Remember the time we talked about Frank Farian, the practice of having performers lip-sync songs, and the backlash this brought about? Well, just around the time Milli Vanilli got caught when their tape skipped at a concert it happened that another band of their label (Ariola Munich) called Snap! produced a video of their 1990ies hit “The Power”. The two German producers had gone to an American army base to find themselves an American rapper, but for the melody, they had flown in Penny Ford, who at the time was Chaka Khan’s vocal director and main backup singer. However, when it came to the video, instead of looking for Ford (who was working with Mick Jagger by then) they went back to the army base and found themselves another nice face, Jackie Harris, to mime the vocal track. Which did not sit well at all with Ford, who made sure to become the proper legitimate face of Snap!.
The relationship didn’t last long though, as the chemistry between Ford and rapper Turbo B. didn’t work out, and when Snap! asked her two years later to do the vocals on “Rhythm Is A Dancer” she couldn’t do it, as she had signed up with Sony and Ariola belonged to BMG. She was allowed to write for them though, and for the actual singing part, she found them Thea Austen as a replacement. Who performed in the video, too. Pinky swear.
Austen left the band shortly after the song was recorded, to be replaced by Madonna’s backup singer Niki Haris. It was way more complicated to keep track of which group consisted of which musicians with Eurodance than back with the good old Rock bands. But then again, nobody really cared.
“I’m as serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer” certainly must be a strong contender for the worst line in pop history.