We have been lied to for more than 30 years and it’s a shame! Plastic Bertrand, the Belgian pop star who is known for ‘Ça Plane pour Moi’, or in English ‘Everything is cool with me’ just admitted he did not sing the song nor any of the songs on his first four albums! It turns out Plastic Bertrand whose real name is Roger Jouret, was lip-syncing all the songs, Milli Vanilli Belgian style
He declared to a Belgian newspaper: ‘I don’t mind saying it was not my voice, I’m the victim. I wanted to sing, but he would not let me access the studio, he asked me to keep my mouth shut in exchange for 0.5 percent of the rights, and promised he would make a new version with my voice, which of course he never did,”
‘He’ is Lou Deprijk or De Prick (I have seen two different spellings), the composer, producer and real singer of all Bertrand’s supposed songs.
It’s a long story which started 4 years ago when Lou Deprijck released his own 2006 version of the single while pretending he was the original voice, but the court in 2006 ruled that Bertrand was the ‘legal performer’ of the classic track.
Yesterday, a panel of experts who studied the case and compared the original voice on the 1977 single to the 2006 version, concluded both vocals belonged to De Pryck, since the two men have apparently distinct accents.
Then Plastic Bertrand was forced to admit it, playing the victim, and saying he was banned from the studio just to save his ass! He even said he would sue Lou Deprijk again! Meanwhile Deprijk’s lawyer said it was time Bertrand stopped pretending otherwise and Deprijk said he ‘made’ Bertrand, even choosing his moniker.
‘Ça Plane pour Moi’ was a worldwide hit, which is rare for a song sung in French, sold 8 million singles and was covered many, many times, by Sonic Youth, Richard Thompson, among many others, even Vampire weekend did their own version!
So why was Plastic Bertrand chosen to lip-synch the songs? Certainly because of his look, younger and more punkish than mustached Deprijk. For 30 years he shut up and got the money, but now that he is forced to recognize he was a fraud, he says he was a victim!
Both men were essential to the success of the song, the look and the voice, but to say the truth, it was an open secret in Belgium: