Fuck the Millennium
Encyclopedia
"Fuck the Millennium" or "***K the Millennium" is an electronic
protest song
that was released as a single in 1997 by 2K (Bill Drummond
and Jimmy Cauty
, better known as The KLF
and The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu). Based upon The KLF's acid house
track "What Time Is Love?
", it was promoted as a comeback single and released to mark the tenth anniversary of Drummond and Cauty's first collaborations; however, it was also in part intended to mock the notion of the comeback. It remains the only commercial release by the duo since The KLF's 1992 retirement. The single reached #28 in the UK Singles Chart
in October 1997.
Drummond and Cauty's campaign to "fuck the millennium" also involved an appearance by 2K at London's Barbican Arts Centre and a number of outlandish proposals to 'commemorate' the millennium
under the moniker "K2 Plant Hire". These activities were intended to culminate in the construction of "The People's Pyramid", a 150 feet (45.7 m)-high structure built from recycled bricks, but the pyramid was never built.
, disposed of The KLF's earnings, including by burning one million pounds of it, money which was originally provisionally earmarked by the duo for millennial celebrations. Bill Drummond: "Originally we were going to invest the whole lot in some capital growth fund and spend it all on one big event, maybe at the millennium".
In the four years following The KLF's retirement, Drummond and Cauty's musical output consisted only of a limited edition single released in Israel
and Palestine
("K Cera Cera
"), and a contribution to The Help Album
("The Magnificent").
In 1997, British artist Jeremy Deller
pioneered the Acid Brass
concept, collaborating with the Williams Fairey Brass Band to interpret and perform classic acid house tracks as brass
arrangements. Deller was described by one source as a prankster, a notion frequently applied to Drummond and Cauty themselves. In February 1997, Drummond was contacted by his former Big in Japan bandmate Jayne Casey
, who was helping to organise an arts festival in Liverpool and had noticed that Acid Brass' repertoire included The KLF's "What Time Is Love?
". Drummond attended the festival performance and heard "What Time Is Love?" performed as the encore, during which he telephoned Cauty. Cauty and Drummond together attended a 19 April Acid Brass performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall
, London
. Collaborative work ensued between Drummond, Cauty, and Deller, in which the Acid Brass rendition of their track was incorporated into a composition designed to mark the tenth anniversary of Drummond and Cauty's first work.
A comeback of The KLF was implied by two black and white full-page adverts placed in the 21 August 1997 issue of Time Out. The first proclaimed "They're Back. The Creators of Trance. The Lords of Ambient. The Kings of Stadium House. The Godfathers of Techno Metal. The Greatest Rave Band In The World. Ever! 2K. For 23 minutes
Only". The second stated "'Jeremy Deller presents '1997 What The Fuck's Going On'", a reference to The JAMs' debut album 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)
. It continued, "Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond invite you to a 23 minute performance during which the next 840 days of our lives will be discussed". The Independent
looked forward to the event, saying that "It was just a matter of time before Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond hatched another prank and put a grin back on the face of pop music." "You just ache for them to be No. 1 again....", they said, but "One hopes they are not about to shoot themselves in the foot" because "the idea walks the tightrope between lunacy and brilliance.... the pop world's countdown to the millennium surely starts here".
"1997 (What The Fuck's Going On?)" was performed by 2K as a one-off event at London's Barbican Arts Centre on 17 September 1997 with Acid Brass, the Liverpool Dockers, the Viking Society
, and Drummond's creative associates Mark Manning and Gimpo
, who appeared, respectively, as "an axe-wielding "salvationist
" in a vicar's collar and gold lame suit, and a shop steward
character in a white coat with a megaphone". The performance began with a screening of This Brick, a short 35mm film of a brick
made from the ashes of the K Foundation's million-pound bonfire. Following an introduction by Factory Records
founder Tony Wilson
, Drummond and Cauty were then unveiled as pyjama-clad, wheelchair-using pensioner
s with grey hair and, strapped to their foreheads, prominent horns that had been used regularly in The KLF's promotional videos. Drummond was also seen plucking feathers from a dead swan. According to a press release issued by Mute
/Blast First
(Acid Brass' and 2K's record label), "Two elderly gentlemen, reeking of Dettol
, caused havoc in their motorised wheelchair
s. These old reprobates, bearing a grandfatherly resemblance to messrs Cauty and Drummond, claimed to have just been asked along." The duo wheeled around the stage to the sound of Acid Brass' "What Time Is Love?". They were supported variously by a male choir's rendition of "K Cera Cera", joined by opera singer Sally Bradshaw; the Viking Society in costume as lifeboatmen
; and the politically topical Liverpool Dockers chanting "Fuck the Millennium". Following the performance, every audience member received a "Fuck the Millennium" T-shirt, poster, and bumper sticker in a carrier bag.
In a comprehensive assessment, The Observer
rationalised the spectacle: "They did what they always do: too many things at the same time. Their points are lost along with the plot. So, just to explain: ... Bill and Jimmy were dressed as old men as a comment on elderly pop groups making a comeback. The brass band playing house music tunes was organised by Jeremy Deller as a comment on class culture
(working-class
band playing working-class music). The dockers were asked along because their cause is important." The Guardian
called the performance "a glorious, jaw-dropping mess", and The Times
commented that "the strongest point in its favour was its brevity". Select said, "There was no press furore the next morning—merely the anticlimactic aftertaste left by 40-year-old men miming to a seven-year-old song.... 2K was unquestionably a failure."
The unedited studio recording of "Fuck the Millennium" is a 14-minute composition, a protest song based around The KLF's house music
track "What Time Is Love?
", drawing additionally on musical refrains and concepts from throughout Drummond and Cauty's canon. The track contains three main segue
d parts: a house section led by the brass band
Acid Brass
, a choral rendition of the English hymn
"Eternal Father, Strong to Save
", and a rhythmically hardened remix of "What Time Is Love? (Pure Trance Original)". The lead vocals before and after the hymn consist mainly of angry chants, with hundreds of instances of the word "fuck
". Apart from a small number of chord changes during the segues, "Fuck the Millennium" contains no new music. However, the lyrics and brass arrangement are not found elsewhere in Drummond and Cauty's output.
The track is opened by Gimpo screaming "It's 1997: what the fuck is going on?". There follows a brass band
version of "What Time Is Love? (Pure Trance Original)", with a house rhythm added, along with samples
from The JAMs' 1987 recordings "All You Need Is Love
", "Don't Take Five (Take What You Want)", "Whitney Joins The JAMs
" and "Burn the Bastards
". Drummond leads a crowd of Liverpool Dockers
in angry chants: "Fuck the millennium! We want it now!".
Among the voices singing the three verses of the hymn are keyboardist Nick Coler, Drummond and Cauty, multiple recordings of whom are overlain to simulate a congregation. Mark Manning evangelically narrates its lyrics, and between verses, Gimpo screams for "Bill!" (Drummond) and "Jimmy!" (Cauty)—the only instance throughout their music that either of them is referred to without a pseudonym.
A Select journalist (clearly a fan of The KLF) enthused about the track in the context of the duo's wider catalogue: "As soon as it starts you immediately remember the excitement that comes from hearing a KLF record for the first time. The original ambient house melody kicks in - and it hasn't dated a day. The chorus is given an extra kick by Acid Brass' massed ranks of horns and trumpets.... It is quite brilliant."
", an estimated 150 feet (45.7 m)-high structure built from as many house bricks
as there were British 20th century births (estimated by the duo as 87 million), with no cost to the taxpayer. According to Melody Maker
, a statement posted on K2 Plant Hire's website "pointedly contrast[ed] the intended virtues of their People's Pyramid with the drawbacks of the officially sponsored Millennium Dome
". The Guardian noted drily that the idea "would appear to be far-fetched even by their own standards" and "Planning permission might pose a problem." The Pyramid was never built.
K2 Plant Hire also contributed a short story, written by Drummond, to editor Sarah Champion's anthology Disco 2000. Entitled "'Let's Grind' or 'How K2 Plant Hire Went To Work'", the 1997 story is a fictional account of K2 Plant Hire's plan to demolish Stonehenge
on the eve
of the millennium. Also in 1997, Drummond and Cauty reportedly used K2 Plant Hire's remaining funds to bid for purchase of the Rollright Stones
ancient monument
. Psychogeographer
Stewart Home
alleged that despite K2 Plant Hire's bid being the highest, the owners of the monument refused to trade with the duo.
Drummond and Cauty's works were both highly self-referential
and rife with references to The Illuminatus! Trilogy
esoteric novel, from which The JAMs took their name. Their last work, as 2K and K2 Plant Hire, continued many of these themes. Their subversive
attitude was exhibited in their attempt to undermine the pop comeback. They defaced a wall of the National Theatre
the day after the Barbican performance: the graffiti
"1997: What the fuck's going on?" referenced their similar graffiti of ten years earlier on the same wall of the arts establishment. The unusual show at the Barbican was typical of their previous confusing and humorous costumed appearances; moreover, the horns strapped to their foreheads were previously used in The KLF's cowl
costumes. The advertising
campaigns before and after the single's release resumed Drummond and Cauty's characteristic promotional tactic of cryptic, monochrome full-page adverts placed in UK national newspapers and music press.
The duo's tenth anniversary was prominently implied by the adverts and graffiti, and "Fuck the Millennium" contains many samples from their earliest works. The KLF's "What Time Is Love?"—a breakthrough track for Drummond and Cauty on two occasions—is also used extensively: "Fuck the Millennium" contains the entirety of "What Time Is Love? (Pure Trance Original)
", as well as samples used in "What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)
".
Seafaring was a recurring element of Drummond and Cauty's output, in lyrics from Who Killed The JAMs?, The White Room
and "America: What Time Is Love?", and in imagery used to illustrate The KLF's retirement press notice. Prior to entering the music business, Drummond had worked as a trawlerman. Samples of evangelists
also feature in several KLF Communications recordings: the album Chill Out
and the B-sides "What Time Is Love? (Virtual Reality Mix)" and "America No More". "Fuck the Millennium" was a studio track promoted as a live recording and featuring sampled crowd noise, as were The KLF's self-named "Stadium House Trilogy" of singles. The use of an English hymn is central to The JAMs' "It's Grim up North
". All of The KLF's chart singles either refer or allude to time
, a theme continued by "Fuck the Millennium".
2K's lifespan was billed as the duration of the Barbican performance, 23
minutes. The number is given numerological
significance in The Illuminatus! Trilogy. The "Fuck the Millennium" sleevenotes state that "The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu appear courtesy of The Five", a reference to the five Illuminati leaders of the novels. Drummond and Cauty took The JAMs' name from the fictional cult in Illuminatus!, wherein the fictional JAMs are long-standing enemies of the Illuminati. K2 Plant Hire's "The People's Pyramid" recalled Drummond and Cauty's "Pyramid Blaster" logo (a ghetto blaster
suspended in front of a pyramid), itself a reference to the all-seeing eye
icon used in Illuminatus!.
Although the references to Illuminatus! and themselves were in keeping with Drummond and Cauty's tradition, this was also in part intended to be a self-parodying dredge of The KLF's "myth". Drummond's opinions of the "rock 'n' roll comeback" were recorded by him at the time and aired in 2000: "The history of rock 'n' roll has been littered with pathetic comebacks.... No comeback has ever worked. The motivation behind the comeback has never and will never be the same as when the group or artist first crawled out of their sub-cult.... If there was fresh original talent, it is now tired and tested, only capable of flicking the nostalgia switch." Designing 2K's parody of the comeback, Drummond wrote that he and Cauty were "getting totally into the institution of The Comeback, drawing on the sad, pathetic nature of the whole thing, the desperation of all concerned to exploit whatever they can from the myth...".
have held up the Barbican show as the model of a pop performance. "At one unfortunately memorable Stereophonics
gig ...", the paper said, "the extent of Richard Jones
' showmanship was to play his bass while standing on a rug.... this is hardly the pyjama-clad KLF, horns strapped to their heads, whizzing around the Barbican in wheelchairs with Zodiac Mindwarp in a pulpit and hundreds of sacked Liverpool dockers yelling "Fuck the millennium!" at the tops of their voices ..." Likewise, a 1999 feature on Drummond and Cauty in The Irish Times
reported their millennium activities with some warmth. "As a critique of the sponsor-saturated multi-million pound Millennium Dome
," the editorial ran, "the 'people's pyramid' is unsurpassed."
Recounting the exploits of 2K, and the press reaction, in his book 45
(published in the millennium year, 2000), Drummond said:
All formats contained at least one version of 2K's "Fuck the Millennium" and one of Acid Brass' "What Time Is Love?". The formats and track listings are tabulated below:
Key
and Jimmy Cauty
.
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
protest song
Protest song
A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...
that was released as a single in 1997 by 2K (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...
and Jimmy Cauty
Jimmy Cauty
James Francis Cauty is a British artist and musician born in Liverpool, England, in 1956...
, better known as 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....
and The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu). Based upon The KLF's 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...
track "What Time Is Love?
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...
", it was promoted as a comeback single and released to mark the tenth anniversary of Drummond and Cauty's first collaborations; however, it was also in part intended to mock the notion of the comeback. It remains the only commercial release by the duo since The KLF's 1992 retirement. The single reached #28 in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
in October 1997.
Drummond and Cauty's campaign to "fuck the millennium" also involved an appearance by 2K at London's Barbican Arts Centre and a number of outlandish proposals to 'commemorate' the millennium
Millennium
A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years —from the Latin phrase , thousand, and , year—often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system....
under the moniker "K2 Plant Hire". These activities were intended to culminate in the construction of "The People's Pyramid", a 150 feet (45.7 m)-high structure built from recycled bricks, but the pyramid was never built.
Context
From 1987 to 1992, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty released music under names including The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs) and The KLF. Following a run of five consecutive UK top-five singles, The KLF executed a high-profile retirement from the music business and deleted their entire back catalogue, declaring that "For the foreseeable future, there will be no further record releases from any past, present or future name attached to our activities." Drummond and Cauty's subsequent art project, the K FoundationK 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...
, disposed of The KLF's earnings, including by burning one million pounds of it, money which was originally provisionally earmarked by the duo for millennial celebrations. Bill Drummond: "Originally we were going to invest the whole lot in some capital growth fund and spend it all on one big event, maybe at the millennium".
In the four years following The KLF's retirement, Drummond and Cauty's musical output consisted only of a limited edition single released in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
("K Cera Cera
K Cera Cera
"K Cera Cera", a presentation of The Red Army Choir by the K Foundation , was released as a limited edition single in Israel and Palestine in November 1993...
"), and a contribution to The Help Album
The Help Album
The Help Album is a 1995 charity album devoted to the War Child charity's aid efforts in war-stricken areas, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina...
("The Magnificent").
In 1997, British artist Jeremy Deller
Jeremy Deller
Jeremy Deller is an English conceptual, video and installation artist. He is a Turner Prize winner.Deller is best-known for his Battle of Orgreave , a reenactment of the actual Battle of Orgreave which occurred during the UK miners' strike in 1984.-Life and work:Jeremy Deller was born in London,...
pioneered the Acid Brass
Acid Brass
Acid Brass was a musical collaboration between Turner-Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller and the Williams Fairey Brass Band. The project was based on fusing the music of a traditional brass band with acid house and Detroit techno....
concept, collaborating with the Williams Fairey Brass Band to interpret and perform classic acid house tracks as brass
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
arrangements. Deller was described by one source as a prankster, a notion frequently applied to Drummond and Cauty themselves. In February 1997, Drummond was contacted by his former Big in Japan bandmate Jayne Casey
Jayne Casey
Jayne Casey is an artistic director who was known for being involved in the Liverpool punk and new wave scene in the 1970s and 1980s, with Big in Japan, Pink Military and Pink Industry.-Big In Japan:...
, who was helping to organise an arts festival in Liverpool and had noticed that Acid Brass' repertoire included The KLF's "What Time Is Love?
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...
". Drummond attended the festival performance and heard "What Time Is Love?" performed as the encore, during which he telephoned Cauty. Cauty and Drummond together attended a 19 April Acid Brass performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, United Kingdom that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Collaborative work ensued between Drummond, Cauty, and Deller, in which the Acid Brass rendition of their track was incorporated into a composition designed to mark the tenth anniversary of Drummond and Cauty's first work.
A comeback of The KLF was implied by two black and white full-page adverts placed in the 21 August 1997 issue of Time Out. The first proclaimed "They're Back. The Creators of Trance. The Lords of Ambient. The Kings of Stadium House. The Godfathers of Techno Metal. The Greatest Rave Band In The World. Ever! 2K. For 23 minutes
23 (numerology)
The 23 enigma refers to the belief that most incidents and events are directly connected to the number 23, some modification of the number 23, or a number related to the number 23.-Origins:...
Only". The second stated "'Jeremy Deller presents '1997 What The Fuck's Going On'", a reference to The JAMs' 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"...
. It continued, "Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond invite you to a 23 minute performance during which the next 840 days of our lives will be discussed". The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
looked forward to the event, saying that "It was just a matter of time before Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond hatched another prank and put a grin back on the face of pop music." "You just ache for them to be No. 1 again....", they said, but "One hopes they are not about to shoot themselves in the foot" because "the idea walks the tightrope between lunacy and brilliance.... the pop world's countdown to the millennium surely starts here".
Performance
The Vikings (reenactment)
"The Vikings" is a British society of re-enactors, dedicated to the study and re-enactment of the culture of the Viking Age and the display of authentic Dark Ages living history and combat.- Origins :...
, and Drummond's creative associates Mark Manning and Gimpo
Alan Goodrick (Gimpo)
Alan Goodrick is usually known by his nom de guerre Gimpo. He is best known as a friend and collaborator of The KLF and the K Foundation. He filmed the Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid film, drove Bill Drummond and Mark Manning to the top of the world , and was the ski-masked person...
, who appeared, respectively, as "an axe-wielding "salvationist
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
" in a vicar's collar and gold lame suit, and a shop steward
Union steward
A union representative, union steward, or shop steward is an employee of an organization or company, who represents and defends the interests of her/his fellow employees but who is also a labor union official...
character in a white coat with a megaphone". The performance began with a screening of This Brick, a short 35mm film of a brick
Brick
A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
made from the ashes of the K Foundation's million-pound bonfire. Following an introduction by Factory Records
Factory Records
Factory Records was a Manchester based British independent record label, started in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus, which featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column, Happy Mondays, Northside and James and...
founder Tony Wilson
Tony Wilson
Anthony Howard Wilson, commonly known as Tony Wilson , was an English record label owner, radio presenter, TV show host, nightclub manager, impresario and journalist for Granada Television and the BBC....
, Drummond and Cauty were then unveiled as pyjama-clad, wheelchair-using pensioner
Pensioner
In common parlance, a pensioner is a person who has retired, and now collects a pension. This is a term typically used in the United Kingdom and Australia where someone of pensionable age may also be referred to as an 'old age pensioner', or OAP. In the United States, the term retiree is more...
s with grey hair and, strapped to their foreheads, prominent horns that had been used regularly in The KLF's promotional videos. Drummond was also seen plucking feathers from a dead swan. According to a press release issued by Mute
Mute Records
Mute is an independent record label based in the UK. It was founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller and featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Goldfrapp, Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure and Fad Gadget.-Beginnings:...
/Blast First
Blast First
Blast First is a sub label of one-time independent record label, Mute Records, founded in approximately 1985. It was named after a phrase taken from the first number of the radical Vorticist journal Blast, published by Wyndham Lewis in 1914...
(Acid Brass' and 2K's record label), "Two elderly gentlemen, reeking of Dettol
Dettol
Dettol is the trade name for a line of liquid and solid antiseptic cleansing products manufactured by Reckitt Benckiser.It is ranked as the 48th most trust brand in India by The Brand Trust Report 2011...
, caused havoc in their motorised wheelchair
Wheelchair
A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, designed to be a replacement for walking. The device comes in variations where it is propelled by motors or by the seated occupant turning the rear wheels by hand. Often there are handles behind the seat for someone else to do the pushing...
s. These old reprobates, bearing a grandfatherly resemblance to messrs Cauty and Drummond, claimed to have just been asked along." The duo wheeled around the stage to the sound of Acid Brass' "What Time Is Love?". They were supported variously by a male choir's rendition of "K Cera Cera", joined by opera singer Sally Bradshaw; the Viking Society in costume as lifeboatmen
Lifeboat (rescue)
A rescue lifeboat is a boat rescue craft which is used to attend a vessel in distress, or its survivors, to rescue crewmen and passengers. It can be hand pulled, sail powered or powered by an engine...
; and the politically topical Liverpool Dockers chanting "Fuck the Millennium". Following the performance, every audience member received a "Fuck the Millennium" T-shirt, poster, and bumper sticker in a carrier bag.
In a comprehensive assessment, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
rationalised the spectacle: "They did what they always do: too many things at the same time. Their points are lost along with the plot. So, just to explain: ... Bill and Jimmy were dressed as old men as a comment on elderly pop groups making a comeback. The brass band playing house music tunes was organised by Jeremy Deller as a comment on class culture
Working class culture
Working class culture is a range of cultures created by or popular among working class people. The cultures can be contrasted with high culture and folk culture, and are sometimes equated with popular culture and low culture ....
(working-class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
band playing working-class music). The dockers were asked along because their cause is important." The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
called the performance "a glorious, jaw-dropping mess", and The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
commented that "the strongest point in its favour was its brevity". Select said, "There was no press furore the next morning—merely the anticlimactic aftertaste left by 40-year-old men miming to a seven-year-old song.... 2K was unquestionably a failure."
Composition
A single, "Fuck the Millennium" was subsequently released, a studio-based recording falsely promoted as an edited version of the Barbican performance. Comparing the single with the live performance, The Times said that "On CD, things become more orthodox, though no less entertaining, comprising an acid brass version of their classic, What Time Is Love? and a young man shouting rude words."The unedited studio recording of "Fuck the Millennium" is a 14-minute composition, a protest song based around The KLF's 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...
track "What Time Is Love?
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...
", drawing additionally on musical refrains and concepts from throughout Drummond and Cauty's canon. The track contains three main segue
Segue
A segue is a smooth transition from one topic or section to the next.-In music:In music, segue is a direction to the performer. It means continue without a pause. It comes from the Italian "it follows". The term attacca is also used in classical music.For written music it implies a transition...
d parts: a house section led by the brass band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
Acid Brass
Acid Brass
Acid Brass was a musical collaboration between Turner-Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller and the Williams Fairey Brass Band. The project was based on fusing the music of a traditional brass band with acid house and Detroit techno....
, a choral rendition of the English hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
"Eternal Father, Strong to Save
Eternal Father, Strong to Save
"Eternal Father, Strong to Save" is a hymn often associated with the Royal Navy or the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. Accordingly, it is often known as the Royal Navy Hymn or the United States Navy Hymn , and sometimes by the last line of its first verse, "For Those in Peril on...
", and a rhythmically hardened remix of "What Time Is Love? (Pure Trance Original)". The lead vocals before and after the hymn consist mainly of angry chants, with hundreds of instances of the word "fuck
Fuck
"Fuck" is an English word that is generally considered obscene which, in its most literal meaning, refers to the act of sexual intercourse. By extension it may be used to negatively characterize anything that can be dismissed, disdained, defiled, or destroyed."Fuck" can be used as a verb, adverb,...
". Apart from a small number of chord changes during the segues, "Fuck the Millennium" contains no new music. However, the lyrics and brass arrangement are not found elsewhere in Drummond and Cauty's output.
The track is opened by Gimpo screaming "It's 1997: what the fuck is going on?". There follows a brass band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
version of "What Time Is Love? (Pure Trance Original)", with a house rhythm added, along with 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...
from The JAMs' 1987 recordings "All You Need Is Love
All You Need Is Love (The JAMs song)
"All You Need Is Love" is a song by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, independently released as their debut single on 9 March 1987. A politically topical song concerning the UK media's AIDS furore, the track was initially given a 12" white label release because of its sampling of other records.The...
", "Don't Take Five (Take What You Want)", "Whitney Joins The JAMs
Whitney Joins The JAMs
-Release:"Whitney Joins The JAMs" was given a low-key release in the UK, initially as a run of 500 one-sided 12-inch singles in generic monochrome KLF Communications sleeves. The vinyl labels contained only the title and "120 bpm"...
" and "Burn the Bastards
Burn the Bastards
"Burn the Bastards" is a 1988 song by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu , from their second and final album Who Killed The JAMs?...
". Drummond leads a crowd of Liverpool Dockers
Liverpool Dockers' Strike
The Liverpool Dockers' Strike lasted from 1995 to 1998.Although referred to as a strike it was strictly a dispute because the employers, the MDHC had actually used the opportunity to sack the dockers who were caught up in a separate dispute.The Liverpool dockers refused to cross a picket line set...
in angry chants: "Fuck the millennium! We want it now!".
Among the voices singing the three verses of the hymn are keyboardist Nick Coler, Drummond and Cauty, multiple recordings of whom are overlain to simulate a congregation. Mark Manning evangelically narrates its lyrics, and between verses, Gimpo screams for "Bill!" (Drummond) and "Jimmy!" (Cauty)—the only instance throughout their music that either of them is referred to without a pseudonym.
A Select journalist (clearly a fan of The KLF) enthused about the track in the context of the duo's wider catalogue: "As soon as it starts you immediately remember the excitement that comes from hearing a KLF record for the first time. The original ambient house melody kicks in - and it hasn't dated a day. The chorus is given an extra kick by Acid Brass' massed ranks of horns and trumpets.... It is quite brilliant."
K2 Plant Hire
Around the time of the single's release, further full-page adverts appeared in the national press, this time asking readers "***k The Millennium: Yes/No?", with a telephone number—the "Millennium Crisis Line"—provided for voting: "If you want to fuck the millennium, press '1'. If not, press '2'." The adverts were placed under the pseudonym K2 Plant Hire Ltd., who duly claimed that 18,436 (89%) of respondents wished to fuck the millennium. Thus, on 31 October 1997, K2 Plant Hire announced "The People's PyramidPyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...
", an estimated 150 feet (45.7 m)-high structure built from as many house bricks
Brick
A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
as there were British 20th century births (estimated by the duo as 87 million), with no cost to the taxpayer. According to Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
, a statement posted on K2 Plant Hire's website "pointedly contrast[ed] the intended virtues of their People's Pyramid with the drawbacks of the officially sponsored Millennium Dome
Millennium Dome
The Millennium Dome, colloquially referred to simply as The Dome or even The O2 Arena, is the original name of a large dome-shaped building, originally used to house the Millennium Experience, a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium...
". The Guardian noted drily that the idea "would appear to be far-fetched even by their own standards" and "Planning permission might pose a problem." The Pyramid was never built.
K2 Plant Hire also contributed a short story, written by Drummond, to editor Sarah Champion's anthology Disco 2000. Entitled "'Let's Grind' or 'How K2 Plant Hire Went To Work'", the 1997 story is a fictional account of K2 Plant Hire's plan to demolish Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...
on the 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...
of the millennium. Also in 1997, Drummond and Cauty reportedly used K2 Plant Hire's remaining funds to bid for purchase of the Rollright Stones
Rollright Stones
The Rollright Stones are a complex of three Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monuments located near to the village of Long Compton on the borders of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire in England...
ancient monument
Ancient monument
An ancient monument is an early historical structure or monument worthy of preservation and study due to archaeological or heritage interest. In the United Kingdom it is a legal term, differing from the American term National Monument in being far more numerous and always man-made...
. Psychogeographer
Psychogeography
Psychogeography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." Another definition is "a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for...
Stewart Home
Stewart Home
Stewart Home is an English artist, filmmaker, writer, pamphleteer, art historian, and activist. He is best known for his novels such as the non-narrative 69 Things To Do With A Dead Princess , his re-imagining of the 1960s in Tainted Love , and earlier parodistic pulp fictions Pure Mania, Red...
alleged that despite K2 Plant Hire's bid being the highest, the owners of the monument refused to trade with the duo.
Themes
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...
and rife with references to The Illuminatus! Trilogy
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson first published in 1975. The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story; a drug-, sex-, and magick-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both...
esoteric novel, from which The JAMs took their name. Their last work, as 2K and K2 Plant Hire, continued many of these themes. Their subversive
Subversion (politics)
Subversion refers to an attempt to transform the established social order, its structures of power, authority, and hierarchy; examples of such structures include the State. In this context, a "subversive" is sometimes called a "traitor" with respect to the government in-power. A subversive is...
attitude was exhibited in their attempt to undermine the pop comeback. They defaced a wall of the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
the day after the Barbican performance: the graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
"1997: What the fuck's going on?" referenced their similar graffiti of ten years earlier on the same wall of the arts establishment. The unusual show at the Barbican was typical of their previous confusing and humorous costumed appearances; moreover, the horns strapped to their foreheads were previously used in The KLF's cowl
Cowl
This article is about the garment used by monks and nuns. For other uses, see Cowl or Cowling .The cowl is an item of clothing consisting of a long, hooded garment with wide sleeves. Originally it may have referred simply to the hooded portion of a cloak...
costumes. The advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
campaigns before and after the single's release resumed Drummond and Cauty's characteristic promotional tactic of cryptic, monochrome full-page adverts placed in UK national newspapers and music press.
The duo's tenth anniversary was prominently implied by the adverts and graffiti, and "Fuck the Millennium" contains many samples from their earliest works. The KLF's "What Time Is Love?"—a breakthrough track for Drummond and Cauty on two occasions—is also used extensively: "Fuck the Millennium" contains the entirety of "What Time Is Love? (Pure Trance Original)
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...
", as well as samples used in "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...
".
Seafaring was a recurring element of Drummond and Cauty's output, in lyrics from Who Killed The JAMs?, The White Room
The White Room
Allmusic said that The White Room "represents the commercial and artistic peak of late-'80s acid-house" and Q magazine called it "strikingly imaginative" and "a more subtle form of subterfuge" than previous works...
and "America: What Time Is Love?", and in imagery used to illustrate The KLF's retirement press notice. Prior to entering the music business, Drummond had worked as a trawlerman. Samples of evangelists
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
also feature in several KLF Communications recordings: the album Chill Out
Chill out
Chill out may mean:*Chill out music, a laid-back style of music*Chill Out, an album by KLF*Chill Out *Chill Out, an album by John Lee Hooker...
and the B-sides "What Time Is Love? (Virtual Reality Mix)" and "America No More". "Fuck the Millennium" was a studio track promoted as a live recording and featuring sampled crowd noise, as were The KLF's self-named "Stadium House Trilogy" of singles. The use of an English hymn is central to The JAMs' "It's Grim up North
It's Grim Up North
"It's Grim Up North" was a 1991 single by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu , the main lyrics of which consist of a list of towns and cities in the North of England, set to a pounding industrial techno accompaniment reminiscent of steam whistles, all of which segues into an orchestral instrumental of...
". All of The KLF's chart singles either refer or allude to time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
, a theme continued by "Fuck the Millennium".
2K's lifespan was billed as the duration of the Barbican performance, 23
23 (numerology)
The 23 enigma refers to the belief that most incidents and events are directly connected to the number 23, some modification of the number 23, or a number related to the number 23.-Origins:...
minutes. The number is given numerological
Numerology
Numerology is any study of the purported mystical relationship between a count or measurement and life. It has many systems and traditions and beliefs...
significance in The Illuminatus! Trilogy. The "Fuck the Millennium" sleevenotes state that "The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu appear courtesy of The Five", a reference to the five Illuminati leaders of the novels. Drummond and Cauty took The JAMs' name from the fictional cult in Illuminatus!, wherein the fictional JAMs are long-standing enemies of the Illuminati. K2 Plant Hire's "The People's Pyramid" recalled Drummond and Cauty's "Pyramid Blaster" logo (a ghetto blaster
Ghetto Blaster
-Summary:The aim of the game is to find and collect ten tapes of dance music, get people to dance to them by blasting them with notes from your blaster, then delivering them to your record company. These ten music tracks were played by the game throughout...
suspended in front of a pyramid), itself a reference to the all-seeing eye
Eye of Providence
The Eye of Providence is a symbol showing an eye often surrounded by rays of light or a glory and usually enclosed by a triangle...
icon used in Illuminatus!.
Although the references to Illuminatus! and themselves were in keeping with Drummond and Cauty's tradition, this was also in part intended to be a self-parodying dredge of The KLF's "myth". Drummond's opinions of the "rock 'n' roll comeback" were recorded by him at the time and aired in 2000: "The history of rock 'n' roll has been littered with pathetic comebacks.... No comeback has ever worked. The motivation behind the comeback has never and will never be the same as when the group or artist first crawled out of their sub-cult.... If there was fresh original talent, it is now tired and tested, only capable of flicking the nostalgia switch." Designing 2K's parody of the comeback, Drummond wrote that he and Cauty were "getting totally into the institution of The Comeback, drawing on the sad, pathetic nature of the whole thing, the desperation of all concerned to exploit whatever they can from the myth...".
After the event
Contemporary press reaction to 2K and their Barbican performance was mixed but mostly negative. Since then, however, The ObserverThe Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
have held up the Barbican show as the model of a pop performance. "At one unfortunately memorable Stereophonics
Stereophonics
The Stereophonics are a Welsh rock band now living in turners x that formed in 1992 in the village of Cwmaman in Cynon Valley, Wales. The band currently comprises lead vocalist and guitarist Kelly Jones, bassist and backing vocalist Richard Jones, drummer Javier Weyler, guitarist and backing...
gig ...", the paper said, "the extent of Richard Jones
Richard Jones (Stereophonics)
Richard Jones is the bassist and backing vocalist for the Welsh rock band Stereophonics, playing alongside Kelly Jones and Javier Weyler. Jones grew up in Cwmaman, an old mining village in South Wales...
' showmanship was to play his bass while standing on a rug.... this is hardly the pyjama-clad KLF, horns strapped to their heads, whizzing around the Barbican in wheelchairs with Zodiac Mindwarp in a pulpit and hundreds of sacked Liverpool dockers yelling "Fuck the millennium!" at the tops of their voices ..." Likewise, a 1999 feature on Drummond and Cauty in The Irish Times
The Irish Times
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...
reported their millennium activities with some warmth. "As a critique of the sponsor-saturated multi-million pound Millennium Dome
Millennium Dome
The Millennium Dome, colloquially referred to simply as The Dome or even The O2 Arena, is the original name of a large dome-shaped building, originally used to house the Millennium Experience, a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium...
," the editorial ran, "the 'people's pyramid' is unsurpassed."
Recounting the exploits of 2K, and the press reaction, in his book 45
45 (book)
45 is a non-fiction book by Bill Drummond, referred to by The Guardian as a "charmingly barking [mad] memoir". It collects various short stories written by Drummond between 1997 and 1998.-Content:* Forty-Five Today* The Winner Takes It All...
(published in the millennium year, 2000), Drummond said:
Formats and track listings
"Fuck the Millennium" was given an international single release on 13 October 1997. The record was not a success in comparison to The KLF's earlier chart-topping endeavours, peaking at a moderate #28 in the UK Singles Chart.All formats contained at least one version of 2K's "Fuck the Millennium" and one of Acid Brass' "What Time Is Love?". The formats and track listings are tabulated below:
| Format (and countries) | Track number | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| Cassette single | m | K | ||||
| CD single (France), 12" single | M | K | P | |||
| CD single (Japan) (inc. 4 stickers, 12-page booklet) | c | M | m | K | P | O |
| CD single (elsewhere) | M | K | m | c | ||
Key
- m – "***K the Millennium" (radio edit) (4:18)
- c – "***K the Millennium" (censored radio edit) (4:18)
- M – "***K the Millennium" (13:57)
- K – "Acid Brass / What Time Is Love (Version K)" (4:33)
- P – "Acid Brass / What Time Is Love (Version P – Royal Oak Mix)" (5:28) (remixed by Pan SonicPan sonicPan Sonic was a Finnish experimental electronic music duo consisting of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen.-Music:...
) - O – "Acid Brass / What Time Is Love (Original Version)" (4:39)
Personnel
"Fuck the Millennium" and "What Time Is Love?" were written and produced by Bill DrummondBill 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...
.
- Jeremy DellerJeremy DellerJeremy Deller is an English conceptual, video and installation artist. He is a Turner Prize winner.Deller is best-known for his Battle of Orgreave , a reenactment of the actual Battle of Orgreave which occurred during the UK miners' strike in 1984.-Life and work:Jeremy Deller was born in London,...
- Acid BrassAcid BrassAcid Brass was a musical collaboration between Turner-Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller and the Williams Fairey Brass Band. The project was based on fusing the music of a traditional brass band with acid house and Detroit techno....
concept - Williams Fairey BandAcid BrassAcid Brass was a musical collaboration between Turner-Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller and the Williams Fairey Brass Band. The project was based on fusing the music of a traditional brass band with acid house and Detroit techno....
- Acid Brass performance of "What Time Is Love?", conducted by Brian Hurdley. - Jimmy Cauty, Nick Coler and Bill Drummond - The National Retired Life Boat Men's Choral Society, conducted and arranged by Nick Coler
- Chike - credited for samples "Ancients of Mu Mu" and "Don't take five, take what you want to take", originally from 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)
- Alan Goodrick - spoken contributions
- Donald Johnson - live drumming
- Mark Manning - "ReverendThe ReverendThe Reverend is a style most often used as a prefix to the names of Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions. The Reverend is correctly called a style but is often and in some dictionaries called a...
Bitumen Hoarfrost"'s evangelicalEvangelismEvangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
narration - Rodney Newton - Acid Brass arrangement of The KLF's "What Time Is Love?"
- Mark "Spike" Stent - mixing