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Frank Farian albums
Frank Farian singles
Productions, co-production, executive production
Compositions
Frank Farian biographyChairman of FMP, Frank Farian has produced some tracks for many successful projects such as La Bouche, Milli Vanilli, No Mercy, Boney M, Eruption, and artists such as Lori Glori... Frank Farian's father made briefcases, out of real leather. His mother played piano and sang in the church choir. Farian grew up near Saarbrücken on the German-French border, near the U.S. military bases that would change his life. Frank Farian never bought Beatles records. "I wasn't a Beatles fan," he said. He was a soul man : give him Sam Cooke, Little Richard, Otis Redding. Farian imitated the sounds of black American music and began singing in the local clubs that targeted the homesick U.S. soldiers. He got good enough to do decent covers of the latest soul hits. The soldiers liked his singing; the clubs brought him back. Farian launched his career in the pop industry as the singer in his own group, "Frankie Farian and the Shadows", releasing covers of black artists such as the Drifters and Otis Redding. But Frankie Farian and the Shadows never made it big. "No one wanted my music," he recalls. "It was better from America. A white singer singing black music wouldn't work. The record companies sent me back to German music". Then, as now, German pop was a lilting barrage of bright sounds designed to elicit the rhythmic clapping that brings gleeful smiles to German audiences. It's oom-pah music gone high tech. Even the love songs sound martial. Farian was miserable. By 1971 he had begun working as a producer, eventually hitting it big with the disco-Europop group Boney M, which was massively successful in Europehad and had a string of hits between 1976 and 1985 with songs such as Rasputin, Sunny, Daddy Cool, Gotta Go Home, Brown Girl in the Ring... His formula was pingy synthesizer rhythms, mind-numbing beats and simple, catchy melodies, often adapted from children's songs. Boney M record albums pictured four black performers, mostly former U.S. service members who stayed on in Germany to make a living in music. But Boney M was Frank Farian, finally getting to record the black music that got him into the business. On the albums, he was mentioned only as a back-up singer, and sometimes he wasn't mentioned as a singer at all. "Boney M was the most perfect mix of black and white music, but in America, music still had to be black or white," Farian says. "The real crossover didn't come until the late '70s, early '80s." Farian was selling millions of records and became one of the world's most valued producers. Other claims to fame Farian cites include recording Stevie Wonder's I Just Called to Say I Love You at his studio in 1984, and work with Meat Loaf and the group Toto. Then, in 1988, came Milli Vanilli, another successful project featuring 2 handsome guys that were not the real singers. When the truth was discovered, it gave birth to a big scandal... Another project of the 80s was called La Mama In 1994 he released another track Rikki Don't Lose That Number, and went back to other groups' production : this is how he started the mega-eurodance project La Bouche, then the boys-band No Mercy. He also worked with the vocalist Lori Glori. Frank Farian owns his own recording studios - FAR Studios, his own music production company - FAR Music Production GmbH, his own publishing house for songs - FMP Songs, and his own record label - MCI that is distributed by BMG Ariola in Germnay & the rest of the world. However before he opened all these companies for business he used other recording studios, and released on the Hansa label. His first songs were copyrighted to FAR Musikverlag, his first company, before he created FMP Songs. He recently wrote a book againt the producer Dieter Bohlen : Stupid Dieser Bohlen (Die Wahrheit und nichts als die Wahrheit über den Pop-Hochstapler). 2005 : Frank Farian produces the pop project Gift, in collaboration with Ulli
Brenner.
The project features 4 girls and had some success with their first single Yummy
Yummy. Frank Farian's resource
The biography was last updated Sun, June 14th 2009 Did you like this article ? Tell your friends
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DISCLAIMER : unless you see the artist's name among the credits of this biography, it was only created by gathering infos from the web and from fan sources. Sorry if, even if I did all verifications I could, some parts of the biography are false or lack accuracy. If you are the artist himself or contributed to the project, please wait till I come back from holidays.
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