For a bit of silliness.
Boney M was a mid 1970's disco/dance group, "made in Germany" of the English speaking members from the Caribbean by a local songwriter/producer Frank Farian (born Frank Reuther and largely known in the US as the brain behind the scandalously lip-syncing Milli Vanilli). Much like Milli Vanilli, the majority of the Boney M performances were not live, as half of its participants were there just for the appearance sake. Nonetheless, Farian could surely produce some catchy tunes and the group sold over 100,000,000 records and would have sold zillions more, had the Soviet Union allowed their records to be sold there. But, like most of the foreign acts from that era, music was first pirated and then privately copied for the mass consumption. The Soviet era radio, likewise, was not allowed to play any of the group's numbers. Nonetheless, some forty years after their prime, former stars do visit their aging fan base to much acclaim. Bobby Farrell, the male dance in these videos, even managed to suffer a fatal heart attack in Sankt Petersburg in 2010 during a tour of fake music and some awful dancing.
A few amusing factoids.
Bobby, though lip-syncing the male vocals during concerts, was not allowed in the studio by Farian. Instead, to get the American sounding English on Rasputin, Frank found an American serviceman with a musical ability.
When they became the first foreign mega act to visit the USSR in December, 1978, the tickets were impossible to buy. Literally. They were not put up for sale via the usual distribution channels and instead were given to the Party faithful. The band members were unpleasantly surprised when they realized that the concert attendees were not allowed to get up off their seats and move. That was verboten by the superiors, and was the case of other Soviet pop-rock shows. Boney M was used to performing in clubs, where dancing by the audience members was expected.
Andrei Makarevich, the lead singer/songwriter of the (officially banned until perestroika) Soviet rock band Time Machine was given a regular ass chewing by the Ministry of Culture for his "decadent style", when he asked an official to score him some tickets to the Boney M concerts "in order to familiarize himself with the decadent styles and thus avoid reproducing it in the future". Surprisingly, the party poobah agreed.
The group received no income from the Moscow shows but, in exchange, the Soviets agreed to film their appearances on Moscow streets, with those appearances making it into a string of promotional videos. The Soviets kept the copy for themselves until it was destroyed on a decree from Yuri Andropov.
Boney M was a mid 1970's disco/dance group, "made in Germany" of the English speaking members from the Caribbean by a local songwriter/producer Frank Farian (born Frank Reuther and largely known in the US as the brain behind the scandalously lip-syncing Milli Vanilli). Much like Milli Vanilli, the majority of the Boney M performances were not live, as half of its participants were there just for the appearance sake. Nonetheless, Farian could surely produce some catchy tunes and the group sold over 100,000,000 records and would have sold zillions more, had the Soviet Union allowed their records to be sold there. But, like most of the foreign acts from that era, music was first pirated and then privately copied for the mass consumption. The Soviet era radio, likewise, was not allowed to play any of the group's numbers. Nonetheless, some forty years after their prime, former stars do visit their aging fan base to much acclaim. Bobby Farrell, the male dance in these videos, even managed to suffer a fatal heart attack in Sankt Petersburg in 2010 during a tour of fake music and some awful dancing.
A few amusing factoids.
Bobby, though lip-syncing the male vocals during concerts, was not allowed in the studio by Farian. Instead, to get the American sounding English on Rasputin, Frank found an American serviceman with a musical ability.
When they became the first foreign mega act to visit the USSR in December, 1978, the tickets were impossible to buy. Literally. They were not put up for sale via the usual distribution channels and instead were given to the Party faithful. The band members were unpleasantly surprised when they realized that the concert attendees were not allowed to get up off their seats and move. That was verboten by the superiors, and was the case of other Soviet pop-rock shows. Boney M was used to performing in clubs, where dancing by the audience members was expected.
Andrei Makarevich, the lead singer/songwriter of the (officially banned until perestroika) Soviet rock band Time Machine was given a regular ass chewing by the Ministry of Culture for his "decadent style", when he asked an official to score him some tickets to the Boney M concerts "in order to familiarize himself with the decadent styles and thus avoid reproducing it in the future". Surprisingly, the party poobah agreed.
The group received no income from the Moscow shows but, in exchange, the Soviets agreed to film their appearances on Moscow streets, with those appearances making it into a string of promotional videos. The Soviets kept the copy for themselves until it was destroyed on a decree from Yuri Andropov.
