The KLF
30 Years Of Mystery Solved:
Why The KLF Burned A Million Pounds... According to David Contreras UX
(Aug 16, 2024)
On August 23, 2024, it will be 30 years since Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, also known as The KLF, burned 1 million pounds on the remote Scottish island of Jura. With this article, I aim to explain why the current theories about their motives seem incomplete to me and what were, probably, their true reasons.
I was listening to Daft Punk on Spotify the other night (their early works from 1996, not that other band, the mass phenomenon they became a few years later), and I couldn’t help but notice the video clip on the screen. If you try listening to “Daftendirekt” on Spotify, you can watch a clip that is actually from another video (“Da funk”), featuring a classic nighttime scene of taxis on the streets of New York.
The Daft Punk - Da Funk Video as Mentioned
The video is interesting because, when watched today, it exudes a certain nostalgic whiff of the 90s. It’s one of those details that initially go unnoticed but become more evident over time. The 90s are precisely that fetish decade for me, the one I often return to, as if doing some “archaeology”: listening to music I missed back then, watching movies I ignored, reading books I never got to… all somehow like Chuck Klosterman in “The nineties”, but in an amateur way.
Just to give you an example, I recently started watching “Northern Exposure”. I remember my sister watching that show and wondering why on earth she liked it. I didn’t find it funny at all, and on top of that, it was aired at odd hours in Spain. Over time, I’ve realized that some things require a certain level of maturity to be appreciated. How many teenagers do you know who like jazz? Exactly. I understand that the goal of this “archaeology” exercise is to understand the social and cultural environment of my adolescence. I started the 90s at 11 years old and finished them at 20. Anyone who remembers that period of their life will realize how their perception of the world changes and the effort it takes to create meaning around us. Something that is not always easy, especially when you find yourself in the eye of the storm.
The philosopher Félix Guattari approached this topic from the perspective of subjectivity: the way individuals and societies experience and construct their identity and personal meaning. A process in constant transformation, influenced by multiple factors, including social interactions, technologies, or personal interests. Guattari also used the concept of rhizome: a non-linear and non-hierarchical network of connections. Unlike a tree with defined branches, in a rhizome, any point in the network can connect with any other, which promotes its fluidity and expansion.
Rhizome By DALL-E
In an environment like this (such as the current globalized world and its social networks), it is impossible to comprehend the various connections in the network, action-reaction, etc. It’s a clear example of the butterfly effect, where a small action can generate unpredictable consequences on a large scale.
Another philosopher, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, speaks of a certain magma-like chaos from which meaning and sense may (or may not) emerge. In these environments, the media shape human consciousness, desires, and a certain “planetary psychopathology” where we are easily manipulated.
In the past, we have seen how individuals trapped in an environment that defies explanation reacted through art. A wonderful example is Dadaism, a movement that emerged in 1916 and embraced chaos and irrationality. It was a response to the senselessness of World War I.
Another fascinating example, with which The KLF have been associated in the past, is Situationism: an avant-garde movement founded in 1957 with the aim of creating “situations” that challenged capitalist society and exposed the role of the media in whitewashing its degradation (among other things).
Bill Drummond (left) and Jimmy Cauty (right) Outside Trancentral
I have occasionally read that The KLF were heavy pranksters, but I think this label is superficial and inaccurate. “Situationists” seems much more appropriate to me. In fact, the most accepted theory about the burning of the million pounds is that Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty carried out this act as a ‘situation’ to criticize the commercialization of the music industry. Let us consider that the million pounds had come precisely from the sale of their music.
This theory seems especially interesting to me, as it aligns with what happened at the 1992 Brit Awards, where The KLF performed the opening act alongside the grindcore band Extreme Noise Terror, delivering a loud message (“Fuck you!”) precisely to the music industry. In this way, we could see the performance at the Brit Awards and the burning of the million pounds as two acts of the same work.
Another important detail that supports this theory is the words Bill Drummond used just before the performance: “This is television freedom!” Let us remember that situationism challenges the norms and expectations of the media, so Drummond’s words can be seen as a declaration of independence and rejection of the conventions of commercial television and the music industry, or, if you prefer, as an attempt to subvert the expected normality of such a mainstream event as the Brit Awards.
The KLF / Extreme Noise Terror — Brits ‘92
If The KLF were a situationist band, then the Brit Awards were a textbook example of Situationism. Another earlier exercise, perhaps with less impact, was their debut album “1987: What the f*** is going on?”, an album that not only tried to be provocative with its title but also captured the confusion and cultural chaos already palpable at the time: impossible mixes, noise, and above all, the use of unauthorized samples (like “Dancing Queen”), which was a real challenge to the copyright laws of the time (did anyone say Kopyright Liberation Front?). The icing on the cake was the road trip to meet ABBA in person, which ended with the burning of hundreds of copies of their album somewhere in Sweden. Another exercise in pure situationism.
Why is all this relevant? Because it shows a constant progression toward situationist exercises of greater significance and deeper questions. However, as an exercise, I believe the burning of the million pounds did not go as they expected and did not achieve its original goal. Let me explain, and for that, I base myself on two facts:
The first, like the Dadaists in the First World War, is the historical context in which they burned the million pounds. As John Higgs masterfully explained, first in his book “Chaos, magic and the band who burned a million pounds” (half of this article is based on it), and later in more detail in “Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century” (which I still have not read, to be honest), the early 90s were particularly confusing years: the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the uncontested power of the United States and its propaganda machinery, the end of grand narratives… A decade without a clear direction, a century coming to an end and another that was not yet fully taking shape, in short, incredibly confusing and contradictory years.
The second reason is that during the burning of the million pounds, they were accompanied by two more people: their friend and accidental filmmaker Alan Goodrick “Gimpo”, who filmed the event, and journalist Jim Reid, who confirmed the veracity of the acts. A year later, on August 23, 1995, they started a tour around the UK, screening the video tape “Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid” and asking the audience: “Why did we do it?”
This, to me, is the key: despite their numerous situations (we mentioned their debut album and the Brit Awards, but there are literally dozens more), they had never stopped to ask anyone, “Why did we do it?”. Although their situations were sometimes spontaneous, most were to some extent planned, later coming to understand and justify their actions within a logical framework.
In summary: if the events had occurred at another time, or above all, if they had not gone on tour (that is, if they themselves had understood the logic of their actions), I would accept the Situationist explanation and end the conversation, but given the historical context and their eagerness to find an answer, I think the reality is somewhat more subtle (drumroll):
In a confusing context of profound political, cultural, economic, and technological changes, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty were not only trying to challenge the music industry, the social order, or break free from the alienation of modern life: they also posed a question, one that had been years in their minds:
“What the fuck is going on?”
They tried to find meaning in the world around them. They tried to formulate meaning; to carry out an exercise of subjectivity in the midst of the magma-like rhizomatic chaos in which they were immersed.
How? Through another of their situations: if they could understand why they had burned that million pounds, they would come to understand anything, including the absurdity around them. The problem? As they said in another of their situations, The Rites of Mu, “Some answers are not only not needed but can never be given.” They asked the ultimate question, one for which probably no human being has the capacity to answer, as a rhizome is too complex to understand.
It was when they failed in their attempt that they sought answers elsewhere, on tour. I understand that they knew perfectly well the value of the answer to their question and were not going to give up easily.
Therefore, my hypothesis is that The KLF carried out one of the greatest exercises in meaning-making of the 20th century.
The KLF Burn a Million (£1M) Pounds — BBC Omnibus Documentary
By the way, the song I was talking about, “Daftendirekt”, has always seemed to me a perfect analogy of how meaning
can emerge from magma-like chaos. How from a simple “noise,” a melody can emerge:
“Da funk back to the punk, come on!”
About the author: David has been a fan of The KLF since 1991. On August 23, 2019,
he made a pilgrimage to the Isle of Jura to commemorate the anniversary of the burning,
probably in another attempt to formulate meaning (he failed).
He also apologizes for the clickbait title and for speaking about himself in the third person.
