Just watched a well done documentary you may have seen 20 Feet From Stardom about background singers. One of the legends, Darlene Love, tells the story of cutting a record back in the 1960's and a while later hearing it released under someone else's name, then seeing them lip sync it. Seems clear the practice was in the industry well before MV.
Yep... I love 20 feet from Stardom and earlier I posted about it.
My one problem with the doc was it down played what US guys did and up plays what the German guy did. The Doc had a clear agenda to make him out to be the demon. I think for the US music guys to be involved it had to be that way,
Only 2 guys really come clean saying they knew about it. The rest play dumb.
But with every Doc--there are always a few things to remember
1) Everyone has an agenda
2) Everyone will lie to a point about just what they knew or did
3) Look who financed any Doc--that will give you an idea about 1
4) Many times people will try to rewrite history. A few year ago I worked on a Doc about the moody blues and all members were involved with it. But about 6 months into the project the moodies (or their people) revoked all participation in the doc and we were no longer allowed to use their music. So they killed the doc (but the guys making the doc lost no money after an agreement was made to reimburse them for most of their expenses. What happened? We talked to Mike Pinder and Pat Moraz and the moodies have gone to great lengths to prevent anything official being released where they comment on their time in the moodies and why they were fired.