Songoftheday 3/29/18 - They called me up in Tennessee they said "Tammy, stand by the JAMs", but if you don't like what they're going to do you better not stop them 'cause they're coming through...
from the album The White Room (1991, original version) and The Works (1992, Tammy Wynette version)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #11 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12
Today's song of the day comes from the British art-dance act the KLF, who landed a left-field top ten pop hit in the U.S. with their massive international single "3 A.M. Eternal" in the fall of 1991. In America, that was followed by the re-release of their earlier indie single "What Time Is Love?", which went top-20 on the Billboard Dance Chart in the beginning of 1991, and this time around climbed to #57 on the pop Hot 100. Meanwhile, in their native UK, the one-off single "Last Train To Trancentral" rose to #2 on their singles chart. The LP version of the track, found on the White Room set, had chants on "Mu Mu!", forecasting what would arrive as the most innovative and unexpected collaborations in the decade.
"Justified & Ancient" started out as a hook in the track "Hey Hey We Are Not The Monkees" from their first album 1987: What The Fuck Is Going On?. (You can hear it at the 2:51 mark on this video...)
The single version of "Justified & Ancient", however was a complete rework of the song both musically and lyrically, and the pair enlisted country royalty in the form of Tammy Wynette, who at the age of 50 (yes, that young and yet that experienced) was one of the biggest stars of the 1970s, with twenty country #1 hits, one of the many praises scrolled in the music video like sports stats. Instead of a reggae lullaby of the album version, or a country take like the Pet Shop Boys' collab with Dusty Springfield, "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" was an homage to her style, the "Stand By The JAMS" mix of the song was a throbbing dance music extravaganza that was so oddball but yet so amazingly fresh that many like myself were absolutely addicted to the song upon its release. The music video was so "everything including the kitchen sink" that it defied description. Tribal percussionists! Horned disguises! A huge boat! A rap middle from Ricardo Da Force! It was like a Stefon club from Saturday Night Live come to life...
I'm telling you I'm not kidding when I say this is in my top ten pop singles of. all. time.
"Justified & Ancient" became the KLF's second and final top-40 pop hit, coming one notch from reaching the top ten in March of 1992. It would be Tammy's first time in the pop top-40 since "Stand By Your Man" (which this song alludes to) in 1969. The single also crossed over to Billboard's Modern Rock radio chart, peaking at #21, while the remixes on the CD and 12" vinyl single helped it spend a week at #2 on their Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the record topped the singles charts in Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and New Zealand, and reached the top ten in their native UK (#2) as well as the Netherlands (#2), Belgium (#2), Switzerland (#2), Germany (#3), Australia (#3), Norway (#3), Ireland (#4), Spain (#5), and Canada (#8).
As "Justified & Ancient" was peaking in America, in Britain their final single as the KLF, a rework of "What Time Is Love?" as "America: What Time Is Love?", was released, and made it to #4 just as they shut down their act at the BRIT awards in a crazy performance with punk act Extreme Noise Terror that ended with simulated machine gunfire. In 1994, they pulled a stunt/artpiece where they purportedly burned a million pounds (the remains of their royalties).
In 1997, ten years after their start, Cauty and Drummond returned with yet another one-off single, and yet another retool of "What Time Is Love?", this time branded "Fuck The Millenium" under the moniker 2K. That single climbed to #28 in the UK. They disappeared again, showing up in 2017 with viral art pieces based around the "Justified and Ancient" record and their image and iconic figures.
As for Tammy, she continued to record country music up until her death in 1998 at the age of 55. Her most successful post-KLF work was her collaboration with Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn, the album Honky Tonk Angels, which was a top ten country album that peaked at #42 on the main records chart in America.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the extended mix of the song that reached #2 on the Dance Chart...
The KLF made a big impression (with Tammy singing live behind them) on Top of the Pops...
and finally, a doc about the making of the "Justified and Ancient" and "What Time Is Love" videos...
Up tomorrow: A rock legend mourns.
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