The Grandmaster Melle Mel mystery solved! - Deux Flics à Miami - L'encyclopédie francophone sur la série Miami Vice

The Grandmaster Melle Mel mystery solved!

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By publishing this article, DeuxFlicsAMiami.fr team is completely conscious that she is going to end one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the Miami Vice series. One of those which created the legends... We are going to answer. We are going to answer a question that fans ask themselves, for some, since 1985...

What are they talking about, will you perhaps ask yourself ? Well… We simply solved the mystery of the presence of the track "Vice" by the American rapper Grandmaster Melle Mel, in the very first compilation dedicated to the series which proposed a selection of the biggest tubes heard during the episodes of the seasons 1 and 2... Some fans, who are searching for an explanation for several decades, now, will probably have difficulty in believing in it, but nevertheless, it is the truth!

Let us remind the context. 1985, because of the increasing success Miami Vice series, producers decided to surf on the phenomenon by releasing a compilation of tracks from the series’ soundtrack. 11 tracks were chosen among Jan Hammer’s compositions for the show, and among tracks composed by guests and heard here and there during the first two seasons. Among these tracks was this famous "Vice" by Melle Mel.

We have no idea of the reaction of the fans to the presence of this track in this compilation, at the time of its release, or moreover if the fans (always at period) have ever known the reason of its presence in this compilation... The fact remains that this famous reason did not reach until the era of internet, and got lost meanwhile in the lymbes of the forgetting... Same the very serious Miami Vice Wikia doesn’t know why... And we can say it to you, was needed a good dose of luck, and a good hearing, to find this damned reason! Well! Let us pass in the serious things!

The track called "Vice" was really used in an episode of the series. To be precise in the season 2’s episode, Whatever works, between Sharp Dressed Man by ZZ Top, and Get It On (Bang A Gong) by The Power Station. The scene is situated near the 25th minute of the episode. The track of Melle Mel is played in the nightclub in which Crockett and Tubbs come to get information... But covered by background noises and dialogues, the music is almost inaudible. Especially as we hear it only a few seconds: the scene end quickly and the group The Power Station begins singing on a stage... Nevertheless the track is really recognizable, especially when we know what and when to listen to!

Here is thus the reason why this track “had the right” to appear in this compilation. Then, its presence is so small in the series that we could wonder why it was taken for this compilation rather than an other which would have really marked the fans... A question to which we won’t answer yet, and which will perhaps still be ask in 30 years...

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