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Behind the Music | |
---|---|
Also known as | VH1's Behind the Music |
Created by | Jeff Gaspin Gay Rosenthal |
Narrated by | Jim Forbes |
Country of origin | United States |
No. of seasons | 17 |
No. of episodes | 259 |
Production | |
Executive producers | Gay Rosenthal Jeff Gaspin George Moll |
Running time | 60–90 minutes |
Production companies | Gay Rosenthal Productions VH1 Paramount Television (select episodes) Paramount International Networks |
Original release | |
Network | VH1 |
Release | August 17, 1997 – July 16, 2014 |
Network | Paramount+ |
Release | July 29, 2021 – present |
Related | |
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Behind the Music is an American documentary television series that initially aired on VH1 from 1997 to 2014 and has streamed on Paramount+ since July 2021. Each episode profiles and interviews a popular musical artist or group, examining career beginnings, roads to success and any resultant hardships.
Each show focuses on a musician or musical group, documenting both the successes of the musicians and the problems they faced during their careers. Except for the first two episodes (which focused on Milli Vanilli and M.C. Hammer), all programs are narrated by Jim Forbes. Forbes was later used to narrate the Milli Vanilli episode when it was modified to include the death of Rob Pilatus. The UK airings of the episodes focusing on Thin Lizzy, Aerosmith and Genesis were narrated by Mary Anne Hobbs while Forbes narrated the US airings.
VH1's criterion for choosing the musicians who appear on the show is, in many cases, to profile those who are no longer in the music industry, or were moderately significant in rock history (although many are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame such as Neil Diamond, The Police, Metallica, AC/DC, Aerosmith among others). This is different to VH1's other biography show, VH1's Legends , which profiles musicians who were very significant to the industry. Some artists were profiled on Behind The Music and Legends, including Tina Turner, Elton John, Keith Moon, and John Lennon (Behind The Music exclusively focused on the months before his 1980 murder).
While being interviewed by Rolling Stone in October 2000, co-creator and executive producer Gay Rosenthal explained "Jeff Gaspin, who's the executive vice president of VH1, and I were at lunch, and we said, 'Whatever happened to Milli Vanilli?' I said, 'I don't know, but why don't you let me take the ball and run with it, and let me see what I can find out?' Milli Vanilli was hard. Nobody knew where they were. I had to be a private eye. I got a list of addresses where Fabrice had lived and sent letters to every address. Two weeks later, I got a call from Fabrice's manager. And then I spent a good two months with them – having dinner, having them at my house – before they agreed to do it. They didn't know if they wanted to relive the story, but I said, 'Listen, no one has heard your story from you. This will be a great opportunity to set the record straight.'" [1] "When we saw it in the edit room, we thought we had something special. The stories were working, and the series was green-lit." Rosenthal later stated in an August 1999 interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer. [2]
Another episode of Behind the Music on KISS was re-christened KISS: Beyond the Makeup in July 2001 (which was two hours in length). This featured Matt Pinfield, formerly of MTV's 120 Minutes , as narrator instead of Jim Forbes.
In June, 2000, VH1 aired the BBC produced Behind the Music like program on Pink Floyd entitled Behind The Wall which coincided with the release of Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81 and focused on the making of The Wall , concerts that went with it and Pink Floyd The Wall film and had interviews with the band members and it featured no narration.
A short-lived half-hour spin-off series titled BTM2 (short for Behind the Music 2), chronicled the careers of newer upcoming artists.
The spin-off Behind the Music: Remastered that aired on VH1 Classic updates the original version of the Behind the Music episodes with new interviews, footage, and the later half of the artist's career. The series also included two original episodes on Motörhead and Deep Purple.
In September 2020, a spin-off known as MTV's Behind the Music: The Top 40 was announced for Paramount+, which was to feature a countdown of the 40 "biggest artists of all-time". [3] In March 2021, it was revealed via a promo aired during the Grammy Awards that the spin-off would instead be positioned as a full reboot of Behind the Music, seven years after the last episode had aired on July 16, 2014. [4] In May 2021, it was announced that the revival would premiere on July 29, 2021, with two episodes. Similar to the original series and Behind the Music: Remastered, it includes both new episodes and updated versions of past ones. [5]
The following is a list of artists who have appeared in episodes of the series:
Other than musicians, some episodes were documentaries on musical events, films, and non-musicians who were influential on the music world. The following appeared in episodes of the series:
Behind the Music was nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards including the Outstanding Non-Fiction Series category for four constitutive years (2000-2003).
In 1999, the series won an ALMA Award for Outstanding Made-for-Television Documentary for the episode featuring Selena and in 2001, Behind the Music won a TV Guide Award for Music Series of the Year.
Behind the Music episodes received multiple nominations including a GLAAD Media Award nomination for Outstanding Film (Documentary) in 1998 for the episode featuring Boy George as well as multiple Image Awards for episodes featuring Tina Turner and Bob Marley. [7]
The following is a list of artists who have appeared in VH1 TV programs similar in format to Behind the Music but are not officially part of the series:
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Milli Vanilli was a German R&B music act from Munich. The act was packaged by Boney M. founder Frank Farian in 1988 and consisted of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus as the lip-syncing performers, with the two actual main studio singers, Brad Howell and John Davis, and studio singers Charles Shaw, Jodie Rocco and Linda Rocco, with an unrelated touring band. Their debut album, as All or Nothing in Europe, and expanded, including "Baby Don't Forget My Number" and "Blame It on the Rain", composed by Diane Warren, as Girl You Know It's True in the United States, achieved international success and brought them a Grammy Award for Best New Artist on 21 February 1990, which was later taken away.
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Fabrice Maxime Sylvain Morvan is a French singer, dancer, and model who was half of the pop duo Milli Vanilli, along with Rob Pilatus. It was later revealed that the two had not actually sung on any of their recordings. After the scandal, the group reformed as Rob & Fab in the 1990s, with limited success. Morvan had a solo comeback in the 2000s, releasing the album Love Revolution in 2003.
Franz Reuther, known professionally as Frank Farian, was a German record producer and singer who founded the 1970s disco-pop group Boney M., the Latin pop band No Mercy, and the pop band Milli Vanilli. He frequently created vocal groups in which the publicised members merely lip-synced to songs sung by session members. Farian owned the record label MCI and several subsidiaries. Over the course of his career, Farian sold over 850 million records and earned 800 gold and platinum certifications.
Lip sync or lip synch, short for lip synchronization, is a technical term for matching a speaking or singing person's lip movements with sung or spoken vocals.
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"Bedrock Anthem" is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic, which was featured on his 1993 album Alapalooza. It is a parody of "Under the Bridge" and "Give It Away", both by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and features the same funk rock musical style. The song also appears on the soundtrack album for the 1994 live-action movie version of The Flintstones, with a portion of the song played during the end credits.
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"Girl You Know It's True" is a song by Maryland-based group Numarx, later made internationally famed by German dance-pop group Milli Vanilli. Released as the lead single from MV's European debut album, All or Nothing (1988), and the duo's American debut album, Girl You Know It's True (1989), the song peaked at number one on the German Singles Chart, number two in the United States and number three in the United Kingdom, becoming one of Milli Vanilli's most successful singles.
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