Enjoying this thread - I got some of my Pure Trance 12" out the loft recently and was pleased to find them sounding fantastic If anyone is based near Maidenhead, UK there is an upcoming event on Sept 16 where The White Room will be played in full on a stupendously expensive hifi. The Vinyl Frontier: The White Room by KLF Home | Vinyl Frontier - Classic Albums and Chat
I GOTTA CD (October 1987) June Montana was the lead singer in Jimmy Cauty’s previous band Brilliant. Cressida Cauty was also a former bandmate, having been a member of Cauty’s previous previous band, Angels 1-5. Cressida, of course, is more notable as Jimmy’s wife, but additionally she served as press contact for the KLF and in general terms as a kind of manager and ‘host’ (given that the KLF’s studio was in fact the London squat in which the Cautys lived). Together, June and Cressida were very important to the KLF, especially in their early days as the JAMS. They provided vocals on a good number of JAMS tunes and, adopting the name Disco 2000, came to front the first of Jimmy’s and Bill’s side-projects. Disco 2000 was apparently a genuine attempt at mainstream fame and chart success (at which it failed miserably). They claim the template was Bananarama, though I don’t recall Bananarama ever being as raucous, shouty and devil-may-care as June and Cressida were. More importantly, though, they are a further step in the evolution of the KLF to legitimate makers of exciting and memorable music, especially in their first single, far and away the most sophisticated thing Bill and Jimmy had released to date. “I Gotta CD” came out on 12” and on a limited edition 7”. The twelve-inch (D 2000 and D 2000T) had the “full-length” version of the a-side with an extensive reworking called “I Love Disco 2000” serving as the b-side. The white label seven-inch (D 2001) had an “edit” of the original, shortened by three minutes, with a blank b-side. “I Gotta CD”: The 12” version is seven minutes long (and not a second wasted). It doesn’t have a version title, but then again the single has pretty much no information whatsoever. The white label of the seven-inch that someone uploaded to discogs.com, however, has a pen-scrawl indicating Cressida as the sole composer of this track. If this is the case, she’s quite gifted: this song features catchy melodies and hooks, a verse+bridge+chorus structure, and a winning amalgam of pop sensibility and dance hooks. The instrumentation is also much richer than previous tunes had been, featuring two different guitar lines: a clean, funky riff serving as a hook, and a significantly crunchier distorted lead line later on (somehow not seeming woefully out of place). Are these samples? Or are they both played by Jimmy? Both Bill and Jimmy had been guitarists in previous musical endeavours, and as “Rockman Rock” part of Jimmy’s schtick was a love of hard rock guitar. Outside of that, though, the electronic pallette is still rich, with prominent Funkmaster Farley-style piano lines (a house trademark that Jimmy and Bill would soon use much more frequently), a main marimba-styled synth lead, a much more club-minded beat, and some great cowbell accents. The song still bears Jimmy and Bill’s fingerprints, though, with a melody built out of a sneering human voice and Bill’s own voice calling out “drop the bomb”. Not only do Cressida’s lyrics call their JAMS-era pseudonyms out but they also, rather interestingly, identify the four of them as being “in the KLF” - a name that until that point had been used as a record label name but not as a group name. Cressida’s lyrics, sung-shouted in unison by her and June, are a stream-of-consciousness list of acronyms. It all adds up to a song that is much more user-friendly than button-pushing, as other ‘87 works had been - though those vocals are perhaps an acquired taste. Did anyone acquire it? Well, the song went nowhere on singles charts but people of the era remember it being a significant club hit on London dance floors. I could imagine it. It’s dated as hell, but it’s a lark. “I Love Disco 2000”: The b-side was effectively an (almost) instrumental remix of the a-side given a new name, but it’s probably better-known than the a-side, due to its inclusion on the Shag Times compilation, where it’s attributed to the KLF. With the vocals largely gone, the effervescent instrumental elements are freer to bubble and percolate, which they do, sustaining interest across five and a half minutes. Except of course that the song isn’t entirely instrumental: a few choice bits from the original show up, and for some reason they stick in significant chunks of the 1960s novelty “The Clapping Song” (a hit for Shirley Ellis in 1965, revived in 1982 by the Belle Stars, but actually dating back at least as far as the 1930s and existing in versions as disparate as Woody Guthrie and Ella Fitzgerald). Bill “raps” the first verse of the song while June and Cressida make a clever mid-80s joke of the song’s chorus. It’s catchy, and shows again the KLF’s abiding love of novelty music. “I Gotta CD (7” edit)”: The seven-inch version shaves a good three minutes off of the single, tightening it up considerably for the ostensible radio play that never came. One wonders why the seven-inch wasn’t given a proper commercial release. Victim of Bill and Jimmy’s microscopic attention span?
The bonus tracks being Big Black (or whoever it is) and the availability at the time of this bootleg makes me think you might me right. It's a good 'un.
DOWN TOWN (November 1987) What’s the boundary between sincere and tongue-in-cheek? And if the boundary is so minute, then ultimately does it even matter? These questions might, of course, ultimately lie at the very heart of the KLF mystery (and indeed of the time in history when they were prevalent). Superficially, it’s easiest merely to say that it was all a prank, that nothing Bill and Jimmy did was ever intended sincerely. But I think that misses out a lot on what makes the KLF so special and unique. Their hearts were on their sleeves, sometimes. And even when they weren’t, they had special guests all the time who were perfectly sincere. Does that just merely mean their guests weren’t “in on the joke”? What joke? Half the time, Bill and Jimmy weren’t in on it either. “Down Town” came out - to strong reviews but no real chart action - at a bit of a period of high activity, with three singles and one EP all coming out in less than three months. If things had gone to plan, there’d have been an album and another single out in the fourth month as well. A twelve-inch (JAMS 27T) had the full-length version on the a-side with the instrumental on the b-side, while a seven-inch (JAMS 27) had a four-minute edit on the a-side with the same instrumental on the b-side. “Down Town”: As befits a duo with a complex relationship with, and opinion of, the hit-making machine, it makes sense that Bill and Jimmy would have had a bit of an obsession with the uniquely British phenomenon of the “Christmas number one”, with Jimmy even having a go at it as late as 1999. “Down Town” was released in November of 1987, just in time for the Christmas season of the year they had attempted to chronicle so well. The song really has four component parts, ingeniously interlaced, to it. The first is the London Community Gospel Choir singing a reverent but triumphant gospel song of, seemingly, Bill and Jimmy’s own creation (or at least if it previously existed, Google knows nothing of it). The vocals are amazing and the song is played completely straight, tongue far removed from cheek. The second part is a series of social-observation verses sung with surprising passion by Bill in probably his best vocal performance for the KLF. He tackles homelessness, alcoholism, and despair, contrasting strongly with the jubilation of the choir. “Glory!” they shout. “What glory?” he rejoins blasphemously, “in a tenement block?” Third is a barrage of sirens and other sonic illustrations of Bill’s urban blight. Fourthly, and most memorably, is a set of lengthy samples from Petula Clark’s 1964 hit “Downtown”, her wide-eyed celebration of urban life providing yet another contrast. Though the beats and house feel remain a bit clunky and dated, I personally rate “Down Town” the KLF’s first masterpiece: a moving, expertly arranged, and wide-screen epic. As much as the song seems contrived to spit in the face of religious belief, the “Christmas miracle” is that it doesn’t play like that at all, coming down at best to a stalemate. Bill and Jimmy give a lot of room - and the final say - to the choir’s exultation, and one walks away with a sense of hope. Could that really have been Bill and Jimmy’s intent? Bill has explained on a few occasions how the (fully cleared) Clark sample came to be - mathematical improbability and collect calls to Switzerland - but I know nothing of how the London Community Gospel Choir got involved. Given the shoestring budget Bill and Jimmy were operating on in 1987, this could have been no small endeavour. “Down Town [no bill vox]”: The b-side is a more-or-less instrumental version of the a-side, quite a different mix to the one soon to show up on disc two of Shag Times. The choir's gone, Bill's almost completely gone (except a sample from "All You Need is Love" - a sign of things to come from the relentlessly self-quoting duo). Petula's still there, though, loud and proud in the mix. With little else to focus on besides the "Axel F"-like bassline, the odd urban sound effect and the ZTT-style breaks, the 60s sample becomes the main focus of the first half of the song, before some synth-piano noodlings unique to this mix give the second half a bit more meat on the bone. It's a pretty spare remix, "bonus beats"-style for DJ-mix purposes I suppose, but it's quite likeable all on its own. “Down Town (edit)”: The four-minute seven-inch is the version that ultimately wound up on Shag Times. Due to the modular nature of the composition, the song doesn’t really lose anything even as three minutes are stripped off of it, and perhaps gains a little bit of focus (though I’ll take the full-length version, personally). This is the would-be radio version, if anyone had bothered to play it on the radio. The hit single version, if anyone had actually bought it.
One of my favorite xmas songs. Also notable for the lyric "Did you do it clean?" recalling Echo & The Bunnymen, the group managed by King Boy D
They started out as saboteurs Now they're funeral entrepreneurs The crazy artists with the gall To pull the "burn a million" stunt The Kopyright Liberation Front
WHO KILLED THE JAMS? (February 1988) Who killed the JAMS? Spoiler alert: they did. Just a year into their career together and already expressing ambivalence about the long-term nature of the project, Bill and Jimmy released in February of 1988 a surprisingly-brief (28-minute) second album called Who Killed the JAMs?, the second and final album released under the JAMS name. Lacking the notoriety of the debut and lacking the ubiquity of the later-released chart-toppers, this frequently-overlooked album occupies an interesting corner of the KLF universe. The rather beautiful full-colour album sleeve depicts Bill, Jimmy and the future Ford Timelord standing by a forest in Sweden, a pile of burning copies of their debut album sending a plume of white smoke into the air. The story, of course, is that Bill and Jimmy were ordered to destroy all copies of their copyright-violating debut album, and they took their stocks in Jimmy’s old American cop car all the way to Sweden, hoping to convince ABBA to change their minds. When they were unable to meet Benny and Bjorn, they went ahead and, well, burnt the bastards. Turns out to be a metaphor for the second album and its repudiation of the ethos and sound of the first. Bill only raps on two of these seven songs, generally singing or rather “sing-speaking” instead in a greatly-improved voice that he would sadly soon abandon. And the beats are primarily designed for the dancefloor, using then-current house motifs, or are otherwise mid-tempo tracks that are quite removed from both dance and hip-hop. One thing that remains, though, is the barrage of samples and allusions to other songs. As on the debut, the JAMS cast their net wide, sampling 60s girl groups, German opera, Jimi Hendrix, bhangra, and Michael Jackson’s then current chart-topper - generally speaking better integrated than the sometimes-clunky drop-ins of the debut. Two of the seven songs are effectively covers of late-sixties/early-seventies American soul songs with rewritten lyrics. Lyrically, It's equal parts mock-heart-on-sleeve and genuine-heart-on-sleeve, leaving the listener to decide which is which. Sadly, the sociopolitical commentary of the debut is gone, though, replaced by self-referential mythologising and navel-gazing, wherein the KLF reveal that their favourite topic of discussion is, indeed, the KLF. Every single song on this album contains at least some self-reference. On several occasions, Drummond sings explicitly about the barely-one-year-old story of the partnership, at one point seeming to distance him and Jimmy entirely from the band name “JAMS” and implying it was all a “passing phase”. The simple reason, then, of why the album is attributed to the JAMS is that the cover - and even the album labels - were apparently printed up months before the album was released, or even recorded. There is no text on the cover at all, and the album labels fail to list any song information - or much of anything beyond an incorrect release date. For an album absolutely steeped in ambivalence, that might make sense. “The Candystore”: A quick cheeky sample of “Leader of the Pack” providing the song title, and we’re off at a blaze. Despite the fact that Bill jabbers semi-coherently throughout the song and June and Cressida wail “come into my house” again and again plus a fuller chorus, the song manages to play like an instrumental - or perhaps more accurately as a “version” of a fuller single that would be put on its b-side. That’s apropos, since this song would, in a few months hence, form the basis for the second Disco 2000 single, “One Love Nation”. As it is here, it’s a striking if curious introduction, sounding nothing at all like anything on the 1987 album. It’s a “banger” of a house tune, confident full-body dance music, with a hard-slamming groove you’d feel no shame moving to on a dance floor, even if it’s barely three-minutes long. “The Candyman”: While Who Killed the JAMs? bears no songwriting details, Shag Times credits this track, rather comically, to “The Jams / Hendrix / Wagner”, the latter for a lengthy drop-in from Ride of the Valkyries and the former for the constant repeated sample throughout from “Foxy Lady”. This in fact provides the song’s main riff, which is why this song really isn’t any kind of ‘dance music’ (despite the drum machine beneath it). It’s not bad for that, in its rockist way, and it’s mixed in a melange of samples so thick that it’s almost impossible to pick everything out (James Brown and Public Enemy are two starting points). It’s this album’s “Rockman Rock” but superior to that other tune; in fact, I would say this is the sole track on Who Killed the Jams that might have fit in on 1987. If not the best composition, it would have been the best-sounding track there (though an overuse of a squelchy electronic chirp gets grating by song’s end). Drummond starts the song off with a meta-reference to the similarly-titled song immediately preceding it (which makes it a non-sequitur when reprised on Shag Times). Lord knows what Drummond is on about, but it’s evocative nonsense, and he sings it with sincerity and gusto. And with the Scottish brogue now a highlight, not a downside. “Disaster Fund Collection”: A really confounding song, the longest track on side one is – I think – a kind of parody of melodramatic songs of the era. It’s always seemed to me like a take on something like Falco’s “Jeanny”, which came out in 1985, or perhaps charity advertisements of the era (as evinced by the song title, which does show up in the lyrics). But I’m really not sure. The way I take the song, it’s a pretty funny joke, with Drummond screeching his lines in the most histrionic, chest-beating fashion imaginable, while June and Cressida function as a kind of Greek chorus, telling Drummond to calm down and stop yelling. The instrumentation might indeed be a piss-take on the genre, but it’s also quite expertly performed. If you didn’t listen to the lyrics, you’d miss the satirical intent altogether. Alternately, the song might have had a similar genesis to my theoretical explanation for “The Porpoise Song”, the song on this album it sounds most like. Perhaps this album is the product of some closet-cleaning on Bill’s part, or even on Jimmy’s. There’s no way to ever know. Completely forgotten within the KLF oeuvre, it’s still a decent listen. It somehow wound up as a bonus track on the Australian version of the American History of the JAMS collection, its only appearance on the CD medium. “King Boy’s Dream”: On an already brief album, this track turns out to be a tossed-off fifty-eight-seconds, bringing side one in at an Elvis-soundtrack-length thirteen minutes. The only real appearance on this album of Drummond’s 1987-era Scottish-Beastie rap style, this song is a wee joke, with Drummond aping old-school braggadocio, over a beat composed of sampled coughs and wheezes, lampooning beatboxing. Lame, ultimately, though a few of the boasts are genuinely funny. “The Porpoise Song”: “King Boy, what’s it all about?” ask June and Cressida, and I’d like to ask the same question. A fascinating but entirely confounding album highlight, this mid-tempo epic is a nautical adventure told by Bill in a Scottish accent so thick that it’s genuinely tough to discern - though so far as I can tell, it’s a story of Drummond’s young adult life at sea (which is apparently true), where a talking dolphin appeared to him and implored him to start the JAMS (which is perhaps not true). But just how is this a JAMS song? Given Drummond’s run-ins with former label boss Alan McGee, I do sort of wonder if he hadn’t penned this in a previous life for his solo career on Creation (McGee bankrolled him for a second album, which Drummond seemingly spent on the independently-released “All You Need is Love” single, an obvious violation of his agreement) before rewriting some of the lyrics to make it JAMS-specific. But then again, this doesn’t sound like anything on The Man either. It’s not entirely sample-free, with a breakdown built so seamlessly around Strafe’s house classic “Set it Off” that you barely notice it. Storm sound effects also form a significant part of the music, but most of it is a surprisingly mature electronic backdrop of Bill and Jimmy’s own devising, sounding like nothing else in their discography (bar “Disaster Fund Collection”, which could theoretically have had a similar provenance). Scant months after decrying a “wine bar world”, here are the JAMS with a song that could well have been played in one. Bill intones the verses, rising from a murmur at the beginning to a caterwaul by the end. June and Cressida take the Greek Chorus role again, commenting and asking questions of Bill. And as always with the JAMS/KLF, there are no answers. Only questions. “Prestwich Prophet’s Grin”: With the lopsided guitar riff and the melody of the chorus taken wholesale from “Clean Up Woman” by Betty Wright, released in 1971, “Prestwich Prophet’s Grin” is ultimately best seen as a cover of “Clean Up Woman”, with the main additions being a percussive noise that sounds like a Smurf being punched, an extensive sample from a bhangra song that I tracked down as “Shava Shava” by Kala Preet, and self-aggrandising lyrics telling the “JAMS story” merely one year into their existence. Wright’s original has a natural light-toed funk to it, but Bill and Jimmy’s cover version strips most of that suppleness away, leaving a track that’s charming but clunky, undanceable. The lyrics are the highlight, a very straight telling of the story to date which posits Drummond as the mastermind, calling up Cauty to turn Drummond’s anti-AIDS composition into a finished article. The lyrics take the story up to date, with Drummond admitting, “I completely lost control” and seeming to announce the demise of the JAMS. Who killed the JAMS? Well, this is the best evidence to use in the court case. “Burn the Bastards”: Like the song preceding it, this is essentially a cover of an oldie, in this case “Dance to the Music” by Sly and the Family Stone, with rewritten lyrics. It wound up being the sole “single” from this album (which really ought to have included “Down Town”). A curious choice, since it’s a pretty empty song, with Sly’s chorus changed to “JAMs have a party” and a few cutesy self-referential lyrics on what is otherwise a pretty straight cover. Clubwise, it’s a decent enough dance groove, with liberal bits of Michael Jackson’s recent hit “Bad” stuck in presumably just to be cheeky. But it’s pretty unfulfilling, and probably the least clever Bill and Jimmy ever were. Quite why, then, it was chosen as the single from this album is a bit of a mystery. It does present the JAMS as bereft of ideas. The instrumentation is exciting, with a sweeping would-be Hammond, the classic house piano lines, a trumpet line (with Bill exclaiming, “stop playing trumpet!” over top), and a real energy. But this could have been cobbled together by anyone, and none of the duo’s anarchic wit is on display here. Least of which in the confounding sketch that ends the album, a lengthy two minutes on an already brief album. It’s a sketch about New Year’s Eve, with recordings taken from the BBC, a group of people singing “Auld Lang Syne”, and Rockman Rock “speaking” as an electric guitar. All of this might have made more sense if the album actually came out in December 1987, as the label claims, and not in February 1988, well removed from a New Year’s celebration.
I haven't finished reading your latest writeup but I did want to point out that "The Porpoise Song" has the bassline from "Billie Jean". I think there's also a little cribbing from "She Bop".
Yeah, I was going to mention that when talking about the instrumental remix, where the Billie Jean connection is made way more explicit. Bit of a Michael Jackson theme going on on that disc. I went to listen to "She Bop", and I see what you're talking about - that descending keyboard riff. I don't think it's exactly the same, but the inspiration could well be there. Talent imitates, genius steals.
No, it doesn't. I suppose it's really the only album it doesn't show up on; it's on 1987, Chill Out, and The White Room - but none of those versions are the famous Tammy Wynette version, which was never on any album. The first two albums were released under the band name "The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu", which might be why you've never heard of it. Also it only came out on vinyl. And only in the UK...
I first heard the Tammy Wynette version of "Justified and Ancient" and then the more subdued version on The White Room. It was years later that I got to explore some of the earlier work, and I was surprised and delighted to hear it on 1987 and Chill Out. I was kind of hoping it turned up on every album of theirs.
I've never seen an "unofficial" copy. In fact, the only copy I've ever seen was the one I found during a visit to used shop in London, which I immediately bought (along with the original All You Need single and The Manual). About a week later one of the high street HMVs had a bunch of new copies of 1987 and I bought two (one for a friend); those turned out to be made "unofficially" in Holland.
There's a CD-r of Who Killed the JAMS kicking around that Gimpo himself released on his website. Given the provenance (Gimpo was the KLF roadie and professional hanger-on), it's probably as close to an "official CD release" as would ever exist. But I've never heard it and don't know if it's just a needle-drop or if it came from actual tapes in Jimmy and Bill's possession.
Gimpo Gimpo. That makes sense. I saw listings on discogs for CDRs but that's the only reference to them I've seen anywhere.
BURN THE BASTARDS / BURN THE BEAT (March 1988) The label of the “KLF 002T” release has the following message: “This is a transition record”. That is certainly true; for the first time, the two main twelve-inches for this release identify the artist not as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu but as the KLF; in a sense, this is the first KLF release. But it’s not that easy; it’s a song taken from an album that was attributed to the JAMS. The “JAMS 26T” release credits the KLF as artist but the JAMS as songwriter and producer. And when the American label TVT issued this as a follow-up to “Doctorin’ the Tardis”, on 12”, 7” and cassingle, they attributed it to “The JAMS a/k/a the Timelords”, meaning this song has come out with three different artist attributions. We’ll not be looking at the TVT release here (or the 1989 Australasian “Possum Records” seven-inch), but another transition is that this was Bill and Jimmy’s first international release: ostensibly they sent all of the JAMS 26T pressing to Europe because they didn’t like it. That’s probably that famous Drummond humour, right? All the same, the contents are firmly in the JAMS mould. The sonic breakthroughs are still in the future - though in the very, very near future. Meanwhile, with this single, we ring out the old and ring in the new. Under discussion here are two different twelve-inch singles: the first release, JAMS 26T, has the so-called “Jams Have a Party” mix of “Burn the Bastards” and the “Mu Mu Mix”, retitled “Burn the Beat” on the a-side, with instrumental versions of “Prestwich Prophet’s Grin” and “The Tortoise Song” on the b-side. The domestic release, KLF 002T, is stingier, with the LP edit of “Burn the Bastards” on the a-side and the so-called “club mix” of Burn the Beat on the b-side. Burn the Bastards (JAMS Have a Party), Burn the Bastards (LP edit): I’m putting these together, because so far as I can tell, they are exactly the same. They are both, in fact, the album version of “Burn the Bastards” with the New Year’s Eve stuff lopped off the end (they end when the voice calls “shut up!”). Since I don’t have much to say about this, I’ll mention something that occurred to me after writing up the album review: the KLF are a band that love their leitmotifs, in-jokes and internal references, and this song births one: the female voices chanting “Mu! Mu!” which later showed up on most of their Stadium House hit singles. I’ve been working from two presumptions, but one of them cannot be correct: I presume that any JAMS-era female voice belongs to Cressida Cauty and June Montana, and I presume that the later “Mu! Mu!” chants are sampled from this very track. But on The White Room, those are credited to P. P. Arnold and Kate Kisson, a pair of early-70s singers of limited success who worked on a few occasions with the KLF before going on to subsequent work as a duo (they’re currently on tour with Roger Waters). Did their involvement with the KLF go back to the JAMS days? Burn the Beat (Mu Mu Mix): The most interesting, and radical, remix of “Burn the Bastards” (or rather “Burn the Beat”, as it is retitled) is this particular take, which for the first half strips the recording primarily down to the “Mu! Mu!” chants and the piano line, though Michael Jackson is still all over the place. The intrigue is the second half of the song, a medley of entirely different beats linked through the classic Jimmy Castor sample “what we’re going to do right here is go back”. The first and third beat (the same beat) is a strangely percussion-heavy go-go-style beat, and the second one, for some reason, is the Disco 2000 song “I Gotta CD”. They both take the song far afield from its Sly and the Family Stone origins. Bill’s voice shows up only once or twice, shouting out dance exhortations. Prestwich Prophet’s Grin (instrumental version): Since the main difference between the “export” 12” and the “domestic” one is side two, it’s reasonable to presume that these two instrumental versions of Who Killed the JAMs? album tracks are what Bill and Jimmy didn’t like about the four-track single. Why, then, would they issue them both less than a year later on the second disc of Shag Times? With Bill’s rap and the girls’ chorus gone, the focus is more or less on the rather weedy drum programming - probably the weakest part of “Prestwich Prophet’s Grin”. It’s still an enjoyable listen, though, with the Betty Wright and Kala Preet samples now joined together with a sample from the Pointer Sisters’ “Yes We Can Can” long enough to rival “The Queen and I” for the title of “most egregious copyright violation”. The end result is something like a “Candyman”-style sample medley. It wouldn’t have lit any dancefloors on fire, but it’s fun enough. And by the way, the Smurf-punching sound effect is pushed up in the mix, gloriously. The Porpoise Song (instrumental version): I like it as much as an instrumental as I do a vocal track. Well, no, not quite, but it’s still a good listen. With all the crashing waves and chest-beating vocals gone, it feels more like typical JAMS fare in this instrumental version, which keeps the Strafe sample and adds a few other grace notes here and there (a sample of a song I don’t recognise that features prominent steel pans, clips from “All You Need is Love”, a few other bits and bobs here and there). But the biggest change to the song is that the bass line lifted from Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” now gets accompanied by that same song’s actual main riff as well, replayed on a sampling keyboard, which makes explicit the original source. In fact, perhaps the reason they shipped these records offshore is because they feared further copyright complications - an issue that maybe they’d gotten sorted out by January 1989. Burn the Beat (Club Mix): The last track remaining to talk about is the b-side of the domestic KLF 002T, the “club mix” of the retitled “Burn the Beat” (the vocal versions retain the original name, the almost-instrumentals get the more family-friendly alternative). This, and not the “Mu Mu Mix”, eventually wound up on the instrumental disc of the Shag Times collection. They’re really quite similar, differing primarily in that the go-go beat is gone, replaced by further repeats of various elements of the remix. That might make it a bit more repetitive than it needs to be, and I personally rate it as inferior because of it, but I can envision this going down well enough on the floor of a dance club.
Loving this thread as I've been on some KLF binge listening recently. Great analysis of the tracks so far.
Enjoying this also. I've never listened to KLF but I happened across a CD of The White Room just yesterday foi a dollar so I bought it. I read up a little about them yestreday, but first listen will be later today after work.
