Bound for Mu Mu Land: When Tammy Wynette Met the KLF

With their unauthorized sampling, outrageous PR stunts, and signature ice cream van, the KLF set out to blow up the music industry. Pairing electric guitars with house beats, rapping with new age lyricism, and rave culture with the art world, the mysterious U.K. duo of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty were all about breaking rules and getting away with it.

They reached their crazy sonic peak when they teamed up with country icon Tammy Wynette for the 1992 dance-pop hit “Justified & Ancient,” which became an unlikely global smash. Their response to their newfound fame? Just as fans thought they’d arrived at the fictitious Mu Mu land at the center of the song, the group abandoned music altogether and vanished, deleting their entire catalog.

In this episode, we explore the KLF’s wild rise and fall, from their doomed road trip to meet ABBA, to their infamous BRIT Awards performance in which Drummond took a machine gun and fired blanks into the audience, to their mind-boggling decision to film themselves burning their earnings—a shocking one million pounds.

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