It all began as an unsolicited Fb message, which can have been the primary signal of foul play – and led to Wolfgang Flür, ex-member of Kraftwerk, believing that he was collaborating with Thomas Bangalter, previously one half of Daft Punk.
Somebody posing as Bangalter contacted Flür on Fb, complimented his music and requested for a signed copy of his album Journal 1. Flür fortunately obliged. He mentioned the individual instructed him, referring to Daft Punk: “With out Kraftwerk we’d not discover our personal robotic type, being on stage with the helmets”. Believing they had been Bangalter, Flür then requested the individual in the event that they wish to work on some tracks. The impersonator agreed and despatched over demos for the songs, which had been labored up right into a two new Flür tracks billed as that includes “Thomas Vangarde”, supposedly a brand new alias of Bangalter.
However after the discharge of the collaborations on the album Occasions, the moderator of Daft Punk’s Reddit web page mentioned Bangalter disavowed the recordings, and sources near Bangalter have additionally confirmed to the Guardian that he didn’t take part within the collaboration (Flür and his label have been approached for remark).
This isn’t the primary time Daft Punk have needed to distance themselves from a faux mission: in 2011 a Spanish newspaper reported that Daft Punk can be enjoying the Arenal Sound competition below a brand new alter ego, the Third Twin, earlier than the duo mentioned it was “utterly unfaithful”. And it’s not the primary time artists and audiences have been the victims of musical hoaxes.
Milli Vanilli
German R&B duo Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus, often known as Milli Vanilli, have presumably probably the most toe-curling revelation of fraudulent behaviour. They offered 7m data within the US, with worldwide gross sales reaching a reported 30m singles, and in 1990 they gained a Grammy for greatest new artist. However throughout a reside efficiency on MTV, at a theme park in Connecticut, their backing monitor malfunctioned inflicting the recording of their tune Lady You Know It’s True to skip: an indication that the pair had been truly lip-syncing. The deception started unravelling, and ultimately their svengali Frank Farian fired the duo and revealed the actual singers to be a workforce of session gamers. The pair protested they actually may sing, they simply hadn’t been allowed to by Farian – however their album was deleted by their label and their Grammy award rescinded.
The Zombies
English rock band the Zombies parted methods in 1967, however their US label launched the group’s Time of the Season single a 12 months later and it turned a US hit, reaching No 3. In an period with no web entry, it was exhausting for audiences to know a band’s whereabouts or what they even regarded like, which is how US excursions had been then efficiently booked by administration firm Delta Promotions, who handed off two different teams as the actual Zombies (one of many faux bands even contained two future members of ZZ High). Chris White from the actual Zombies complained the faux variations had been “taking cash from our followers and dragging down our popularity”, however in 2016, a member of one of many faux bands, Mark Ramsey, was unrepentant: “We had been a blues rock band from Texas, a band with loads of beauty, higher than the unique Zombies”.
Silibil N’ Brains
After failed auditions with label bosses in London who laughed them off as “the rapping Proclaimers”, early 00s Dundee rap duo Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd began scheming on methods they might make it huge: what in the event that they had been now not from Scotland? Faking their accents and reinventing themselves as California rap duo Silibil N’ Brains, they auditioned once more, secured a document cope with Sony Music and a assist slot with Eminem’s group D12, and stored up the ruse for 4 years. However Bain mentioned that sustaining the lie turned too tough, and Boyd determined to return to Dundee to work within the oil business. Their story, although, has endured, being instructed in 2013 documentary The Nice Hip Hop Hoax and once more as a forthcoming characteristic movie directed by James McAvoy entitled California Schemin’.
Classical music
A number of the largest and most egregious hoaxes have been perpetuated in classical music. Henri-Gustave Casadesus’s early Twentieth-century quintet turned well-known for premiering rediscovered works by lifeless composers together with the sons of Bach – however they had been truly written by Casadesus and his brothers. There’s additionally pianist Joyce Hatto, who rose to prominence within the Nineteen Fifties. Later, after she was identified with most cancers, her husband handed off different performers’ recordings as her personal on greater than 100 releases (Victoria Wooden tailored the story for the display as Loving Miss Hatto). There’s a whole Wikipedia web page for classical hoaxes, the truth is.
One of the crucial extraordinary examples is Japanese composer Mamoru Samuragochi, who claimed he was deaf however may play lovely melodies on the piano and write his personal compositions – his symphony honouring Hiroshima turned extensively acclaimed in Japan. However doubts started to floor in 2013 when, throughout an interview, Samuragochi responded to questions earlier than the sign-language interpreter had completed and he stood as much as reply a doorbell when it rang. All was revealed in 2014: Samuragochi’s compositions had been ghostwritten by musician and composer Takashi Niigaki, who additionally claimed Samuragochi was pretending to be deaf. Samuragochi admitted he had partially regained a few of his listening to, saying he was “deeply ashamed of dwelling a lie”.
Synthetic intelligence
Lots of the above hoaxes are unlikely to have occurred in an period of surveillance and globally disseminated data, however AI may result in a complete new catalogue of fraudulent music. Final 12 months it was revealed that at the least 30 notable steel bands, together with Whereas She Sleeps, Bury Tomorrow and Thy Artwork Is Homicide, had faux AI-generated music uploaded to their streaming service accounts with out their involvement. And in 2024, a person in North Carolina was charged with fraud after allegedly utilizing AI to create 1000’s of faux songs – with titles like Zygotic Washstands – by faux bands with relatively prog-metal names corresponding to Callous Submit or Calorie Screams, that had been then “listened to” by bots, to earn royalty funds from streaming companies to the tune of $10m.
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