarious. The music was as good as it had been before (which was not very, IMO), but the fact that it was created by unphotogenic artists was the scandal. [/QUOTE] That’s about it right there. I was convinced at the time that the only people who were complaining were schoolgirls who only bought the album because Rob & Fab were “cute”. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/68 "2007-07-18T20:37:35Z")
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy] I love the _Talking Heads_, but I have to admit that their best musicians were always the ones sitting in as “extras” (Adrian Belew, Alex Weir, Bernie Worrell) and not part of the core four itself. They’re no slouches, but their strength was always in the style and the songwriting, not in any instrumental virtuosity. [/QUOTE] You don’t consider Jerry Harrison a good player at the time the band was formed? I’ve always considered him as the “okay, now let’s find a real musician to teach us how to play” guy for that group of art students. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/69 "2007-07-18T22:53:16Z")
[QUOTE=flight] We are looking at (accomplishments)/(ability). When the divisor is zero they go to infinity. [/QUOTE] That’s not how a mathematician would see it. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2007, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/70 "2007-07-18T23:43:00Z")
[QUOTE=Sean Factotum] You don’t consider Jerry Harrison a good player at the time the band was formed? I’ve always considered him as the “okay, now let’s find a real musician to teach us how to play” guy for that group of art students. [/QUOTE] And yet his solo albums stink like dead walruses. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2007, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/71 "2007-07-19T00:57:40Z")
[QUOTE=Sean Factotum] Adding two more to keep the thread diversified. Peter Buck of REM has said that they were just a bunch of hackers when they first started. They learned a lot along the way (as any of the above musicians noted above have, except maybe David Lee Roth), but when they started they were just a bunch of guiys who wanted to be musicians. [/QUOTE] I’ve heard Peter Buck saying this forever, and I have to call bullshit. I’ve got the bootlegs from the early days - a few from 1980, pre-recording-career - and Buck was playing the same arpeggiated guitar figures he did later on the albums. They even did songs live in '80 that were later released on albums (“Harborcoat”, etc.) that were far more advanced than any garage band could manage. Also, as far as I know, Mike Mills (and, I believe, Bill Berry) was already a multi-instrumentalist by the time the band formed. I never know if it’s false modesty or myth-making Buck’s engaged in when he talks about how talentless they were when they started. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2007, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/72 "2007-07-19T01:12:54Z")
[QUOTE=woodstockbirdybird] I’ve heard Peter Buck saying this forever, and I have to call bullshit. I’ve got the bootlegs from the early days - a few from 1980, pre-recording-career - and Buck was playing the same arpeggiated guitar figures he did later on the albums. They even did songs live in '80 that were later released on albums (“Harborcoat”, etc.) that were far more advanced than any garage band could manage. Also, as far as I know, Mike Mills (and, I believe, Bill Berry) was already a multi-instrumentalist by the time the band formed. I never know if it’s false modesty or myth-making Buck’s engaged in when he talks about how talentless they were when they started. [/QUOTE] Agreed. Ever tried to play a song from _Chronic Town_ or _Murmur_? Nothing simple about Buck’s playing. Mills and Berry had played in other bands since high school. Both of them were well-versed musicians. Buck, of course, was the record collector and clearly listened to a few Byrds albums. Funnily enough, the later R.E.M. albums are the least technically complex… ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2007, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/73 "2007-07-19T01:38:33Z")
Milli Vanilli may have been completely talentless, but their success was limited. Britney Spears, on the other hand, has achieved incredible fame with only a little more musical ability (i.e., she has a halfway decent voice). ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2007, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104/74 "2007-07-19T11:07:54Z")
[QUOTE=mr. jp] That’s not how a mathematician would see it. [/QUOTE] The limit of the (accomplishments)/(ability) index as ability approaches zero is infinity? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-band-that-did-the-most-with-the-least-musical-talent/412104.md?page=3)