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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 (Cauty's solo work). 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.
Although the duo's early works as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs) aroused media interest, with many singles being awarded "single of the week" by various music publications,[1] Drummond and Cauty neither sought nor found mainstream chart success until the release of The Timelords' million-selling DIY release "Doctorin' the Tardis" in May 1988.[2] The KLF's single "Kylie Said to Jason", from The White Room soundtrack, was designed for chart success, but failed to reach the UK Top 100.[3] However, The KLF achieved international chart success with the string of pop-house singles that began with "What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)", and they became the internationally highest-selling singles band of 1991.[4][5]
Note that this is a not a complete list; compilation appearances of otherwise available tracks, bootleg recordings, and certain very limited edition remix and promotional singles have been excluded.[n 1]
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Studio albums
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | Certification | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK [6] |
UK Indie [7] |
AUS [8][9] |
AUT [10] |
NLD [11] |
SWE [12] |
SWI [13] |
US [14] | |||
| 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) |
|
— | 5 | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Who Killed The JAMs? |
|
— | 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Chill Out |
|
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Space |
|
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| The White Room |
|
3 | — | 5 | 13 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 39 | |
| Waiting for the Rights of Mu |
|
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "—" denotes that the release did not chart | ||||||||||
Compilation albums
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK Indie [7] | |||
| Shag Times |
|
5 | |
| The "What Time Is Love?" Story |
|
— | |
| MU[16] |
|
— | |
| Solid State Logik 1 |
|
— | |
| Solid State Logik 2 |
|
— | |
| "—" denotes that the release did not chart | |||
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| Year | Single | Artist | Peak chart positions | Certifications (sales thresholds) |
Album | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK[6][17] | UK Indie [7] |
AUS [8][9] |
AUT [10] |
IRE [18] |
NLD [19] |
NOR [20] |
SWE [12][21] |
SWI [13][22] |
US [23] |
US Dance [23] | |||||
| 1987 | "All You Need Is Love"
|
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu | — | 3 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) | |
"Whitney Joins The JAMs"
|
— | 4 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Singles only | |||
"1987 (The JAMS 45 Edits)"
|
— | 35 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
"I Gotta CD"
|
Disco 2000 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"Down Town"
|
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu | — | 5 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| 1988 | "Burn the Bastards" / "Burn the Beat"[n 2]
|
The KLF[n 3] | — | 15 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Who Killed The JAMs? | |
"One Love Nation"
|
Disco 2000 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Singles only | ||
"Doctorin' the Tardis"
|
The Timelords | 1 | 1 | 2 | — | 4 | 25 | 10 | — | — | 66 | 16 | |||
| "What Time Is Love? (Pure Trance Original)"
|
The KLF | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| 1989 | "Uptight (Everything's Alright)"
|
Disco 2000 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| "3 a.m. Eternal (Pure Trance Original)"
|
The KLF | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"Kylie Said to Jason"
|
— | 6 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
| 1990 | "Last Train to Trancentral (Pure Trance Original)"
|
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| "What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)"
|
5 | — | 73 | 23 | — | 15 | — | 14 | 23 | — | 13 | The White Room | |||
| 1991 | "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)"
|
1 | — | 3 | 7 | — | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 1 | |||
| "Last Train to Trancentral (Live from the Lost Continent)"
|
2 | — | 5 | 6 | — | 1 | 4 | 5 | 6 | — | 17 |
| |||
"America: What Time Is Love?"
|
4 | — | 40 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 57 | 10 | Singles only | |||
"It's Grim Up North"
|
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu | 10 | — | 136 | — | — | — | — | — | 26 | — | — | |||
| "Justified and Ancient (Stand by The JAMs)"[n 5]
|
The KLF (featuring Tammy Wynette) | 2 | — | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 11 | 2 | |||
| 1992 | "3 a.m. Eternal"[n 6]
|
The KLF with Extreme Noise Terror | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1993 | "K Cera Cera (War Is Over If You Want It)"[n 7] |
The K Foundation presents The Red Army Choir |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1997 | "Fuck the Millennium" | 2K (featuring Acid Brass) | 28 | — | — | — | — | — | — | 29 | — | — | — | ||
| "—" denotes that the release did not chart | |||||||||||||||
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The following tracks were remixed by The KLF:
| Year | Original artist | Song | Remix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Depeche Mode | "Policy of Truth" | "Trancentral Mix" |
| Pet Shop Boys | "So Hard" | "The KLF vs Pet Shop Boys" | |
| "It Must Be Obvious" | "UFO Mix" | ||
| 1991 | Moody Boys | "What Is Dub?" | "Kings of Low Frequency Dub Version" |
| "Dub Is What?" |
In 1989, as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, the duo produced the Moody Boys' single "First National Rapper" and its B-side, "Funky Zulu".
The following tracks and remixes were made available only on Various Artists compilation albums. Compilation appearances by tracks which were also released on an album or single are not included. Mixes for DJs and megamixes are also excluded.
| Year | Artist | Song | Compilation Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Discotec 2000 | "Feel This" | Eternity Project One |
| 1990 | The KLF | "Build a Fire (Lenny Dee Remix)"[n 8] | Energy - DJ's In The House |
| 1991 | The KLF | "What Time Was Love"[n 9] | Give Peace A Dance: A CND Compilation |
| 1995 | One World Orchestra | "The Magnificent" | The Help Album |
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The KLF
All titles credited to The KLF and released on VHS video.
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Waiting | KLF VT007. Ambient house film with an original soundtrack. |
| 1991 | The Stadium House Trilogy | Picture Music International. Video performances of "3 a.m. Eternal", "Last Train to Trancentral", and "What Time Is Love?"; and a new instrumental piece, "This Is Not What The KLF Is About". |
| The Rites of Mu | Promotional VHS only; KLF VT014. "Documentary" filmed on the island of Jura. Aired on MTV Europe, 24 June 1992. | |
K Foundation
The following K Foundation films have all had public screenings, but have not been released on any home video format.
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid | 55 minutes of footage showing the K Foundation (Cauty and Drummond) burning one million pounds. Premiered on 23 August 1995 on the island of Jura. |
| 1995 | Pissing in the Wind | Footage of Drummond, Cauty and Mark Hawker urinating into the wind. Shot on 3 November 1995 and premiered at Glasgow University on the same day. |
| 1997 | This Brick | 4 minutes of a still picture of a brick made from the ashes of the million pounds incinerated by the K Foundation. Premiered at the Barbican Hall, London on 17 September 1997. |
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| Year | Authors | Title | Publisher | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Jimmy Cauty Bill Drummond |
The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way) | KLF Publications | ISBN 0-86359-616-9 |
| 2017 | Jimmy Cauty Bill Drummond |
2023: A Trilogy | Faber & Faber | ISBN 9780571342242 |
The following KLF projects were announced but not released. Some of these, but by no means all, circulate as bootleg recordings/videos; some may not have been recorded at all.[n 10]
| Year | Format | Project | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Flexidisc | "Deep Shit (Part 1)" | Given catalogue number DS 1. KLF Communications Information Sheet 8 (1990) claimed that 500 copies had been pressed but had "never been deemed safe to release".[3] |
| Graphic novel | "Deep Shit (The Further Adventures Of The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu)" | A comic book or graphic novel drawn by Cauty (with words by Drummond) was mentioned in NME and The Face and various KLF Information Sheets.[30][31][32] | |
| Single | "Love Trance" ["Pure Trance 3"] | KLF 006. Sleeves and labels printed. | |
| Single | "Turn Up the Strobe" ["Pure Trance 4"] | KLF 007. Sleeves printed. | |
| Single | "E-Train To Trancentral" ["Pure Trance 5"] | KLF 008. Sleeves and labels printed. | |
| Single | "The Lovers' Side" ["Pure Trance 5"] | This song also featured on the unreleased version of the album The White Room (see below). | |
| 1989 | Single | "Deep Shit (Part 3)" | KLF 010R. Reportedly, 6 copies were pressed.[3] |
| Album | The White Room - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | JAMS LP4. Very different from the White Room album eventually released, this widely bootlegged recording was scrapped after the commercial failure of the single "Kylie Said to Jason".[3] | |
| Film | The White Room | KLF VT006. The KLF's road movie. A rough version was completed in 1989, before The KLF decided to film an "Outer Film" to augment it.[3] This was never completed. The "Inner Film" has been screened privately, and bootleg copies of it circulate. | |
| 1991 | single | "America: What Time Is January?" | KLF 92 PROMO 2. Unreleased remix of "America: What Time Is Love?" Small amounts of single sided promos were pressed on black and clear vinyl.[33][34] |
| 1992 | Album | The Black Room | The KLF started work on a final album, but it remains unfinished and unissued.[35] |
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- The KLF's complete discography is complex, and it contains many variants and obscure items of interest only to collectors. Limited edition and white label remix singles bearing the same basic catalogue numbers and no new songs (such as KLF 004Y, the Moody Boys and Echo & the Bunnymen remixes of "What Time Is Love? (Live At Trancentral)"); bootlegs; and overseas releases which offer no additional material to the definitive KLF Communications UK catalogue are all outside the scope of this article. Readers interested in collecting KLF Communications releases should refer to Lazlo's KLF discography (Longmire, Ernie; et al. (2020) [1998]. "Discography: The KLF (including The JAMS, The Timelords, 2K etc.)". Archived from the original on 29 February 2020.) which is the main source from which this article has been compiled.
- "Burn the Beat" was the name of an instrumental remix of "Burn the Bastards" and also the name of a separate single containing remixes of the song. The singles are credited to The KLF, but the original recording is taken from the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu album Who Killed The JAMs?. For more information see Burn the Bastards.
- Pure Trance 3 ("Love Trance"), 4 ("Turn Up the Strobe"), and the original Pure Trance 5 ("E-Train to Trancentral") were not released, although sleeves and labels were printed. "E-Train to Trancentral" and "Last Train to Trancentral (Pure Trance Original)" may be alternate names for the same recording.
- The last single by The KLF to be sold through normal retail channels.
- Limited edition, mail order-only release.
- A remix of a track from the original The White Room album.
- A short re-modelling of What Time Is Love? that bears little relation to the original track; in the words of Peter Robinson, an "explosion, followed by 99 seconds of post-nuclear rumbling".[29]
- The following unreleased singles are not listed: "Make It Rain" and "No More Tears", which feature on The White Room. "Go To Sleep" was never scheduled, and featured on the scrapped White Room album. The "Club Mix" of "Madrugada Eterna" was released on a very limited edition white label; alternate mixes were released on Chill Out and "Kylie Said to Jason". The club mix of "It's Grim Up North" (promo only). The Pure Trance LP is excluded because of insufficient sources; it was likely either disc 2 of Shag Times (sometimes called Towards the Trance) or a compilation of the not-completed "Pure Trance" series of singles.
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