"Den Harrow - Future Brain" - Another music video, but this one with a Milli Vanilli twist:
"Den Harrow" was an Italian
new wave project fronted by
Stefano Zandri (born June 4, 1962 in
Nova Milanese,
Italy) a fashion model from
Milan,
Italy. The name Den Harrow was conceived by the project's producers Turatti and Chieregato, who based it on the Italian word
denaro (money).[SUP][/SUP][SUP][/SUP] Stefano Zandri, however, uses the name Den Harrow as his stage name.
After years of fame and popularity, it was revealed by front-man Stefano Zandri and his producers that Zandri did not actually sing the Den Harrow songs; he was essentially a character who lip-synched to vocals recorded by a number of other singers. Furthermore, since they did not consider Zandri's name and origin to be "trendy" enough, the producers R. Turatti and M. Chieregato concealed Zandri's Italian origin, marketing him as having been born Manuel Stefano Carry in
Boston,
Massachusetts. This was done so
Polydor Records could market him more easily in the English-speaking world, where Italian-produced music was, at the time, viewed with skepticism.[SUP][/SUP]
American vocalist
Tom Hooker, a.k.a. Thomas Barbey, who was residing in
Italy during the
Italo-Disco era, sang most of the songs for the Den Harrow project,[SUP][/SUP] including the 1985–1986 European hit singles "Don't Break My Heart", "Bad Boy", "Catch the Fox", and "Future Brain". Another vocalist, Anthony James from England, was contracted to sing the lead vocals on the
Lies album (1988), and also provided the lead vocals on songs like "Holiday Night", "My Time", "You have a way". During an interview, Tom Hooker explains why it was decided to be done this way:
| There was a small problem, however. He couldn't sing. So the solution was to never let him sing, or to put his voice so low in the mix that it was non existent. He started as an image. He would work on his costumes and clothes and someone else would sing on the records. The truth is, vision is a more developed sense in humans than hearing. People tend to buy and listen what they like to see.[SUP]"[/SUP]
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