Milli Vanilli Catalog Up 34% in On-Demand Streams Following Premiere of Paramount+ Documentary
Written by djfrosty on October 31, 2023
On-demand official U.S. streams of Milli Vanilli’s catalog jumped by 34% in the four days (Oct. 24-27) since the documentary Milli Vanilli premiered Oct. 24 on Paramount+.
According to Luminate, the act’s songs drew 312,000 listens Oct. 24-27, up from 232,000 the four days prior (Oct. 20-23).
Milli Vanilli’s breakthrough hit “Girl You Know It’s True” leads with 114,000 on-demand U.S. streams Oct. 24-27, a 26% increase from 91,000 Oct. 20-23. “Blame It on the Rain” follows with 69,000 streams, up 39% from 49,000.
The 1 hour, 46-minute documentary chronicles the turbulent timeline of the act, which was publicly fronted by Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, who signed a contract with German producer Frank Farian, not realizing that they would not provide vocals on Milli Vanilli recordings. The act’s debut album, Girl You Know It’s True, blending pop, R&B/hip-hop and dance, dominated the Billboard 200 for seven weeks and spun off three Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s – “Baby Don’t Forget My Number,” “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” and “Blame It on the Rain” – after the title track reached No. 2, in 1989.
(The set’s “All or Nothing” become its fifth and final Hot 100 top 10, reaching No. 4, in early 1990. Milli Vanilli is the only act in the list’s archives to have charted as many as five entries all in the top five with no other career appearances.)
Milli Vanilli won the best new artist Grammy Award in 1990, before it was revealed that Pilatus and Morvan didn’t sing any of their hits, resulting in the trophy being revoked for the only time in Grammy history.
Milli Vanilli includes interviews with Billboard contributing writer/editor Gil Kaufman, who wrote an oral history on the act’s rise and fall in 2020, as well as former MTV VJ and current SiriusXM host “Downtown” Julie Brown and former executives from Arista Records, which released Girl You Know It’s True in the U.S., among others. It was produced by MTV Entertainment Studios and MRC and directed by Luke Korem and is narrated by Morvan. (Pilatus died of an alcohol and prescription drug overdose in 1998.)
“Finally, the true story of Milli Vanilli has been told,” Morvan shared upon the announcement of Paramount+’s acquisition of the retrospective. “The journey I returned to during the filming of this documentary didn’t leave any stone unturned. At last I can close this chapter in peace.”