KLF is gonna rock you

On Saturday, at HMV in Bond St, while shopping with my beloved, an eighteen month search finally came to an end; I finally got hold of a copy of the mighty KLF's White Room.

For the uninitiated, it is probably fair to say that the KLF were one of the most influential bands of the last thirty years. Their unbridled musical genius was matched only by their sheer swivel-eyed madness. They mixed Gary Glitter with Doctor Who to get a smash hit summer number one, and then wrote a manual so anyone else who wanted to could do the same, guaranteeing them success in three months flat (download it here.) They got sued by Abba, wrote songs about ice cream vans, burned a million pounds on a Scottish island, had an unhealthy obsession with sheep, and announced their departure from the music business at the Brit Awards by firing blanks from a machine gun and lobbing buckets of fake blood at the front row. When they broke up they deleted their back catalogue (hence my lengthy search) in order to *encourage* their fans to copy their material. In the thoroughly dull world of late eighties pop they were utterly incendiary. Pop music is unlikely to see the same combination of situationist anarchy, wonderful music and sheer vitality for a long time.

Popjustice pay tribute here, and you can find out more here, here and here.

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