Bill Drummond - Reviews, Accolades and Criticism

Reviews, Accolades and Criticism

In 1993, Select magazine published a list of the 100 Coolest People in Pop. Drummond was number one on the list. "What has this giant of coolness not achieved?", they asked: "Like the Monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Drummond has always been a step ahead of human evolution, guiding us on. Manager of The Teardrop Explodes, co-inventor of ambient and trance house, number one pop star, situationist pagan, folk troubadour, pan-dimensional zenarchist gentleman of leisure...and then, ladies and gentlemen, he THROWS IT ALL AWAY, machine-guns the audience and dumps a dead sheep on the doorstep of the Brit Awards and vanishes to build dry-stone walls. His new 'band' The K Foundation make records but say they won't release them at all until world peace is established. Deranged, inspired, intensely cool.

Also in 1993, an NME piece about the K Foundation found much to praise in Drummond's career, from Zoo Records through to the K Foundation art award: "Bill Drummond's career is like no other... there's been cynicism... and there's been care (no one who didn't love pop music could have made a record so commercial and so Pet Shop Boys-lovely as 'Kylie Said to Jason', or the madly wonderful 'Last Train to Trancentral', or the Tammy Wynette version of 'Justified and Ancient'). There's been mysticism... But most of all there's been a belief that, both in music and life, there's something more."

Charles Shaar Murray wrote in The Independent that " Drummond is many things, and one of those things is a magician. Many of his schemes... involve symbolically-weighted acts conducted away from the public gaze and documented only by Drummond himself and his participating comrades. Nevertheless, they are intended to have an effect on a worldful of people unaware that the act in question has taken place. That is magical thinking. Art is magic, and so is pop. Bill Drummond is a cultural magician..."

In 2001, NME readers voted "the KLF's Art Terrorism" at the Brit Awards in 1992 at number 4 in the "top 100 Rock moments of all time." NME also ranked Drummond as number 17 in its 20 "Greatest Cult Heroes" in 2010.

Art Review's artworld "Power 100" listed Drummond as number 98 in 2003.

Trouser Press has referred to Drummond as a "high-concept joker"; and Britain's The Sun has called him a "madcap Scots genius".

In 2006, Drummond's book "45" was ranked 21 in the Observer's list of "The 50 greatest music books ever". Kitty Empire of the Guardian included "45" in her list of "10 best music memoirs". in 2010. "45" also features in a 2010 book list compiled by Belle & Sebastian.

BBC Radio 1 in 2006 included Drummond in a survey of "Most Punk Persons".

Julian Cope said in 2000, "I have no relationship with this guy. He burned a million pounds which was not all his, and some of it was mine. People should pay off their creditors before they pull intellectual dry-wank stunts like that."

Virgin Media ranked Drummond at number 8 in a list of "Most Eccentric Musicians" and freakytrigger.com polled him as the fourth "most intelligent person in pop".

Drummond's 1986 solo album "The Man" is among Uncut Magazine's 2010 list of "Greatest Lost Albums".