One of the cornerstones of The KLF’s history, and a departure from their previous sample-riddled output as The JAMs and their brief pop detour as The Timelords. Instead What Time Is Love embraced the emerging rave scene and the style of music it brought along with it.
What Time Is Love was meant to kick off The KLF’s Pure Trance series but failed to gain significant recognition in the UK at first, not least due to a self-imposed lack of promotion from both the band and their publisher.
However, while Bill and Jimmy were busy shooting The White Room their ’15 minutes single’ slowly grew into a hit single in European clubs.
The ever growing list of cover versions popping up all over the place would eventually lead to The KLF compiling them onto their own What Time Is Love Story mini LP later.
To this day the original version of What Time Is Love? seems to remain the duo’s proudest moment as The KLF.
Reviews
Tracks & Formats
KLF 004T
| 12″ Single / 17 Oct 1988 | ||
| A | What Time Is Love? (Mix 1) | 7:05 |
| B | What Time Is Love? (Mix 2) | 7:00 |
There are no official mix names stated anywhere on the sleeve or labels, though according to the master cassette inlay they are the “Original” and “Sub Bass Acid” mix respectively. Later releases including the A-side mix usually labeled it as the “1988 Pure Trance Original” (or simply “Original”) as well.
If you trying to get both remixes on ONE CDS, watch out for the austrian WTIL “Power Remix” CDS:
CDS ( GiG Records – 9031-72897-2) features:
1 What Time Is Love (7″ Remix) (Remix – Jürgen Koppers) 3:54
2 What Time Is Love (Pure Trance 1 Side A Mix) 7:08
3 What Time Is Love (Pure Trance 1 Side B Mix) 7:05
Tracklist claims it includes the full length Power Remix and only one of the Pure Trance mixes but the above tracklist is indeed correct. For all the confusion the Power Remixes have caused this is actually a worthy “mispress”, though a rather pricey one as well.
According to the Rites Of Mu fansite, the names of both mixes have been officially stated as this according to a master-cassette with unedited versions of the Primal and Techno Slam mixes and the Monster Attack mix.
A-side: Original Mix
B-side: Sub Bass Acid Mix
Should these be added or not?
They should and they have been. 🙂
Just to note, the actual main riff is from Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Webber, notably Judas Death and The Thirty-Nine Lashes. Or did they get the riff from Anne Clark’s track ‘Our Darkness”. Although i think Bill mentioned the nicked the riff from Jesus Christ Superstar.
Not sure whether they ever actually admitted nicking the riff on purpose or it just crawled out from their subconscience. It’s certainly a striking resemblance, though.
Amazing a website devoted to The KLf, and yet you don’t know anything about where the riff from What time is love originally came from, almost laughable!
I used to correspond with The KLF way back in early 1988 just after Shag times was released, mainly Cressida did all the mail correspondence, either handwritten or typed. Bill said the riff came from Jesus Christ Superstar! it’s also mentioned by Lazlo Nibble.
We do know, but even in that interview Bill claims it merely happened by accident. There isn’t a single source that says they knowingly ripped the riff liked they sampled “Dancing Queen” for example.
I recently worked out that a riff in a turkish record I bought is also from Jesus Christ Super Star. Neşe Karaböcek – Yali Yali. (get me!) I was just trying to work out where the string part is from on What Time Is Love… the arpeggio synth string bit towards the end. I’m thinking it’s from a film score, any ideas? The melody has haunted me for years
The riff is from ‘our darkness’, obviously.
Apparently she nicked it from Andrew Lloyd Webber as well then.
i love the klf. i am fan since 1988 minimum. i got me 1st vinyl by you in berlin bu i forgot what year… i want to play the what time is love pure trance 1 digital. do you sell this release digitaly on bandcamp or so? i don’t want to dwnld it from YT . you know what i mean. let me know what you think. big hugs from berlin
On the Architecture of Our Memory
The other day I stood in front of the house where we first… well. They’ve turned it into a hotel. A deluxe suite on the top floor. I felt like a visitor in my own past, as if I were looking through a pane of glass at a life that once belonged to me. My heart was in the raw, unfinished room we knew—where everything mattered and nothing did at the same time.
In my head, The KLF’s “Pure Trance” mix from 1988 was playing. It wasn’t the polished radio version that became a global hit, but the original, rough recording that hit the core of our world. It was the soundtrack to those club nights where the feeling of finally being home was carried by a raw, unfiltered energy. That’s exactly what your entrepreneurial spirit was like back then. Uncompromising and powerful, long before it became a product.
Like The KLF with their “Kopyright Liberation Front,” we wanted to rewrite the rules. You turned that anarchy into an empire, but even your raw idea eventually became “Stadium House”—commercialized, polished for the masses.
Now I see our life together. Our past has become a hotel that anyone can rent. Our story is sold to anyone who walks into a restaurant on the ground floor. I feel no nostalgia for the success that made all of this possible. My longing is for that unfinished room and the feeling of when only the two of us knew what truly mattered.
But our journey isn’t over. We took the raw and shaped something new from it: our family. We celebrated our “Vivaha” to give the chaos a home. And now we stand before the baptism.
When The KLF burned their money, it was a message to the world: True value isn’t in wealth. Our legacy isn’t in the deluxe suites we can afford today. It lies in the values we pass on to our children. It’s the foundation on which they will build their own lives. That is the essence of the baptism for me. It’s a story that the hotel can’t buy.