- The Magnificent
Song_infobox
Name = The Magnificent
Artist = the One World Orchestra featuring the Massed Pipes and Drums of the Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guard
Album =The Help Album
Released = 9 September 1995 (UK)
Track_no = 15
Recorded = 4 September 1995
Genre =Drum 'n' Bass
Length = 2:12
Writer =Bill Drummond ,Jimmy Cauty andElmer Bernstein
Label =Go! Discs Records
Producer = Drummond/Cauty"The Magnificent" is a 1995 song by the One World Orchestra (
Bill Drummond andJimmy Cauty , better known asThe KLF ), recorded for the War Child charity compilation, "The Help Album ".The song—One World Orchestra's sole release—is a
drum 'n' bass cover version of the theme from "The Magnificent Seven ", with vocal contributions from the Belgradian counter-culturist DJ Fleka ofSerbia n radio stationB92 .The track was used by B92 as a
jingle and, in 1996, it became recognised as aprotest song against the Serbian government ofSlobodan Milošević .Origins
In late summer 1995, Tony Crean of
Go! Discs Records spoke withBill Drummond about the proposed "Help Album", anot-for-profit charity LP for children affected by the Bosnian conflict. Although Drummond claimed that the duo "despised the whole idea of people in the entertainment world getting publicly involved with charity", he and his KLF musical partnerJimmy Cauty nonetheless agreed to participate.Drummond, B., "Robbie Joins The JAMs", "45", pp.226—245 (Little & Brown, ISBN 0-316-85385-2 / Abacus, ISBN 0-349-11289-4), 2000.]The turnaround time of the album's production, from its recording to its appearance in record shops, was a tight five-day schedule, with all recording to be complete by the end of the first day (4 September 1995). [ [http://www.warchild.org/Interactive_Galleries/HELPalbum/about/about.html War Child International: Help Album Interactive Gallery.] warchild.org - Retrieved: 13 March 2007.] To produce the song, Drummond and Cauty re-assembled The KLF's regular production team:
keyboardist Nick Coler, engineer Ian Richardson, and mixerMark "Spike" Stent . Cauty had for some time been entertaining the notion of covering Elmer Bernstein's theme from "The Magnificent Seven ". According to Drummond, the duo envisaged crafting this alongside the vocals ofRobbie Williams , recently sacked from the bandTake That for his wayward behaviour in the presence of thepaparazzi . Williams, however, was unavailable, holidaying inTurkey with his mother, and so due to the production deadline, this collaborative idea was abandoned.BBC Radio 1 , "K Foundation in the City", transcript of interview withBill Drummond andJimmy Cauty by DJSteve Lamacq , 6 September 1995 ( [http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=476 link] ).]An alternative vocal focus was found at short notice in
Fleka (real name Miomir Grujić), a Belgradian counter-culturist well-known in Serbia "for his involvement in a huge variety of art, music and media projects dating back to 1980 and thecommunist regime of Tito".Collin, M., "Obituary: Miomir Grujić", "The Guardian ", 25 August 2003 ( [http://www.guardian.co.uk/serbia/article/0,2479,1028976,00.html link] ).] In 1995, Fleka was a late-night DJ for the subversive independentSerbia nradio station B92 , where he was a vocal critic of the incumbent Serbian presidentSlobodan Milošević . At the request of Drummond and Cauty, the duo recorded some phrases spoken down a phone line by Fleka: "This is Radio B92: Serbia calling. Message follows", and "Humans against killing: that sounds like a junkie against dope". In return for the contribution, Drummond and Cauty agreed to visit Serbia and appear on Fleka's radio show.Fleka's words were incorporated into the track and, titled "The Magnificent", it was dispatched to Go! Discs, with Cauty and Drummond assuming the
pseudonym 'One World Orchestra featuring the Massed Pipes and Drums of the Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guard'. Although this was the first and only occasion on which the duo adopted the elaborate One World Orchestra name, [Discogs.com , [http://www.discogs.com/artist/One+World+Orchestra,+The One World Orchestra discography] . discogs.com - Retrieved: on 13 March 2007.] [However, the "Children of the Revolution" were a name associated with some earlier hits by The KLF, referring to additional performers on those recordings. See, for instance, Sleevenotes, "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)",KLF Communications KLF 005X, January 1991.] "Select" magazine commented that "it was obvious to any close observer of pop" who was behind the composition.Perry, A. and Upton, S., "Millennial Mu Mu", "Select", October 1997 ( [http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=444 link] ).]Members of "The Help Album" production team planned for the One World Orchestra track to open the album, but this idea was
veto ed by executive producer and War Childpatron Brian Eno, who considered the song "too political" for that role; instead, "The Magnificent" was placed as track 15 of the album.Crean, T. and Hall, T., in "Help" LP Diary", "Select", January 1996 ( [http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=413 link] ).]Charity and money-burning
On 5 September 1995, as the K Foundation, Drummond and Cauty presented the first British screening of "Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid".Brook, C. and Goodrick, A., "
K Foundation Burn a Million Quid ", p.150 (Ellipsis, ISBN 0-9541656-5-9), 1997.] Fielding questions from an audience oblivious to the duo's recent studio endeavours, they were asked whether they would make any more music, to which Drummond scoffed, "What do you expect us to do, go and make a jungle record?", and Cauty: "Yeah, like a jungle novelty record with some strings on it or something. It would just be sad wouldn't it? We're too old." ["New Musical Express ", "We didn't set out to make a film, we set out to burn 1 m", 16 September 1995 ( [http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=463 link] ).] When interviewed after the event by BBC Radio 1'sSteve Lamacq , "The Magnificent" was aired, and the K Foundation revealed that they were going to screen "Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid" in Belgrade's Republic Square the following week, motivated, according to Drummond, "to ask [the audience] if its ["sic"] acrime against humanity ".The film was shown as planned, powered by a
hot dog kiosk and projected on to "a pair of double-sized whitebed sheet s" held up withdrawing pin s, in the absence of a suitable screen. An audience member told the duo: cquote|InYugoslavia nobody ever dreamt of wealth because it was not an option. There were nofootball pools , no national lottery, norags-to-riches tales fuelling dreams of endless wealth. There was no need to dream of wealth, then—everybody had the same and thestate took care of your needs. According to Drummond, members of the audience applauded when Cauty obligingly burned a banknote of hyper-inflated Serbian currency.During their stay in Belgrade the duo were guests for the duration of Fleka's three-hour late-night B92 show. [Cicic, D., "Good Morning, Belgrade", "
The Independent ", 5 November 1995, "passim".] Fleka aired "K Sera Sera", in comparison to which, Drummond felt, " ["The Magnificent"] sounded pathetic. We had let the [Bosnian] children down". Nevertheless, the One World Orchestra song was donated to B92 for use as ajingle .At a subsequent screening of "Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid" for
Bradford anarchist s, Drummond and Cauty were challenged to reconcile their contribution to a charity record with their burning of a million pounds. Cauty's response was that the "The Magnificent" "was a mistake; we should never have done that." Drummond agreed, elaborating:Irrespective of the duo's regrets, "The Magnificent" was, by 1996, not just a jingle of B92 but the station's
signature tune . From this use, the song ultimately became recognised as a protest anthem of Serbia's discontented anti-Milošević resistance. [Horan, T., "Belgrade's Battle Station", "The Daily Telegraph ", 17 March 2001 ( [http://www.b92.net/media/scalling/feedback.phtml link] ).] Recalling events in his book "45", Drummond mused that "a track we recorded in a day, never released as a single, thought was crap and had forgotten about has taken on a meaning, an importance in a 'far off land' for a struggle I hardly understand."Composition
"The Magnificent" is a short composition, in keeping with the requirements of "The Help Album" 's producers. According to the album's originator, Tony Crean, "We had trouble fitting all the tracks on—I had to tell the artists not to make their tracks longer than 3 minutes 45. ... [W] hen Bill Drummond told me The KLF (One World Orchestra) track was only two minutes, it was a cert.""Select", "Help LP Diary", January 1996 ( [http://www.libraryofmu.org/display-resource.php?id=413 link] ).]
The track is a
cover version of "The Magnificent Seven" theme. Itstempo approximates that of the original tune, but whereas the original is percussively sparse, One World Orchestra's drum-oriented cover has a tempo in excess of 160beats per minute , which is typical ofdrum 'n' bass tracks."The Magnificent" features no sung vocals, but uses sampled speech throughout, in the form of Fleka's contributions and, punctuating the track at points, a male voice announcing "The Magnificent!" - this vocal sample was taken from the introduction of the 1971 release "Double Barrel" by Dave and Ansil Collins. Recurring prominently in are sounds of
machine-gun ,six shooter andartillery fire, a theme used regularly in The KLF's later singles (most overtly "What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)", "3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)" and aB-side , "America No More").Police car sirens, used in the duo's "Doctorin' the Tardis " and "Build a Fire", also feature here. Both the gunfire and the sirens are fitted to rhythmically accentuate the fast tempo.The song begins with Fleka's "This is Radio B92: Serbia calling", and launches into "The Magnificent Seven"
melody on horn and string sounds, against a backdrop of gunfire that blends into fastdrum machine patterns. During the two breaks, Fleka's "Humans against killing: that sounds like a junkie against dope" is backed first by the melody played on soft flutes, and second by a sequence of climactic string chords not present on the original theme. The speaker's separation from the listener is conveyed by the thick static interference that accompanies his words over the phone line. Fleka's sentiment—that humankind cannot control its urge to kill—offers insight into his perspective as acitizen within Milošević'sregime .Reaction
"Select" magazine called "The Magnificent" a "comic-epic cover". "
The Scotsman " retrospectively extolled One World Orchestra's "wilfully provocative" offering as the "best of all" contributions to "one of the best compilations of the 1990s". [Eaton, A., "Not Just a Charity Case", "The Scotsman (S2)", Edinburgh, 4 October 2002.]In 2002, the "
Glasgow Herald " contrasted the career of Drummond with that of One World Orchestra's desired collaborator Robbie Williams: "In the shadow of EMI's multi-million pound marriage to Williams [reportedly worth the then unprecedented sum of £80m] , Drummond's seeminglyesoteric projects make complete sense and ooze relevance". [Williamson, K., "The Pirates Have Won the War", "Glasgow Herald ", 7 October 2002.]Notes and references
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