I posted here last month about Belgium’s most famous one hit wonder, Plastic Bertrand, he of Ça plane pour moi fame. and now he’s back in the news, being accused of, well, being a punk equivalent to Milli Vanilli! From the Guardian:

If evidence given to a Belgian court this week is to be believed, the man recognised as the voice behind Euro-punk’s anthem had built his acclaim on shaky ground: he did not actually sing the song.

According to a linguistician commissioned by a Belgian judge to examine the original recording of Ça Plane Pour Moi and compare it with a version released in 2006 by Bertrand’s former producer, the singer of the 1977 track spoke with a distinctive twang that would not have come naturally to the Brussels-born front-man. “With the endings of sentences on the tapes the voice can only belong to a Ch’ti or a Picard,” read the judgment, implying the true singer must have originated from north-eastern France, an area which produced both the Picard dialect and the affectionately mocked Ch’ti patois.

It is also the area that produced Lou Deprijck, the track’s composer and producer, who believes he has been vindicated in his claim to be the true performer of the big-selling single. “My Ch’ti patois has proved me right. I am relieved,” he was quoted as saying in Le Parisien newspaper. “I hope I will finally get my rights.” Deprijck, who for the past decade has been pursuing his music career in Thailand, has insisted for years that he was the real singer on Ça Plane Pour Moi, the hit that made it to No. 8 in the UK single’s charts despite being performed in largely unintelligible French.

Roger Jouret – the man behind the Plastic Bertrand persona – vehemently denies the claims.

Read the entire article: Belgian singer Plastic Bertrand denies allegations over hit song (Guardian)

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Plastic Bertrand vs Elton Motello: Jet Boy, Jet Girl vs Ça plane pour moi

Thank you Chris Campion of Berlin, Germany!