Context
In 1986, Drummond had announced his resignation from his position as an A&R man at record label WEA, citing that he was nearly 33.3 years old (33.3 rpm being significant to Drummond as the speed at which a vinyl LP revolves), and that it was "time for a revolution in my life. There is a mountain to climb the hard way, and I want to see the world from the top... ". His first move was to record and release The Man, and an accompanying spoken-word diatribe "The Manager's Speech".
In an interview in December 1990, Drummond recalled spending half a million pounds at WEA on the band Brilliant - for whom he envisioned massive worldwide success - only for them to completely flop. "At that point I thought 'What am I doing this for?' and I got out. I did an album myself, wrote the songs in five days, recorded it in five days, and put it out on Creation Records". Creation's founder, Alan McGee, named The Man his 5th favourite LP: "Bill's my pal, but I thought his record would be crap. He gave a cassette to me and I didn't play it for ages. Then I put it on when I was in the bath one night - I nearly drowned. I laughed for about half an hour. It's the work of a complete nutter".
Drummond intended to focus on writing books once The Man had been issued but, as he recalled in 1990, "That only lasted three months, until I had an idea for a record and got dragged back into it all". Calling upon Brilliant's former guitarist Jimmy Cauty, Drummond formed The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu with whom (most notably in their later incarnation as The KLF) he was to amass considerable fame and fortune until - in 1992 - the cycle repeated itself and he quit the business once again.
Read more about this topic: The Man (Bill Drummond Album)
Famous quotes containing the word context:
“Parents are led to believe that they must be consistent, that is, always respond to the same issue the same way. Consistency is good up to a point but your child also needs to understand context and subtlety . . . much of adult life is governed by context: what is appropriate in one setting is not appropriate in another; the way something is said may be more important than what is said. . . .”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped out of—career, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)