Discredited Milli Vanilli Still on 1990 Grammy Ballot

And the winner of the 1990 Grammy is . . . Milli Vanilli?

That Grammy nightmare could become reality--sort of--when the music industry awards are handed out in New York on Feb. 20. Though the lip-sync duo was stripped of it’s best new artist Grammy from last year, Milli Vanilli appears in four categories on the first-round ballot that went out this week to the 6,000 voting members of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. The duo is listed for album of the year, record of the year, pop performance by group or duo and song of the year.

The ballots, which will be used to select actual nominees for the 1990 Grammy awards, were printed and readied for mailing before the lip-syncing story broke.

Academy president Michael Greene said Friday that votes in the first three categories would not be counted.

“The same factors that rendered them ineligible for the award last year renders them ineligible this year,” Greene said.

But Milli Vanilli’s “Blame It on the Rain” is making it into the song of the year category. Though the song category honors the writers--in this case pop songsmith Dianne Warren--and not the performers, it could be a huge embarrassment to the academy to even tangentially honor former Milli frontmen Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan.

But Greene said that as far as he knows there is no reason to remove the group’s work from the song category, though the matter will be decided officially at a meeting of the academy’s awards and nominations committee on Monday.

Greene said that no letter will be sent to Grammy voters to make them aware of the ineligibility but that a reminder of it might be included in regular communications concerning the voting updates.

But the pair themselves find the appearance on the ballot “amusing,” according to their manager, Carsten Heyn.

“We appreciate the mention on the ballot,” Heyn said, after speaking to Pilatus and Morvan, who are trying to launch a singing career of their own. “And we hope that Robby and Fabrice will win a real Grammy in the future in order to give back to the fans what they deserve.”