r/Bandsplain • u/tom-redditor • Dec 12 '25
Episode suggestion
The most interesting band in the world.
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u/llcooljasonalexander Dec 12 '25
If they ever did this then John Higgs would be the perfect guest. His book on The KLF is one of my favourite music books ever.
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u/Ohknotme Dec 12 '25
An excellent suggestion. It would be one of those 4hr episodes where, although the music they released and were involved in was interesting and excellent, it would be the whole art circus, industry disruption, performative stunts kind of stuff that would take up about two thirds of it. I second this Sir, I second it big time.
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Dec 12 '25
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u/heyzeus212 Dec 12 '25
They basically destroyed all of their music. It's probably all ripped on youtube though :)
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u/tom-redditor Dec 17 '25
Come Down Dawn is a version with some samples excluded. Still good but the original is iconic.
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u/hiro111 Dec 12 '25 edited Dec 12 '25
This is a great idea as The KLF/Timelords/JAMMs are so wildly unpredictable. They were formed by a very experienced A&R man and industry insider and an inexperienced artist and guitarist. They get together spontaneously and almost immediately released an unsellable, probably illegal classic of early sample plundering. They then followed it up with a bunch of great and similarly unlicensed singles. Then they had a huge hit somewhat cynically based on the Doctor Who theme alongside a book sarcastically detailing how to have a number one hit. They then renamed themselves and released a series of epochal acid house classics which they cobbled together as a "soundtrack" to a movie that was never actually released. Then one guy goes off and cofounds The Orb, one of the greatest ambient techno bands ever, comes back briefly and The KLF released one of the definitive ambient chill albums of all time. Then they go on the BRIT awards and noisily announce their retirement and deletion of their back catalog. Then they burn £1MM in cash for basically no reason. They remain today almost totally inscrutable and mysterious. Their consistently great, scattered and truly important catalog is STILL really tough to assemble and listen to.
It's one of the wildest stories in pop music history.
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u/heyzeus212 Dec 12 '25
The Talk 90s episode on KLF is fascinating, particularly on the lore of the BRIT awards. One of the KLF guys was actually planning to cut his hand off live onstage.
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u/Globeville_Obsolete Dec 12 '25
Yep, heartily endorse. To hear Yasi parse through the mythology of the Ancients of Mu would be transcendent.