YMMV / Boney M.

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• Americans Hate Tingle: A prominent example, as America was the one country they could never break through in. "Rivers of Babylon" was their only Top 40 American hit, peaking at #30, with "Daddy Cool" (#65), "Ma Baker" (#96) and "Mary's Boy Child" (#85) as their only other singles to even make the American chart ("Mary's Boy Child" still gets a few spins in America around the holidays).
• Covered Up:
  • While the original version of "Rivers of Babylon" by The Melodians is still considered a Reggae classic, the Boney M. version was a huge hit and is much more famous.
  • Their version of "Painter Man" is much better-known than the original by The Creation.
  • Their version of "Mary's Boy Child" is more well-known to modern listeners than Harry Belafonte 1956 version, the earliest recorded version.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Bobby Farrell died on December 30, 2010 in Saint Petersburg... the same date and city as Grigori Rasputin in 1916, the subject of one of the band's greatest hits, oddly and eerily enough.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • "Ma Baker" from Love for Sale: Ma Baker is a dangerous bank robber who carves a crime spree across America. Teaching her four sons to be her skilled accomplices, Ma Baker would rip off countless banks and kill anyone who tried to stand in her way or inform on her, rising to such infamy that she becomes the FBI's most wanted woman. When eventually cornered at her latest heist, Ma Baker refuses to go to prison, and goes down in a gunfighting blaze of glory.
  • "Rasputin" from Nightflight to Venus: Rasputin is "Russia's greatest love machine", a devilishly seductive charmer who woos women and gains political status with ease. A master orator who sets his sights on power, Rasputin has women fall for him endlessly and he becomes so renowned as to gain the Queen's favor and possibly even sleep with her. After becoming regarded as more important than even the Czar himself, Rasputin is targeted by enemies who try to secretly poison him, however the audacious Rasputin drinks every last drop and shrugs it off, forcing his foes to shoot him many times before he properly dies, leaving behind a legacy of terror, charm and lovelorn ladies.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Rasputin" is an especially popular song on the internet, that it led to a viral animated video on YouTube about Russia's president Vladimir Putin, which garnered more than 100 million views prior to the original video being taken down.
  • Clips of showing the group's female members singing and sticking to their choreography while Bobby Farrell whirls around the stage became very popular on social media, accompanied by captions along the lines of: "What happens when your mother forces you to include your brother".
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: "Rasputin" was hugely popular in the Soviet Union in spite of being banned by the authorities at the time.
• Signature Song: "Rivers of Babylon" was their biggest hit, but "Daddy Cool" and "Rasputin" are equally well-known.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Rasputin" and "Nightflight to Venus" both borrowed the rapidly-accelerating drum intro from Cozy Powell's 1974 Instrumental hit "Dance with the Devil".

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