Hear Me Out: It’s now clear that ‘Justified & Ancient’ was the most innovative single of the 1990s
A stadium house stomper about an esoteric cult of chaos’ path to a mythic continent via an ice cream van scored by African chorals, rap bombast and one of Nashville country’s biggest names shouldn’t have reached number two in the UK Singles chart, robbed of the top spot only due to Freddie Mercury’s death and the rerelease of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. However 1991 was a strange time in British music, largely down to the brilliantly daft DJs-come-pranksters The KLF and their subversive twist on the pop world.
Both members were already veterans of the music industry by the time they started collaborating. Bill Drummond had experience in A&R and, at points, had managed Echo & the Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes, and Jimmy Cauty played guitar with post-punk outfit Brilliant—signed by Drummond to WEA Records. Wrapped in KLF lore, but upon turning 33⅓ years old, Drummond was struck with an epiphany and decided it was time for a ‘revolution’ in his life and abandoned his cushty A&R gig. After 1986’s The Man solo record and considering a career as a novelist, he realised his true calling: hip-hop. Calling his old mate Causey, they began cutting their first single under the moniker The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu.
Deep-diving into hip-hop and house’s rich sampling culture also found the pair in the storm of copyright controversy, their debut 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) withdrawn by ABBA’s lawyers due to the unlicensed use of ‘Dancing Queen’. Following their novelty mash-up of Gary Glitter and Doctor Who as The Timelords, Drummond and Cauty moved away from the sampling collages and toward a dance extravaganza of grand, absurdist theatre that still managed to become one of the best-selling dance acts of the early 1990s.
Having been heard in various incarnations before its definitive release, from lyrical motifs on 1987’s ‘Hey Hey We Are Not the Monkees’ to The White Room‘s ambient chill sung by reggae artist Black Steel, November 1991’s ‘Justified & Ancient (Stand by the JAMs)’ encapsulates everything innovative and cartoonishly thrilling about The KLF at their creative and cultural peak. The inventive genius lies less in the compositions or technical craft behind the fantastical dance piece.
An assemblage of recognisable Eurodance sound fonts is expertly pieced together with syrupy strings, club-thumping drum beats and an ostentatious wah guitar bouncing off cheesy piano claps. So far, so KLF. Its magic lies in the artful deconstruction of pop itself. Crashing into the senses with dizzying power, ‘Justified & Ancient (Stand by the JAMs)’ arrives as a high-art, low-culture piece of pop art pastiche, celebrating the 20th century’s greatest musical art form while also slathered in highly flammable doses of irreverence.
Its masterstroke is country legend Tammy Wynette’s Tennesse vocals. Sung without a break of character, Wynette’s stirring narrative of the titular Justified & Ancient cabal and their ice cream voyage to the Mu Mu Valhalla drapes the entire affair into a weirdly affecting stir that pulls the cut just enough away from complete bloated lunacy. Recorded in Nashville with Drummond himself, Wynette knew she wanted to be involved despite confusion around its lyrics. “I didn’t understand what some of the words meant. I know about ice cream vans, but I’d never heard of a 99 before,” she told NME. “Bill explained it to me, and now it makes perfectly good sense. I’m still not sure about Justified and Ancient, though”.
Aided by its equally spectacular video and providing Top of the Pops with one of its finest moments, The KLF had unleashed a monster single that still towers in pop legend with its sheer Technicolor force. ‘Justified & Ancient (Stand by the JAMs)’ flexed art, parody, and deception while never whiffing of glib, calculated irony that would befall later imitators, sheer joy at its heart amid the circus japery.
Enjoying a new echelon of commercial success, The KLF characteristically called it a day by releasing 1992’s ‘3 AM Eternal’ with grindcore band Extreme Noise Terror, played that year’s Brit Awards, including firing machine gun blanks into the crowd and leaving a dead sheep on the steps of the industry social that evening. Following their burning of £1million in cash in 1994, they deleted their back catalogue and kept low profiles in the art world from then. With their work only made available to stream in 2021, ‘Justified & Ancient (Stand by the JAMs)’ and the rest of The KLF’s innovative stamp on UK pop can now be enjoyed by a new generation with equal parts glee and disbelief as the world did over 30 years ago.
