Fuck The Millennium - Themes

Themes

Drummond and Cauty's works were both highly self-referential and rife with references to The Illuminatus! Trilogy esoteric novel, from which The JAMs took their name. Their last work, as 2K and K2 Plant Hire, continued many of these themes. Their subversive attitude was exhibited in their attempt to undermine the pop comeback. They defaced a wall of the National Theatre the day after the Barbican performance: the graffiti "1997: What the fuck's going on?" referenced their similar graffiti of ten years earlier on the same wall of the arts establishment. The unusual show at the Barbican was typical of their previous confusing and humorous costumed appearances; moreover, the horns strapped to their foreheads were previously used in The KLF's cowl costumes. The advertising campaigns before and after the single's release resumed Drummond and Cauty's characteristic promotional tactic of cryptic, monochrome full-page adverts placed in UK national newspapers and music press.

The duo's tenth anniversary was prominently implied by the adverts and graffiti, and "Fuck the Millennium" contains many samples from their earliest works. The KLF's "What Time Is Love?"—a breakthrough track for Drummond and Cauty on two occasions—is also used extensively: "Fuck the Millennium" contains the entirety of "What Time Is Love? (Pure Trance Original)", as well as samples used in "What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)".

Seafaring was a recurring element of Drummond and Cauty's output, in lyrics from Who Killed The JAMs?, The White Room and "America: What Time Is Love?", and in imagery used to illustrate The KLF's retirement press notice. Prior to entering the music business, Drummond had worked as a trawlerman. Samples of evangelists also feature in several KLF Communications recordings: the album Chill Out and the B-sides "What Time Is Love? (Virtual Reality Mix)" and "America No More". "Fuck the Millennium" was a studio track promoted as a live recording and featuring sampled crowd noise, as were The KLF's self-named "Stadium House Trilogy" of singles. The use of an English hymn is central to The JAMs' "It's Grim up North". All of The KLF's chart singles either refer or allude to time, a theme continued by "Fuck the Millennium".

2K's lifespan was billed as the duration of the Barbican performance, 23 minutes. The number is given numerological significance in The Illuminatus! Trilogy. The "Fuck the Millennium" sleevenotes state that "The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu appear courtesy of The Five", a reference to the five Illuminati leaders of the novels. Drummond and Cauty took The JAMs' name from the fictional cult in Illuminatus!, wherein the fictional JAMs are long-standing enemies of the Illuminati. K2 Plant Hire's "The People's Pyramid" recalled Drummond and Cauty's "Pyramid Blaster" logo (a ghetto blaster suspended in front of a pyramid), itself a reference to the all-seeing eye icon used in Illuminatus!.

Although the references to Illuminatus! and themselves were in keeping with Drummond and Cauty's tradition, this was also in part intended to be a self-parodying dredge of The KLF's "myth". Drummond's opinions of the "rock 'n' roll comeback" were recorded by him at the time and aired in 2000: "The history of rock 'n' roll has been littered with pathetic comebacks.... No comeback has ever worked. The motivation behind the comeback has never and will never be the same as when the group or artist first crawled out of their sub-cult.... If there was fresh original talent, it is now tired and tested, only capable of flicking the nostalgia switch." Designing 2K's parody of the comeback, Drummond wrote that he and Cauty were "getting totally into the institution of The Comeback, drawing on the sad, pathetic nature of the whole thing, the desperation of all concerned to exploit whatever they can from the myth...".