A "band" from Orange County, California, that takes Refuge in Audacity in order to sing songs about sex, drugs, money, and partying with many a Precision F-Strike and an occasional Cluster F-Bomb.
They're also attractive girls.
One day in 2007, scene girls Melissa Marie Green, Allison Green, and Dani "Gore" Artaud booted up their Macs (presumably with the intention of uploading pictures they took of themselves in the mirror with their cellphones onto their Myspace accounts) and decided to screw around a bit with Garage Band. With their current audience in mind, they wrote a deliberately obnoxious song parodying stereotypical Gold Digger cam whores, known as "I Like Money," and then released it as a single. As expected, many detractors arose, but they also found that an unexpectedly large number of listeners actually liked it. So they said why not, named themselves "Millionaires" after the attitude espoused in their "hit" single, and began writing more of such songs.
Soon, the girls gained more haters and more fans. The filthy nature of their lyrics, purposefully-whiny tones of voice, and aggressive sounds of their synthesized instrumentals made the group infamous and prone to being mentioned in many statements by people about their opinions of the worst music ever, much like Brokencyde. However, there is No Such Thing as Bad Publicity, as this venting made a lot more people aware of their existence, including a fair amount who became fans—and their existing fans, it seems, Didn't Give a Fuck.
After writing enough songs and gaining enough fans to make a viable career, they were even able to begin concert tours—most notably, they became regulars in the Vans Warped Tour, along with many other groups largely despised outside of their core demographic. At the height of the genre's success, they were often considered a Crunkcore group, although some consider that label somewhat inaccurate. (They classify themselves as Electronica.) MTV also took an interest in them, and they worked on a number of the Network's projects, including writing and performing the theme of Teen Cribs.
In 2009, Dani Gore left the band to pursue a career in Indiepop (the band, Mr. Downstairs, was quite good
). It didn't last long but presently Dani performs under her new gimmick and stage persona, Snowblood.
Melissa and Allison kept going strong, having gone from obscurity to quite a great deal of success with their audacious approach to music. They now hold their own tours around the United States, occasionally to England, and with fandom in other countries lobbying to get them to visit. Their first feature-length album Tonight was released in 2013. Since then Millionaires released new music sporadically. Presently Melissa has also started her own work as a solo artist. Millionaires itself is more the side project that could become active whenever Melissa and Allison decide to do something together.
In whatever next form they decide to take it's as they said in their debut song, "Millionaires are here to stay." And if you wanna hate, you'll be referred to their Catchphrase entry.
Full discography:
- 2008 - Bling Bling Bling (EP)
- 2009 - Just Got Paid; Let's Get Laid (EP)
- 2010 - Cash Only (EP)
- 2012 - Your Girl Does Party (Mixtape)
- 2013 - Tonight (Studio Album)
Tropes:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: "Gangstar" plays with this with them singing how they'd rather have a criminal gangsta boyfriend than a rock star. Based on their real life dating history this one veers far from Truth in Television though.
- Ambiguously Bi: While most of the Millionaires songs are highly straight-oriented they did do a song that became the theme for a bisexual dating show with "Take A Shot". That being said one of their videos also had a threeway kiss between the girls and the live choreography for "I Like Money" pretty much always included a part where Melissa humped Dani while Allison put Dani's face between her legs.
- Asian Airhead: At least to hear their stage personas. Apparently they were actually good students, particularly in Math. There are two types of this trope, which you can see on its page. Needless to say, the Green girls are definitely the first type.
- Bad Girl Song: Several songs play this up.
- "Boss Bitch" is about being in charge and how they DGAF.
- "Getaway" is about going off on a girls trip where if you kiss someone else their boyfriends will never ever know.
- "Rated X-Mas" starts off by revealing they were already on the Naughty List.
- "My Chick Bad" literally explains that the chick is bad.
- Band of Relatives: The original three girl version was Type A but became Type B when it was just Melissa and Allison.
- Catchphrase: DGAF (Don't give a fuck)
- Melissa in more recent years has turned "remind me again who taught you how to sell alcohol" into one.
- Catholic School Girls Rule: Ironically for a band that is all about sex and alcohol this trope is heavily averted to the point it's not well known that Melissa, Allison and Dani all actually went to Catholic school.
- Christmas Songs: They made one called "Rated X-Mas" which is about hooking up with Santa Claus to be his ho ho ho.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Along with almost every other obscenity. Most notably, in "Talk Shit."
- Double Entendre: "I wanna touch your microphone" is about as subtle as they ever get.
- '80s Hair: Melissa had it in spades with a gigantic sized scene hair often topped off with a giant bow.
- Genki Girl: The Millionaires are in your face party girls ready to live life to the max.
- Gold Digger: While a lot of their songs imply they are already Rich Bitches, "Hey Rich Boy" is an attempt to get a rich boy's attention.
- Intercourse with You: Probably the single biggest topic of their lyrics.
- Lighter and Softer: Believe it or not they did have a couple tamer songs. Originally "Martinis and Mixed Feelings" was considered the softer song but later songs like "The One" and "Stay the Night" are lighter still.
- Mock Millionaire: Essentially a major part of their gimmick. A lot of their songs are money based and the music video for "Stay the Night" and the cover of "Bling Bling Bling" play this up. In real life they were pretty much upper middle class to the point they attended Catholic school but Melissa and Allison's mother had to dip into savings to afford to get all three girls on an overnight flight to New York.
- Money Fetish: Their name itself and several songs such as "I Like Money" and "Hey Rich Boy" show off that these girls love getting lots of money to use as they see fit.
- Money Song: In fact, their first song ever was called "I like Money". There's also "Just Got Paid, let's Get Laid" and the Gold Digger song "Hey Rich Boy".
- Ms. Fanservice: The girls have played this up throughout their career though despite their very sexual lyrics the girls perform in outfits that weren't really that revealing compared to other singers at the same time. Melissa specifically started out being a bit more self conscious as people body shamed her. Though after losing some weight the present day Melissa plays this straight.
- Ode to Intoxication: "Alcohol". Many other songs mention it, too. "Drinks On Me" is practically an Ode to multiple ways to get intoxicated.
- Rich Bitch: Played up in several songs including the music videos for "Just Got Paid, Let's Get Laid" where they throw around plenty of money and "Stay the Night" where they have multiple butlers to throw out the failed suitors.
- Spelling Song: "Alcohol"'s main chorus features the spelling out of the word Alcohol which has been meme worthy for Melissa to ask fans who taught them how to spell "A-L-C-O-H-O-L"?
- Take That!: "Talk Shit" is a very deliberate diss track designed at their haters.
- Parts of "Just God Paid, Let's Get Laid" also have some clapbacks at their haters. The music video even has a parody of Audrey Kitching who they had a Myspace feud with and was no fan of the Millionaires.
- In the music video of "Stay the Night" the girls reject a guy who showed up in a Kesha shirt.
- Technician Versus Performer: The Millionaires are probably one of the examples where the divide is so thick it could bludgeon someone to death. On a technical view their singing vocals have never been that great (Dani would be considered the best on a technical level) but its clear they have a lot passion they are ridiculously addicting performers. All three girls also had long taken ballet as kids which further helped their stage presence. When playing sets around more reserved bands and more technical bands, the Millionaires stuck out like a sore thumb as they bounced around the stage like they owned it having the time of their lives. Crowds that specifically come to see them are usually very receptive and dance along. On the flip side the Millionaires have also been a long time target of places both in real life and online where people are more inclined to think technical skills are the most important thing. These places contained people who have acted with outright hostility to them and an inability to understand how anyone could act otherwise.
- Truth in Television: Played with, very much in the Paris Hilton vein. The Millionaires stage persona is a mix of their real personalities but with other aspects deliberately exaggerated for clowning and parody purposes. There's little doubt the love of alcohol, party dancing and the DGAF attitude were the real girls.
- Valley Girl: Their lyrics are virtually always materialistic, and they even sing with a bit of a valley girl accent.
