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The KLF - 23 years on |
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#1 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 949
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The KLF - 23 years on
Today it is apparently exactly 23 years since the KLF's rather memorable performance at the Brits alongside Extreme Noise Terror. Strangely all record of this occasion seems to have been wiped from Youtube, but I'm sure those of us over a certain age will be able to recall the "what the f***" reaction that everyone watching had. What the Brits organisers were thinking allowing a group who were essentially berating the pop industry's narrow idea of what represented musical acceptability to open the show was a truly magical moment, although I wish The KLF had gone through with their original plan and chucked dead sheep guts at the audience as well.
The performance of course ended with the announcement that "The KLF have now left the music business" although they didn't officially call it a day until the start of May 1992. So given that this is the 23rd anniversary of their departure has anyone seen any signs??? |
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#2 |
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 443
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What seems astonishing about them is that, despite their huge success in 1990-1992, the deletion of their back catalogue means that ask almost anyone under the age of 25 and they'll have no idea who the hell you're talking about. They've gone from the biggest-selling group in the entire country to a fun bit of nostalgia for people in their 30s-40s, their songs very very rarely played today and not available outside of youtube.
I'm 26 and only know them because I heard '3AM Eternal' on VH1 when I was fifteen and thought it was one of the best things I'd ever heard. Even forgetting the whole idea of attempting to 'prank' the music business, the singles they released were bloody brilliant and huge classics of their time. It's astonishing how little they're mentioned or played today and I've already written before how a semi-biographical movie should be made of their career - half of it would be Hollywoodised tosh but it would get their music back in the public eye at least. |
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#3 |
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Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 230
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Try the Dailymotion for the Brits clip.
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#4 |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 1,230
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The whole thing with the KLF... apart from that they made some pretty god darned fab music is you just would not get anything like them being popular in today's dull conformist music biz.
Ancients of Mu Mu all the way and all the better for it .
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#5 |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 4,087
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Quote:
I wish The KLF had gone through with their original plan and chucked dead sheep guts at the audience as well.
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#6 |
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Join Date: Nov 2006
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They would not play this one on the radio or TV again due to who song it samples. The Daily Mail would explode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdTELokKfCk |
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#7 |
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Join Date: Jul 2003
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Quote:
The whole thing with the KLF... apart from that they made some pretty god darned fab music is you just would not get anything like them being popular in today's dull conformist music biz.
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#8 |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 1,230
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I don't like to get too rose tinted about the past, it makes me feel a little old more than anything else! But yep the 80's were just felt like a magical time when anyone could do anything and it was all about being original. Or if you were going to sample someone at least do it in an original way. I still think there are wonderful artists in todays music scene but not as many.
Its probably highly ironic that one of the KLF piss takes was a book called The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manual Because its probably has become to template that every talent bypass corporate privates sucking act since has used since. It was almost like a prophecy of what was to come. |
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#9 |
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 8,641
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I remember a primary school friend of mine had there album and would get his Dad to play the cassette in his car. I remember reading that 'burnt a million quid' and deleted their entire back catalogue.
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#10 |
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 6,121
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How on earth did they get Tammy Wynette to do justified and ancient?
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#11 |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
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If ever a group deserved a film to be made of them.
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#12 |
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Join Date: Nov 2006
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Quote:
How on earth did they get Tammy Wynette to do justified and ancient?
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#13 |
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: derby
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Quote:
Offered her an Ice Cream.
Pmsl... ![]() I remember them on the brits and thought wtf! Bloody great! A very overlooked and underrated act. Original, innovative, influential one of our real treasures. |
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#14 |
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Join Date: Dec 2008
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there's a great mix on soundcloud called trancentral. just stick "klf soundcloud" into google and it should pop up as the first link. or type KLF into soundcloud search and it's about the fourth thing. some folk think it was uploaded by the KLF
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#15 |
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Join Date: Nov 2003
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It's depressing isn't it. Zero innovation now. The 80s must have been such an amazing period of music. I was too young to appreciate it all. I regret that.
From the mid-80s onwards the music industry became the music business and the accountants took over. They had little interest in music and were only interested in profit. The end result is what we have now, an endless stream of nice, rather bland, singer songwriters and boy/girl bands who generate rapid return and profit. If their profitability starts to fall they are instantly dropped and replaced. There are still plenty of very talented artists out there but their chances of achieving mainstream success diminishes by the day, unless they are very lucky. |
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#16 |
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Join Date: Jan 2014
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I didn't know Tammy Wynette was in Justified and Ancient. I didn't know what Mu mu land was, I didn't know they had so many different names etc..
Thanks for introducing all this to me. I'd love to hear the tardis song if anyone has it? |
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#17 |
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Join Date: Jul 2006
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Quote:
I didn't know Tammy Wynette was in Justified and Ancient. I didn't know what Mu mu land was, I didn't know they had so many different names etc..
Thanks for introducing all this to me. I'd love to hear the tardis song if anyone has it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adk1ujjmguo |
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#18 |
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Quote:
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#19 |
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Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 5,663
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Quote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5fDOCwa9L0 |
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#20 |
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,010
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Quote:
love that track! what a brilliant pop song... several (early) samples knitted together in one huge p take....
![]() Their last track America What Time Is Love . is not played much, for the Rock fans the singer is Glenn Hughes who was once the Bass player in Deep Purple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dGj9h8ggCc |
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#21 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 949
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Quote:
I didn't know Tammy Wynette was in Justified and Ancient. I didn't know what Mu mu land was, I didn't know they had so many different names etc..
Thanks for introducing all this to me. I'd love to hear the tardis song if anyone has it? A good overview of the KLF's music is contained in their first film The White Room - filmed in 1988 but never officially released. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG3A0jebU0A And the story behind the film is quite interesting (if true): http://www.piratecinema.org/the_klf/the_white_room.txt |
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#22 |
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 13,155
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Their "Stadium House Trilogy" remains amazing to this day. I was slightly too young to remember when they were in the charts but caught up later. I've hoped for a long time they'd come back after 23 years. It'd be fun! A one off performance, a 2015 remix of What Time Is Love and a greatest hits would be nice.
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#23 |
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Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 1,039
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They released the same songs in ingenious different forms. What Time is Love had a Pure Trance version, the stadium house big single, the America version and not forgetting used prominently in the 2K **** the millennium.
My favourite track of theirs by far was 'It's Grim Up North' released as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu and was comic but very dark and inspiring too. The gradual progression from the menacing hard techno merging into the pastoral Jerusalem is one of my favourite music moments ever. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HwtSdJaPCSI |
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#24 |
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Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Ireland
Posts: 6,740
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Quote:
I didn't know Tammy Wynette was in Justified and Ancient. I didn't know what Mu mu land was, I didn't know they had so many different names etc..
Thanks for introducing all this to me. I'd love to hear the tardis song if anyone has it? Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, which the KLF were big fans of. |
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#25 |
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Join Date: Jul 2008
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Quote:
My favourite track of theirs by far was 'It's Grim Up North'
One thing I always noticed is that considering it's a homage of sorts to the north of *England* (ending with "Jerusalem"- i.e. about the closest thing there is to a specifically English national anthem!)... it's ironic- or at least amusing!- that Bill Drummond's recitation of all these place names is in an accent which is still sounds quite significantly Scottish. ![]() Great stuff! (FWIW, Wikipedia claims that an early version apparently featured (Liverpool-born) Pete Wylie. Drummond himself apparently moved to Corby- i.e. England- when he was 11, but considering Corby used to be known as "Little Scotland" due to the number of Scottish migrants, that might explain why he kept his accent?). |
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