{"id":1136,"date":"2017-05-10T16:50:10","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T14:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klf.de\/home\/?post_type=ufaq&#038;p=1136"},"modified":"2020-01-31T10:42:50","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T09:42:50","slug":"why-did-the-klf-retire","status":"publish","type":"ufaq","link":"http:\/\/klf.de\/home\/ufaqs\/why-did-the-klf-retire\/","title":{"rendered":"Why did The KLF retire?"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.ewd-ufaq-faq-title .ewd-ufaq-post-margin-symbol span { font-size: 16px !important; }div.ewd-ufaq-faq-categories, div.ewd-ufaq-faq-tags { font-size: 10pt !important; }div.ewd-ufaq-post-margin-symbol {\r\nmargin-top:7px;\r\n}\r\n\r\ndiv.ewd-ufaq-faq-category-title {\r\n   display: none;\r\n}<\/style><div  class=\"ewd-ufaq-faq-list ewd-ufaq-page-type-load_more ewd-ufaq-category-tabs-\" id='ewd-ufaq-faq-list'>\n\n\t<input type='hidden' name='show_on_load' value='' id='ewd-ufaq-show-on-load' \/>\n<input type='hidden' name='include_category' value='' id='ewd-ufaq-include-category' \/>\n<input type='hidden' name='exclude_category' value='' id='ewd-ufaq-exclude-category' \/>\n<input type='hidden' name='orderby' value='set_order' id='ewd-ufaq-orderby' \/>\n<input type='hidden' name='order' value='asc' id='ewd-ufaq-order' \/>\n<input type='hidden' name='post_count' value='-1' id='ewd-ufaq-post-count' \/>\n<input type='hidden' name='current_url' value='\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ufaq\/1136' id='ewd-ufaq-current-url' \/>\n\t\n\t\n\t<div class='ewd-ufaq-faqs'>\n\n\t\t<div  class=\"ewd-ufaq-faq-div ewd-ufaq-faq-column-count-one ewd-ufaq-faq-responsive-columns- ewd-ufaq-faq-display-style-one\" id='ewd-ufaq-post-1136-q551m98C0l' data-post_id='1136'>\n\n\t\t\n\t<div class='ewd-ufaq-faq-title '>\n\t\n\t<a class='ewd-ufaq-post-margin'  href='http:\/\/klf.de\/home\/ufaqs\/why-did-the-klf-retire\/' >\n\n\t\t<div class='ewd-ufaq-post-margin-symbol ewd-ufaq-square'>\n\t\t\t<span >B<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t<div class='ewd-ufaq-faq-title-text'>\n\n\t\t\t<h3>\n\t\t\t\tWhy did The KLF retire?\t\t\t<\/h3>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t<div class='ewd-ufaq-clear'><\/div>\n\n\t<\/a>\n\t\n<\/div>\n\t\n\t<div class='ewd-ufaq-faq-body' >\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<div class='ewd-ufaq-post-margin ewd-ufaq-faq-post'>\n\t<p>The official line taken at the time was that they were \u201cworn out\u201d after producing 6 hit singles and a LP over the previous 18 months, but there appear to be many other possible contributing reasons. These are documented in an excellent article in Select magazine in July \u201992 (\u2018Who Killed The KLF\u2019) which is available on the ftp archive. Mainly it seems, once you\u2019ve reached the top, it is both boring to continue having hits and a pressure to find follow-up\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>They wrote in \u2018The Manual\u2019 of the Golden Rules of hit pop song composition:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230; after having had a run of success and your coffers are full, keeping strictly to the G.R.s is boring. It all becomes empty and meaningless&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Their publicist Mick Houghton was in daily contact with them as they worked on new material in the studio, and began to get the feeling that they just didn\u2019t feel there was any point to it any more. An exhausted Drummond would come on the phone, one minute proposing grandiose plans, the next saying things like, \u201cOh God, it\u2019s terrible\u201d. \u201cThey were just desperate for ideas,\u201d says Houghton. \u201cAnd near the end Bill would ring up and say \u2018This is not working\u2019. I think he felt it had become too easy to be The KLF and rattle off the hits. It had ceased to mean anything.\u201d. In a GQ interview in 1995, Bill revealed he\u2019d almost suffered a nervous breakdown.<\/p>\n<p>Also since they had worked with Tammy Wynette and Glenn Hughes they had been plagued by washed-up singers pleading for a collaboration to revive their careers. \u201cI was in the studio,\u201d recalls engineer\/producer Mark Stent, \u201cand we had Neil Sekada phoning up, we had Sweet phoning up, we had all kinds phoning up. I mean, that\u2019s just when I\u2019ve been there\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In retrospect their attempt to shock the public <a href=\"http:\/\/klf.de\/home\/the-1992-brit-awards\/\">at the BRIT Awards<\/a> in February \u201992 can be viewed as an attempt to take the decision out of their own hands. They wanted to do something so utterly disgusting that it would deliberately ruin their career. Instead the industry viewed their stunt as just another KLF prank which made it worse.<\/p>\n<p>And finally there\u2019s the theory that they had always planned to go out at the top, so that their future output would not suffer from \u201cdiminishing returns\u201d. Kylie Said To Jason contained the line \u201cI\u2019m gonna leave this party now\u201d where party has been used by Drummond as a metaphor for the music business before. The Justified and Ancient video contains the subtitle \u2018The fall of the empire and the death of little Mu are at hand\u201d. At the end of the BRIT awards came the announcement \u201cThe KLF have now left the music industry\u201d. And Drummond wanted the announcement to be made on the 5th of May, fifteen years to the day after he entered the music industry.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-quote su-quote-style-default su-quote-has-cite\"><div class=\"su-quote-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\">The real Justified Ancients Of Mummu and the chaos are always going to be here. We&#8217;re not.<span class=\"su-quote-cite\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mydeath.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bill Drummond (Sounds, 2 Mar 1991)<\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<div class='ewd-ufaq-faq-custom-fields'>\n\n\t\n<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<div class='ewd-ufaq-faq-categories'>\n\t\n\tFiled under\n\t\n\t\tGeneral\n\t\n\t\tThe KLF (1990-1992)\n\t\n<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<div class='ewd-ufaq-faq-tags'>\n\t\n\tTag:\t\n\t\n\t\tklf\n\t\n<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>B Why did The KLF retire? The official line taken at the time was that they were \u201cworn out\u201d after producing 6 hit singles and a LP over the previous 18 months, but there appear to be many other possible contributing reasons. These are documented in an excellent article in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","ufaq-category":[175,305],"ufaq-tag":[172],"class_list":["post-1136","ufaq","type-ufaq","status-publish","hentry","ufaq-category-general","ufaq-category-klf-1990","ufaq-tag-klf"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why did The KLF retire? - KLF ONLINE<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/klf.de\/home\/ufaqs\/why-did-the-klf-retire\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why did The KLF retire? - KLF ONLINE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"B Why did The KLF retire? 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