The KLF
Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds
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4.5 • 11 Ratings
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
'The best non-fiction book I've ever read. It's magical. Stunning' Dan Schreiber, No Such Thing As a Fish
'A pop biography for people who don't read pop biographies' Dorian Lynskey, Guardian
'Brilliant, discursive and wise' Ben Goldacre
'Utterly irresistible and totally brilliant' The Quietus
'A thing of endlessly fascinating, utterly demented genius' Alexis Petridis
THE STRANGE TALE OF THE DEATH, LIFE AND LEGACY OF THE HUGELY SUCCESSFUL BAND.
They were the bestselling singles band in the world. They had awards, credibility, commercial success and creative freedom. Then they deleted their records, erased themselves from musical history and burnt their last million pounds in a boathouse on the Isle of Jura. And they couldn't say why.
This is not just the story of The KLF. It is a book about Carl Jung, Alan Moore, Robert Anton Wilson, Ken Campbell, Dada, Situationism, Discordianism, magic, chaos, punk, rave, the alchemical symbolism of Doctor Who and the special power of the number 23.
Wildly unauthorised and unlike any other music biography, THE KLF is a trawl through chaos on the trail of a beautiful, accidental mythology.
Customer Reviews
7 hrs of thought-provoking escapism
Great to listen to on hikes, dog walks in the countryside or doing household chores. Listening in 2023, the most interesting aspect for me was learning about Operation Mindfxxk: sowing the seeds of chaos, confusion & uncertainty, and also the critique of the established global monetary system. As the author said, the KLF were "before their time, or in between times".
It would be great if Higgs updated the book to explore how this links to the current state of disinformation and paranoia with regards to global institutions and the rise of cryptocurrencies.
The audiobook is narrated by the author. Higgs has a dry sense of humour and a deep understanding of the topics he explores. He does an incredible job of stitching together and making sense out of movements and philosophies that are fundamentally designed to be non-sensical and confusing.
I don't recommend trying to listen if you need to concentrate on something else at the same time... it's very thought-provoking, jumps between different decades and genres, and goes into great detail about seemingly irrelevant subjects... but if you're paying attention... it will make sense - or at least - it theorises how Drummond and Cauty may have made sense of the mad world that they inhabited.
Some reviewers complain that the author did not consult the KLF, but in other interviews, the founding members have struggled to explain their own actions, are probably victims of their Discordian tendencies, and merely stumbled upwards and downwards through their careers, so I think this book benefits from a bit of distance.
The KLF clearly believed in magic and synchronicity, and the author faithfully maps out the circumstances and coincidences that shaped their career decisions.
Whether you choose to believe it or not is up to you. It's a trip you can take with them, or choose to observe from the sidelines.