Whitney Joins The JAMs
Encyclopedia
Release
"Whitney Joins The JAMs" was given a low-key release in the UK, initially as a run of 500 one-sided 12-inch single12-inch single
The 12-inch single is a type of gramophone record that has wider groove spacing compared to other types of records. This allows for louder levels to be cut on the disc by the cutting engineer, which in turn gives a wider dynamic range, and thus better sound quality...
s in generic monochrome KLF Communications
KLF Communications
This discography lists the key British and notable international releases of The KLF and the other pseudonyms of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. It also details the other releases on their independent record label, KLF Communications, by KLF-spinoff Disco 2000 and Space...
sleeves. The vinyl labels contained only the title and "120 bpm". Two repressings followed in 1987, both having a test tone groove B-side, with copies supplied in either a generic KLF Communications sleeve or a plain black sleeve. The single did not enter the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
, but it reached # 3 in the UK independent chart, prompting the UK television programme "The Chart Show
The Chart Show
The Chart Show is a music video programme which ran in the UK on Channel 4 between 1986 and 1988, then on ITV between 1989 and 1998. The production company was Video Visuals, and was credited as "A Yorkshire Television Presentation" from 1993 and 1998...
" to request a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
. The JAMs obliged, hiring a video camera and getting a friend to film them driving to "The Chart Show" studio in Cauty's repainted Ford Galaxie
Ford Galaxie
The Ford Galaxie was a full-size car built in the United States by the Ford Motor Company for model years 1959 through 1974. The name was used for the top models in Ford’s full-size range from 1959 until 1961, in a marketing attempt to appeal to the excitement surrounding the Space Race...
American police car. According to Drummond, "When we got there, we took out the cassette, handed it in at the gate and said 'that's your video'! The next day it was on national TV. It cost us £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
19.96". Flippantly, he concluded "Most record companies spend up to 100 grand on their vids and almost as much on lunches trying to get people to screen them." The video was remembered in 1991 by NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
, who thought that The KLF's VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
compilation The Stadium House Trilogy would have benefitted from the inclusion of the "pre-megastardom" video. The song features on neither of The JAMs' studio albums, but is included on the duo's 1988 compilation
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
and remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
album Shag Times
Shag Times
Shag Times, sometimes called Shag Times , is a UK compilation and remix double album released in 1989 by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu...
, where co-authorship credit is given to composers of works sampled in the track. Shag Times also contains an instrumental remix of the song, credited to The KLF.
Composition
The 7-minute song is progressive, funky houseFunky house
Funky house is a loose definition for a commercially oriented, disco-influenced subgenre of house music. Like most variants of house, the genre follows a traditional four to the floor house beat, and makes heavy use of synthesizers, samples and soulful vocals, although unlike in more...
, and an early example of a mash-up. It opens with quiet synthesiser drones and cymbal percussion which are soon joined by the markedly louder Mission: Impossible theme. Drummond says "'Mission impossible' we were told, she'll never join The JAMs", a point answered by power chords sampled from Whitney's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody". Drummond then begs and pleads to Whitney for around ninety seconds before the first strains of her voice can be heard. Drummond sounds ecstatic, proclaiming "Whitney Houston joins The JAMs!" and "I'm yours!".
The song develops to sample full sections of Whitney's chorus, alternating these with increasingly pronounced guitar work taken from Hayes' distinctive Shaft theme and portions of the Mission: Impossible theme complemented by piano work. Ultimately the track descends into an unrhythmic cacophone of samples.
Reviews
NME noted that "Whitney Joins The JAMs" exhibited a slicker blending of samples than the duo's previous recordings, with The JAMs moving from "crash collision" to "the art of super selective theft". "Whitney" is a "disco gun-down that is so beat-packed it will keep your boogie box high and gasping for days.", the paper wrote. "If this doesn't prove to you that dance music is moving with more energy and vitality than traditional rock then nothing will." Comparing "Whitney Joins The JAMs" to the duo's two other singles of 1987, NME also recognised that the track is "a tale of simple sample fantasy", whereas the lyrics of "All You Need Is Love" and "Down TownDown Town
"Down Town" was the a 1987 release by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu . The song is gospel music driven by house music rhythms, incorporating a sample of Petula Clark's 1964 single "Downtown".-Origins:...
", "question the inadequacies and inconsistencies of society".
The Allmusic called "Whitney Joins The JAMs" "hilarious".
Themes
The upbeat and apolitical tone of "Whitney Joins The JAMs" was similarly accented by Drummond and Cauty's subsequent work as The Timelords and The KLFThe KLF
The KLF were one of the seminal bands of the British acid house movement during the late 1980s and early 1990s....
. The song's self-referential nature—in this case concerning its own production—is also typical of much of the duo's output.
Ironically, Drummond claimed that in 1991 The KLF were offered the job of producing or remixing a new Whitney Houston album, as an inducement from the boss of her record label (Clive Davis
Clive Davis
Clive Davis is an American record producer and music industry executive. He has won five Grammy Awards and is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer. From 1967 to 1973 he was the President of Columbia Records. He was the founder and president of Arista Records from 1975...
of Arista Records
Arista Records
Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...
) to sign with them. The KLF did not accept the offer, but nonetheless they signed to be distributed by Arista in the US. Drummond said, "They sent us a copy of her current album and said: '[are] there any tracks in this album you wanna redo? We'll send her over [to] do photo sessions with you. We'll have her with a KLF T-shirt on the next video.' We got the album: complete rubbish.... But the whole concept! And suddenly we're being offered Whitney on a plate.... 'My God!'"
Davis' offer reflected the upturn in Drummond and Cauty's fortunes brought about by their decision to produce commercial music as The Timelords and The KLF. Whereas The JAMs' recordings of 1987 were at the legal mercy of the artists sampled therein, Drummond and Cauty later became able to commission the services of established performers. The Timelords' "Gary Joins The JAMs" (a version of their UK # 1 novelty single "Doctorin' the Tardis", which sampled Gary Glitter
Gary Glitter
Gary Glitter is an English former glam rock singer-songwriter and musician.Glitter first came to prominence in the glam rock era of the early 1970s...
) featured new vocals by Glitter, and he also appeared with the duo on Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
. The KLF used Tammy Wynette's
Tammy Wynette
Virginia Wynette Pugh, known professionally as Tammy Wynette , was an American country music singer-songwriter and one of the genre's best-known artists and biggest-selling female vocalists....
vocals on "Justified and Ancient
Justified and Ancient
"Justified & Ancient" is a song by British band The KLF which featured on their 1991 album The White Room but with origins dating back to the duo's debut album, 1987 ....
", and "America: What Time Is Love?" featured Glenn Hughes, prompting other established vocalists to send requests for collaborations.
In 1995, Drummond and Cauty unsuccessfully attempted to recruit Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter "Robbie" Williams is an English singer-songwriter, vocal coach and occasional actor. He is a member of the pop group Take That. Williams rose to fame in the band's first run in the early- to mid-1990s. After many disagreements with the management and certain group members, Williams...
to sing on a track they were donating to The Help Album
The Help Album
The Help Album is a 1995 charity album devoted to the War Child charity's aid efforts in war-stricken areas, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina...
; Williams was on holiday and unavailable. Drummond outlined their idea—which mirrors "Whitney Joins The JAMs"—in a chapter of his book 45
45 (book)
45 is a non-fiction book by Bill Drummond, referred to by The Guardian as a "charmingly barking [mad] memoir". It collects various short stories written by Drummond between 1997 and 1998.-Content:* Forty-Five Today* The Winner Takes It All...
entitled "Robbie Joins The Jams": "Over a mug of tea Jimmy [Cauty] and I got it all worked out. We would record our version of 'The Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven is an American Western film directed by John Sturges, and released in 1960. It is a fictional tale of a group of seven American gunmen who are hired to protect a small agricultural village in Mexico from a group of marauding Mexican bandits...
', renamed 'The Magnificent One', through Sunday night. Over the track I would beseech Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter "Robbie" Williams is an English singer-songwriter, vocal coach and occasional actor. He is a member of the pop group Take That. Williams rose to fame in the band's first run in the early- to mid-1990s. After many disagreements with the management and certain group members, Williams...
to join The Jams, and then Robbie would in fact turn up at the studio in the early hours of Monday morning and make his creative contribution to the record."
In 1997, the sample of Hayes' guitar line used in "Whitney Joins The JAMs" was reused in Drummond and Cauty's highly self-referential
Self-reference
Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding...
'tenth anniversary' single, "Fuck the Millennium
Fuck the Millennium
"Fuck the Millennium" or "***K the Millennium" is an electronic protest song that was released as a single in 1997 by 2K...
".