"The Magnificent" is a 1995 song by the One World Orchestra (Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, better known as The KLF), recorded for the War Childcharitycompilation, The Help Album, which was released to raise funds for children affected by the Bosnian War. As with the other contributions to the album, it was recorded on 4 September 1995 and released five days later. It coincided with the screening of Drummond and Cauty's film about the K Foundation's burning of one-million British pounds, and the duo fielded questions from audiences relating the subjects.
The only song released by the duo under the One World Orchestra moniker, the song is a drum and bass-styled cover version of the theme music from The Magnificent Seven, with vocal contributions from the counter-culturist DJ Fleka of Serbian radio station B92, who agreed to participate after Drummond and Cauty's original idea of Robbie Williams was unavailable. Despite the duo's dislike of "The Magnificent", it was used by B92 as a jingle and, in 1996, it became recognised as a protest song against the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević.
Origins
In late summer 1995, Tony Crean of Go! Discs Records spoke with Bill Drummond about the proposed Help Album, a not-for-profit charity LP for children affected by the Bosnian conflict. Although Drummond claimed that the duo "despised the whole idea of people in the entertainment world getting publicly involved with charity", he and his KLF musical partner Jimmy Cauty nonetheless agreed to participate.[1]
The turnaround time of the album's production, from its recording to its appearance in record shops, was a tight five-day schedule, with all recording to be complete by the end of the first day (4 September 1995).[2] To produce the song, Drummond and Cauty re-assembled The KLF's regular production team: keyboardist Nick Coler, engineer Ian Richardson, and mixerMark "Spike" Stent. Cauty had for some time been entertaining the notion of covering Elmer Bernstein's theme from The Magnificent Seven. According to Drummond, the duo envisaged crafting this alongside the vocals of Robbie Williams, recently sacked from the band Take That for his wayward behaviour in the presence of the paparazzi. Williams, however, was unavailable, holidaying in Turkey with his mother, and so due to the production deadline, this collaborative idea was abandoned.[1][3]
"Serbia calling": B92DJ Fleka was central to the composition.
An alternative vocal focus was found at short notice in Fleka (real name Miomir Grujić), a Belgradian counter-culturist well-known in Serbia "for his involvement in a huge variety of art, music and media projects dating back to 1980 and the communist regime of Tito".[4] In 1995, Fleka was a late-night DJ for the subversive independent Serbian radio station B92, where he was a vocal critic of the incumbent Serbian president Slobodan Milošević. At the request of Drummond and Cauty, the duo recorded some phrases spoken down a phone line by Fleka: "This is Radio B92: Serbia calling. Message follows", and "Humans against killing: that sounds like a junkie against dope". In return for the contribution, Drummond and Cauty agreed to visit Serbia and appear on Fleka's radio show.
Fleka's words were incorporated into the track and, titled "The Magnificent", it was dispatched to Go! Discs, with Cauty and Drummond assuming the pseudonym 'One World Orchestra featuring the Massed Pipes and Drums of the Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guard'. Although this was the first and only occasion on which the duo adopted the elaborate One World Orchestra name,[5][6]Select magazine commented that "it was obvious to any close observer of pop" who was behind the composition.[7]
Members of The Help Album production team planned for the One World Orchestra track to open the album, but this idea was vetoed by executive producer and War Child patron Brian Eno, who considered the song "too political" for that role; instead, "The Magnificent" was placed as track 15 of the album.[8]
Charity and money-burning
On 5 September 1995, as the K Foundation, Cauty and Drummond presented the first British screening of Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid.[9] Fielding questions from an audience oblivious to the duo's recent studio endeavours, they were asked whether they would make any more music, to which Drummond scoffed, "What do you expect us to do, go and make a jungle record?", and Cauty: "Yeah, like a jungle novelty record with some strings on it or something. It would just be sad wouldn't it? We're too old."[10] When interviewed after the event by BBC Radio 1'sSteve Lamacq, "The Magnificent" was aired, and the K Foundation revealed that they were going to screen Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid in Belgrade's Republic Square the following week, motivated, according to Drummond, "to ask [the audience] if its [sic] a crime against humanity".[3]
The film was shown as planned, powered by a hot dog kiosk and projected on to "a pair of double-sized white bed sheets" held up with drawing pins, in the absence of a suitable screen. An audience member told the duo:
In Yugoslavia nobody ever dreamt of wealth because it was not an option. There were no football pools, no national lottery, no rags-to-riches tales fuelling dreams of endless wealth. There was no need to dream of wealth, then—everybody had the same and the state took care of your needs.[9]
According to Drummond, members of the audience applauded when Cauty obligingly burned a banknote of hyper-inflated Serbian currency.[1]
During their stay in Belgrade the duo were guests for the duration of Fleka's three-hour late-night B92 show.[11] Fleka aired "K Cera Cera",[11] in comparison to which, Drummond felt, "["The Magnificent"] sounded pathetic. We had let the [Bosnian] children down".[1] Nevertheless, the One World Orchestra song was donated to B92 for use as a jingle.[1]
At a subsequent screening of Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid for Bradfordanarchists, Drummond and Cauty were challenged to reconcile their contribution to a charity record with their burning of a million pounds. Cauty's response was that "The Magnificent" "was a mistake; we should never have done that." Drummond agreed, elaborating:[9]
[W]e'd been told that The Help Album was trying to raise a million quid. [W]e were attracted to the idea that on one side we were doing this track for the kids, to raise a million, while we were actually on the 'other side' showing the film of us actually burning a million and asking if it were a crime against humanity. For some twisted reason we felt that was good. … [W]e phoned up [B92] and asked [Fleka] if he'd got anything he'd like to say to the world via a charity record for kids in Bosnia. … Nothing justifies the track—it was a pile of shit but it did serve as a reminder why we should never go back in the studio again—'cos we knew we were past it….
Irrespective of the duo's regrets, "The Magnificent" was, by 1996, not just a jingle of B92 but the station's signature tune. From this use, the song ultimately became recognised as a protest anthem of Serbia's discontented anti-Milošević resistance.[4][12] Recalling events in his book 45, Drummond mused that "a track we recorded in a day, never released as a single, thought was crap and had forgotten about has taken on a meaning, an importance in a 'far off land' for a struggle I hardly understand."[1]
During this middle break, Fleka's potent sentiment is set against harmonious strings and low explosions, before a crescendo of drums and a reprise of The Magnificent Seven melody.
"The Magnificent" is a short composition, in keeping with the requirements of The Help Album's producers. According to the album's originator, Tony Crean, "We had trouble fitting all the tracks on—I had to tell the artists not to make their tracks longer than 3 minutes 45. ... [W]hen Bill Drummond told me The KLF (One World Orchestra) track was only two minutes, it was a cert."[8]
The track is a cover version of The Magnificent Seven theme. Its tempo approximates that of the original tune, but whereas the original is percussively sparse, One World Orchestra's drum-oriented cover has a tempo in excess of 160 beats per minute, which is typical of drum 'n' bass tracks.
"The Magnificent" features no sung vocals, but uses sampled speech throughout, in the form of Fleka's contributions and, punctuating the track at points, a male voice announcing "The Magnificent!" – this vocal sample was taken from the introduction of the 1971 release "Double Barrel" by Dave and Ansil Collins. Recurring prominently are sounds of machine-gun, six shooter and artillery fire, a theme used regularly in The KLF's late singles (most overtly "What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)", "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)" and a B-side, "America No More"). Police carsirens, used in the duo's "Doctorin' the Tardis" and "Build a Fire", also feature here. Both the gunfire and the sirens are fitted to rhythmically accentuate the fast tempo.
The song begins with Fleka's "This is Radio B92: Serbia calling", and launches into The Magnificent Seven melody on horn and string sounds, against a backdrop of gunfire that blends into fast drum machine patterns. During the two breaks, Fleka's "Humans against killing: that sounds like a junkie against dope" is backed first by the melody played on soft flutes, and second by a sequence of climactic string chords not present on the original theme. The speaker's separation from the listener is conveyed by the thick static interference that accompanies his words over the phone line. Fleka's sentiment—that humankind cannot control its urge to kill—offers insight into his perspective as a citizen within Milošević's regime.
Reception
Select magazine called "The Magnificent" a "comic-epic cover". The Scotsman retrospectively extolled One World Orchestra's "wilfully provocative" offering as the "best of all" contributions to "one of the best compilations of the 1990s".[13]
In 2002, the Glasgow Herald contrasted the career of Drummond with that of One World Orchestra's desired collaborator Robbie Williams: "In the shadow of EMI's multi-million pound marriage to Williams [reportedly worth the then unprecedented sum of £80m], Drummond's seemingly esoteric projects make complete sense and ooze relevance".[14]
↑ However, the "Children of the Revolution" were a name associated with some earlier hits by The KLF, referring to additional performers on those recordings. See, for instance, Sleevenotes, "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)", KLF Communications KLF 005X, January 1991.
K Foundation Burn a Million Quid was a work of performance art executed and filmed on 23 August 1994 in which the K Foundation, an art duo consisting of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, burned £1 million in the back of a disused boathouse on the Ardfin Estate on the Scottish island of Jura. The money represented the bulk of the K Foundation's funds that had been previously earned by Drummond and Cauty as the KLF.
William Ernest Drummond is a Scottish artist, musician, writer, and record producer. He was a co-founder of the late-1980s avant-garde pop group the KLF and its 1990s media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation, with which he famously burned £1 million in 1994. More recent art activities, carried out under Drummond's banner of Penkiln Burn, include making and distributing cakes, soup, flowers, beds, and shoe-shines. More recent music projects include No Music Day and the international tour of a choir called The17. Drummond is the author of several books about art and music.
James Francis Cauty, also known as Rockman Rock, is an English artist and musician, best known as one-half of the duo The KLF, co-founder of The Orb and as the man who burnt £1 million.
The 1994 K Foundation award was an award given by the K Foundation to the "worst artist of the year". The shortlist for the £40,000 K Foundation award was identical to the shortlist for the well-established but controversial £20,000 Turner Prize for the best British contemporary artist. On the evening of 23 November 1993, Rachel Whiteread was presented with the 1993 Turner Prize inside London's Tate Gallery, and the 1994 K Foundation award on the street outside.
The K Foundation was an art foundation set up by Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, formerly of The KLF, in 1993, following their 'retirement' from the music industry. The Foundation served as an artistic outlet for the duo's post-retirement KLF income. Between 1993 and 1995, they spent this money in a number of ways, including on a series of Situationist-inspired press adverts and extravagant subversions in the art world, focusing in particular on the Turner Prize. Most notoriously, when their plans to use banknotes as part of a work of art fell through, they burned a million pounds in cash.
Chill Out is the third studio album by British electronic music group The KLF, released on 5 February 1990. It is an ambient-styled concept album featuring an extensive selection of samples, portraying a mythical night-time journey throughout the U.S. Gulf Coast states, beginning in Texas and ending in Louisiana. Chill Out was conceived as a continuous piece of music, with original KLF music interwoven with samples from songs by Elvis Presley, Fleetwood Mac, Acker Bilk, Van Halen, 808 State and field recordings of Tuvan throat singers.
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. In the United Kingdom—their home country—Drummond and Cauty released six albums and a wide array of 12 " singles on KLF Communications. In other territories their material was typically issued under licence by local labels.
1987 is the debut studio album by British electronic band The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, later known as the KLF. 1987 was produced using extensive unauthorised samples that plagiarised a wide range of musical works, continuing a theme begun in the JAMs' debut single "All You Need Is Love". These samples provided a deliberately provocative backdrop for beatbox rhythms and cryptic, political raps.
Who Killed The JAMs? is the second studio album by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, and the final one under the JAMs moniker before renaming themselves The KLF. Similar in style to the preceding 1987 , the album is a fusion of hip hop, drum machines and samples of a diversity of musical works, although in general the samples are more covertly integrated here than they are in 1987.
"Justified & Ancient" is a song by British band The KLF. It was featured on their 1991 album, The White Room, but its origins date back to the duo's debut album, 1987 .
Shag Times is a UK compilation and remix double album released in 1989 by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The album also introduced Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty's new incarnation – and one which would become considerably more famous – The KLF.
"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. The song was an amalgam of Jay Livingston/Ray Evans's "Que Sera, Sera " and John Lennon/Yoko Ono's "Happy Xmas ".
"Whitney Joins the JAMs" is a song and 1987 single by the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The song, released on the JAMs' independent label KLF Communications, is built around plagiarised samples of Whitney Houston in which—thanks to studio technology—she "joins the JAMs".
"Down Town" was a 1987 release by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The song is gospel music driven by house music rhythms, incorporating a sample of Petula Clark's 1964 single "Downtown".
The KLF are a British electronic band formed in London in 1987. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty began by releasing hip hop-inspired and sample-heavy records as the JAMs. As the Timelords, they recorded the British number-one single "Doctorin' the Tardis", and documented the process of making a hit record in a book The Manual . As the KLF, Drummond and Cauty pioneered stadium house and, with their 1990 LP Chill Out, the ambient house genre. The KLF released a series of international hits on their own KLF Communications record label and became the biggest selling singles act in the world in 1991.
"Fuck the Millennium", sometimes spelled "***k the Millennium", is a protest song by the band 2K—Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty—better known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu or the KLF. The song was inspired musically by Jeremy Deller's "Acid Brass" project, where a traditional brass band plays acid house classics; these include the KLF's "What Time Is Love?". They were also inspired topically by the then-forthcoming end of the second millennium and the plans to celebrate it.
"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 before changing names, album Who Killed The JAMs?. The "bastards" of the title are copies of The JAMs first album, 1987 , which Drummond and Cauty burnt on a bonfire in a Swedish field after a copyright dispute with the Swedish pop group ABBA. The song 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.
2023: A Trilogy is a book by Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond writing as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. The book was published in 2017, 23 years after the duo had burnt one million British pounds they earned in the music industry as The KLF.
Welcome to the Dark Ages was a three-day event organised by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, held in Liverpool in August 2017. The event heralded a revival of the creative partnership between Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, under the name with which they first recorded and released music together in 1987. The duo had last worked together in 1997, when, as 2K, they staged an art performance and released a single, "Fuck the Millennium", and, as K2 Plant Hire Ltd, hatched a plan to build a "People's Pyramid" to celebrate the new millennium.
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