"***k the Millennium", pronounced and sometimes spelled as "Fuck the Millennium", is a protest song by the band 2K—Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty—better known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (the JAMs) 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.
"***k the Millennium" was built around the KLF and Acid Brass' versions of "What Time Is Love?", and premiered at 2K's "1997 (What The Fuck's Going On?)" event at London's Barbican Arts Centre on 17 September 1997. The performance featured, amongst others, Acid Brass, Mark Manning and Gimpo, and was directed by Ken Campbell. 2K's lifespan was billed as the duration of the Barbican performance—23 minutes.
The song was released as a comeback single to mark the tenth anniversary of Drummond and Cauty's first collaborations; however, the performance and single were also in part intended to mock the notion of the comeback. "***k the Millennium" reached number 28 in the UK Singles Chart in October 1997. , the single remains the only international commercial release of music by the duo since The KLF's 1992 retirement.
Drummond and Cauty's campaign to "fuck the millennium" also involved a number of outlandish activities and proposals under the umbrella of their company K2 Plant Hire Ltd. These activities were intended to culminate in the construction of "The People's Pyramid", a structure built from recycled bricks at no cost to the taxpayer and which would have no entry fee—in pointed contrast to the UK government's Millennium Dome, construction of which had begun earlier in the year—and for people to use as they saw fit, including painting it or chipping it away. The pyramid was never built but the JAMs rebooted the idea in 2017 at their next comeback event, Welcome to the Dark Ages.
Context From 1987 to 1992, Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond 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."KLF Communications advertisement in NME, 16 May 1992. In the four years following the KLF's retirement, Drummond and Cauty's musical output consisted of only a limited edition single released in Israel and Palestine ("K Cera Cera"), and a charitable contribution to The Help Album ("The Magnificent"). Drummond and Cauty's art project, the K Foundation, disposed of the KLF's earnings, including by burning one million pounds of it, money which was originally provisionally earmarked by the duo for millennium 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."
The UK's preparations for celebrating the end of the second millennium were well underway by 1997 and had already become a hot – and controversial – political topic. Following the 1997 United Kingdom general election in May, the new Labour government agreed to go ahead with the "Millennium Experience" project, an exhibition to be housed in a purpose-built Millennium Dome, at an estimated cost of £580 million, £450 million of which would be funded by the National Lottery. Construction of the Dome began in June 1997.
Also in 1997, British artist Jeremy Deller launched his 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 excitedly 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 millennium-themed 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."Lewis, A., The Independent, 30 August 1997, Pop & Jazz section p25.
Performance
"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. The show 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.
The live performance was directed by Ken Campbell – who Drummond had first met in 1976 when he was recruited as the set designer for Campbell's stage production of The Illuminatus! Trilogy – and introduced by the music industry figure and pundit Tony Wilson. Drummond's creative associates Mark Manning and Gimpo appeared on stage as, respectively, "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". Drummond and Cauty were then unveiled as pyjama-clad, wheelchair-using pensioners with grey hair and, strapped to their foreheads, prominent horns that had been used regularly in the KLF's promotional videos. The duo wheeled around the stage in their wheelchairs, and at one point Drummond was seen plucking feathers from a dead swan. They were supported by Acid Brass playing "What Time Is Love?"; 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". A press release issued by Mute/Blast First (Acid Brass' and 2K's record label) suggested that "Two elderly gentlemen, reeking of Dettol, caused havoc in their motorised wheelchairs. These old reprobates, bearing a grandfatherly resemblance to messrs Cauty and Drummond, claimed to have just been asked along." 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". Neil McCormick, a journalist from The Daily Telegraph who participated in the event at Drummond's invitation, wrote that Cauty and Drummond's latest venture was seemingly "bizarre and outrageous" but that "they appear to have, once again, struck a chord with a lot of people". 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 and studio recording 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 track "What Time Is Love?", drawing additionally on musical refrains and concepts from throughout Drummond and Cauty's canon. The track contains three main segued 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 chants, with over one hundred instances of the word "fuck"—there are 26 instances of the word in the short "Radio Edit" alone.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 in chanting: "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).
Neil McCormick wrote in The Daily Telegraph that the single may be "noisy and confrontational" but that "it looks set to provide these pop situationists with another... hit, tapping into the fear and anxiety many people feel about the end of the century". Select journalist Mark Frith 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
Cauty and Drummond were (and, , are) directors of K2 Plant Hire Ltd, a company incorporated and registered at Companies House in 1995.