Burn the Bastards
Encyclopedia
"Burn the Bastards" is a 1988 song by Bill Drummond
and Jimmy Cauty
as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs), from their second and final album Who Killed The JAMs?. The "bastards" of the title are copies of The JAMs first album, 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)
, which Drummond and Cauty burnt on a bonfire in a Swedish
field after a copyright dispute with the Swedish pop group ABBA
. The song (which is based upon Sly and the Family Stone's "Dance to the Music
") was released as a single, along with a separate single of remixes titled "Burn the Beat". Both singles were credited to The KLF
, marking a change of name and with it a change of musical genre, from The JAMs' sample-fuelled political hip-hop to The KLF's upbeat and uptempo house music
.
and Bill Drummond
formed a musical outfit, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs). The JAMs deliberately invited controversy by spending a year producing incendiary electronic music that was built around plagiarised samples
of other artists, underpinned by beatbox rhythms and political raps
. The song "Burn the Bastards", which was the duo's final single in this mould, was inspired in part by the legal backlash of their provocative output.
Their debut album, 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)
, had been investigated by the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society
, who in August 1987 ordered The JAMs to recall and destroy all unsold copies of 1987, for its illegal use of extensive samples from ABBA's
"Dancing Queen
". The JAMs journeyed to Sweden—with their unsold LPs and an NME
journalist in tow—in an attempt to negotiate with ABBA. When this failed, The JAMs made a bonfire in the Swedish countryside and burnt the LPs. Back in the UK, they continued with their plagiaristic productions, which culminated with a second LP, Who Killed The JAMs?. Its sleeve depicts the 1987 bonfire, and it contains "Burn the Bastards", a sample-heavy celebration of the fire set to house music
. Ritual
istic burnings became a recurring aspect of Drummond and Cauty's work, including the burning of a 60-ft (18-m) wicker man
during the 1991 summer solstice
(The Rites of Mu), and, as the K Foundation
in 1995, their burning of £
1 million.
debut single "Burn the Beat", an instrumental house music version of "Burn the Bastards", on their own KLF Communications
label. The single also featured instrumental remixes of other tracks from Who Killed The JAMs?. All 5,000 pressed copies of the single—catalogue number JAMS 26T—were exported. On 18 April 1988, another single, "Burn the Bastards", was released in the UK, to fill the hitherto overlooked catalogue number KLF 002. This single, also by The KLF, featured the LP version of "Burn the Bastards" alongside another instrumental version, "Burn the Beat (Club Mix)". The single releases marked a change in direction of Drummond and Cauty's music, to an upbeat and uptempo house music tone. Indeed, the record label of "Burn the Bastards" stated, "This is a transition record". Neither "Burn the Bastards" nor "Burn the Beat" entered the UK Singles Chart, although the release peaked at number 15 in the UK Indie Singles Chart.
": a trumpet break
and drum line are sampled, and the lyrical structure of that song is also mirrored. Whereas "Dance to the Music" vocally introduces the instruments used, so "Burn the Bastards" has Drummond sing of The JAMs' methods, such as "All we need is a beatbox, for people who only need a beat". The choral line "Dance to the music" is modified to "JAMs have a party".
Referring to the fate of the 1987 LPs, Drummond sings "Build a fire, stoke it good, throw them on, and watch the bastards burn", accompanied by a stark, ring modulated
chorus, "Mu Mu!". A later portion of the lyrics alludes to New Year's Eve
1987: "Five to twelve, almost gone. 1987, what the fuck have we done?".
A driving 4/4
rhythm and a sampled Roland TB-303
loop provide acid house
overtones. These elements are brought further to the fore in "Burn the Beat", which dispenses with Drummond's vocals.
Most of The KLF's work was highly self-referential
: lyrics were usually enigmatic narratives of The KLF's real and fictional exploits, and vocal samples were re-used in a variety of musical contexts. The signatory "Mu Mu!" refrain, which first appeared on this song, recurred throughout the duo's music, including "What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)
" (1990), "Last Train to Trancentral (Live from the Lost Continent)
" and "America: What Time Is Love?" (1991), and "Fuck the Millennium
" (1997).
Reviewing Who Killed The JAMs?, Sounds described "Burn the Bastards" as "a JAMs manifesto" which "assumes a sinister edge alongside the pile of blazing copies of 1987 pictured on the sleeve", citing the track as evidence that The JAMs were "defiant, outspoken, still a wily step ahead".
12" limited to 5,000 copies exported from the UK. In 1989, it was released in the US by TVT Records
. "Burn the Bastards" was released by KLF Communications for a UK audience.
Key
Bill Drummond
William Ernest Drummond is a Scottish artist, musician, writer and record producer. He was the co-founder of late 1980s avant-garde pop group The KLF and its 1990s media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation, with which he burned a million pounds in 1994...
and Jimmy Cauty
Jimmy Cauty
James Francis Cauty is a British artist and musician born in Liverpool, England, in 1956...
as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs), from their second and final album Who Killed The JAMs?. The "bastards" of the title are copies of The JAMs first album, 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)
1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)
1987 is the debut album of The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu . 1987 was produced using extensive unauthorised samples which plagiarised a wide range of musical works, continuing a theme begun in The JAMs' debut single "All You Need Is Love"...
, which Drummond and Cauty burnt on a bonfire in a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
field after a copyright dispute with the Swedish pop group ABBA
ABBA
ABBA was a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1970 which consisted of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog...
. The song (which is based upon Sly and the Family Stone's "Dance to the Music
Dance to the Music (song)
"Dance to the Music" is a 1968 hit single by the influential soul/funk/rock band Sly & the Family Stone for the Epic/CBS Records label. It was the first single by the band to reach the Billboard Pop Singles Top 10, peaking at #8 and the first to popularize the band's sound, which would be emulated...
") was released as a single, along with a separate single of remixes titled "Burn the Beat". Both singles were credited to The KLF
The KLF
The KLF were one of the seminal bands of the British acid house movement during the late 1980s and early 1990s....
, marking a change of name and with it a change of musical genre, from The JAMs' sample-fuelled political hip-hop to The KLF's upbeat and uptempo house music
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
.
Background
Early in 1987, Jimmy CautyJimmy Cauty
James Francis Cauty is a British artist and musician born in Liverpool, England, in 1956...
and Bill Drummond
Bill Drummond
William Ernest Drummond is a Scottish artist, musician, writer and record producer. He was the co-founder of late 1980s avant-garde pop group The KLF and its 1990s media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation, with which he burned a million pounds in 1994...
formed a musical outfit, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs). The JAMs deliberately invited controversy by spending a year producing incendiary electronic music that was built around plagiarised samples
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
of other artists, underpinned by beatbox rhythms and political raps
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
. The song "Burn the Bastards", which was the duo's final single in this mould, was inspired in part by the legal backlash of their provocative output.
Their debut album, 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)
1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)
1987 is the debut album of The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu . 1987 was produced using extensive unauthorised samples which plagiarised a wide range of musical works, continuing a theme begun in The JAMs' debut single "All You Need Is Love"...
, had been investigated by the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society
Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society
The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society is an organisation that pay royalties to composers, songwriters and music publishers when a composition is manufactured into any format. This includes copies of the music alone such as CDs and downloads, and also products that use the music as a part of...
, who in August 1987 ordered The JAMs to recall and destroy all unsold copies of 1987, for its illegal use of extensive samples from ABBA's
ABBA
ABBA was a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1970 which consisted of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog...
"Dancing Queen
Dancing Queen
"Dancing Queen" is a pop song recorded by Swedish pop group ABBA. It was released in August 1976, but was first performed two months earlier, on 18 June 1976, during a Royal Variety Show in Stockholm the evening before the Swedish royal wedding. It was the follow-up single to the hit "Fernando"...
". The JAMs journeyed to Sweden—with their unsold LPs and an NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
journalist in tow—in an attempt to negotiate with ABBA. When this failed, The JAMs made a bonfire in the Swedish countryside and burnt the LPs. Back in the UK, they continued with their plagiaristic productions, which culminated with a second LP, Who Killed The JAMs?. Its sleeve depicts the 1987 bonfire, and it contains "Burn the Bastards", a sample-heavy celebration of the fire set to house music
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
. Ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
istic burnings became a recurring aspect of Drummond and Cauty's work, including the burning of a 60-ft (18-m) wicker man
Wicker Man
A wicker man was a large wicker statue of a human used by the ancient Druids for human sacrifice by burning it in effigy, according to Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico...
during the 1991 summer solstice
Midsummer
Midsummer may simply refer to the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, but more often refers to specific European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice, or that take place on a day between June 21 and June 24, and the preceding evening. The exact dates vary between different...
(The Rites of Mu), and, as the K Foundation
K Foundation
The K Foundation was an art foundation set up by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty in 1993, following their 'retirement' from the music industry. The Foundation served as an artistic outlet for the duo's post-retirement KLF income...
in 1995, their burning of £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
1 million.
Release
On 5 March 1988, Drummond and Cauty released The KLF'sThe KLF
The KLF were one of the seminal bands of the British acid house movement during the late 1980s and early 1990s....
debut single "Burn the Beat", an instrumental house music version of "Burn the Bastards", on their own KLF Communications
KLF Communications
This discography lists the key British and notable international releases of The KLF and the other pseudonyms of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. It also details the other releases on their independent record label, KLF Communications, by KLF-spinoff Disco 2000 and Space...
label. The single also featured instrumental remixes of other tracks from Who Killed The JAMs?. All 5,000 pressed copies of the single—catalogue number JAMS 26T—were exported. On 18 April 1988, another single, "Burn the Bastards", was released in the UK, to fill the hitherto overlooked catalogue number KLF 002. This single, also by The KLF, featured the LP version of "Burn the Bastards" alongside another instrumental version, "Burn the Beat (Club Mix)". The single releases marked a change in direction of Drummond and Cauty's music, to an upbeat and uptempo house music tone. Indeed, the record label of "Burn the Bastards" stated, "This is a transition record". Neither "Burn the Bastards" nor "Burn the Beat" entered the UK Singles Chart, although the release peaked at number 15 in the UK Indie Singles Chart.
Composition
"Burn the Bastards" is a celebratory house music song based upon Sly Stone's "Dance to the MusicDance to the Music
Dance to the Music can refer to one of the following:*Dance to the Music , a 1968 album by Sly & the Family Stone**"Dance to the Music ", a 1968 hit single from said album....
": a trumpet break
Break (music)
In popular music, a break is an instrumental or percussion section or interlude during a song derived from or related to stop-time – being a "break" from the main parts of the song or piece....
and drum line are sampled, and the lyrical structure of that song is also mirrored. Whereas "Dance to the Music" vocally introduces the instruments used, so "Burn the Bastards" has Drummond sing of The JAMs' methods, such as "All we need is a beatbox, for people who only need a beat". The choral line "Dance to the music" is modified to "JAMs have a party".
Referring to the fate of the 1987 LPs, Drummond sings "Build a fire, stoke it good, throw them on, and watch the bastards burn", accompanied by a stark, ring modulated
Ring modulation
Ring modulation is a signal-processing effect in electronics, an implementation of amplitude modulation or frequency mixing, performed by multiplying two signals, where one is typically a sine-wave or another simple waveform. It is referred to as "ring" modulation because the analog circuit of...
chorus, "Mu Mu!". A later portion of the lyrics alludes to New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
1987: "Five to twelve, almost gone. 1987, what the fuck have we done?".
A driving 4/4
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
rhythm and a sampled Roland TB-303
Roland TB-303
The Roland TB-303 Bass Line is a bass synthesizer with built-in sequencer manufactured by the Roland corporation from late 1981 to 1984 that had a defining role in the development of contemporary electronic music.-History:...
loop provide acid house
Acid house
Acid house is a sub-genre of house music that emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style, often with samples or spoken lines rather than sung lyrics. Acid house's core electronic squelch sounds were developed around the mid-1980s, particularly by DJs from Chicago who experimented with...
overtones. These elements are brought further to the fore in "Burn the Beat", which dispenses with Drummond's vocals.
Most of The KLF's work was highly self-referential
Self-reference
Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding...
: lyrics were usually enigmatic narratives of The KLF's real and fictional exploits, and vocal samples were re-used in a variety of musical contexts. The signatory "Mu Mu!" refrain, which first appeared on this song, recurred throughout the duo's music, including "What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)
What Time Is Love?
"What Time Is Love?" is a song released, in different mixes, as a series of singles by the band The KLF. It featured prominently and repeatedly in their output from 1988 to 1992 and, under the moniker of 2K, in 1997...
" (1990), "Last Train to Trancentral (Live from the Lost Continent)
Last Train to Trancentral
"Last Train to Trancentral" is a song released, in different mixes, as a series of singles by The KLF, including "Last Train to Trancentral ", a commercially successful single of April 1991 that reached # 2 in the UK Singles Chart and achieved international top ten placings...
" and "America: What Time Is Love?" (1991), and "Fuck the Millennium
Fuck the Millennium
"Fuck the Millennium" or "***K the Millennium" is an electronic protest song that was released as a single in 1997 by 2K...
" (1997).
Reviews
Announcing a change of name in January 1988, Bill Drummond had said "We might put out a couple of 12" records under the name The K.L.F., these will be rap free just pure dance music, so don't expect to see them reviewed in the music papers". As predicted, "Burn the Beat" and "Burn the Bastards" attracted little attention from the music press.Reviewing Who Killed The JAMs?, Sounds described "Burn the Bastards" as "a JAMs manifesto" which "assumes a sinister edge alongside the pile of blazing copies of 1987 pictured on the sleeve", citing the track as evidence that The JAMs were "defiant, outspoken, still a wily step ahead".
Formats and track listings
"Burn the Beat" was originally a KLF CommunicationsKLF Communications
This discography lists the key British and notable international releases of The KLF and the other pseudonyms of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. It also details the other releases on their independent record label, KLF Communications, by KLF-spinoff Disco 2000 and Space...
12" limited to 5,000 copies exported from the UK. In 1989, it was released in the US by TVT Records
TVT Records
TVT Records was an independent US record label founded by Steve Gottlieb. Over the course of its 25 year history the label released some 25 Gold, Platinum and Multi-platinum releases. Its roster included Nine Inch Nails, Ja Rule, Lil Jon, Underworld, The KLF, Sevendust, Brian Jonestown Massacre and...
. "Burn the Bastards" was released by KLF Communications for a UK audience.
| Format (and countries) | Track number | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| Burn the Beat | ||||
| 12" single (UK, KLF Communications JAMS 26T) | J | M | G | PR |
| 7" single, 12" single (US, released 1989) | J | M | C | L |
| Burn the Bastards | ||||
| 7" single (UK, KLF Communications KLF 002) | l | P | ||
| 12" single (UK, KLF Communications KLF 002T) | l | C | ||
Key
- l - "Burn the Bastards" (LP edit) (4:07)
- L - "Burn the Bastards" (LP version) (6:28)
- J - "Burn the Bastards (JAMs Have A Party Mix)" (4:11)
- C - "Burn the Beat (Club Mix)" (4:51)
- M - "Burn the Beat (Mu Mu Mix)" (4:43)
- P - "The Porpoise Song" (5:43)
- PR - "The Porpoise Song (Instrumental Remix)" (5:09)
- G - "Prestwich Prophet's Grin (Instrumental Remix)" (4:14)