scooter vs. the klf

One of the best pop/techno concept bands ever, and one I can rant happily about for hours, are The KLF. They deliberately retired at the height of their fame, they burnt a million pounds, they had Tammy Wynette singing about ice-cream vans and being both justified and ancient, they wrote The Manual about 'how to have a Number One.. the easy way', just after doing that in the UK as The Timelords in an unholy Gary Glitter/Dr.Who splice - here's a good summary.

However, one of the biggest, cheese-tastic trance/techno bands in Europe right now are Scooter, famous for sampling Supertramp (!) for 'The Logical Song', amongst a bevy of massive hits. And they _so_ rip off the KLF, partly in homage, but almost more than that. Here's a great list of similarities, courtesy of the KLF mailing-list as of Summer 2002. For example, Scooter's 'The Logical Song' includes 'The K, the L, the F and the ology' as lyrics - ok, maybe just a tribute. Scooter even named a song 'Fuck The Millenium', just as the KLF did as 2K, and an album 'Back To The Heavyweight Jam', another KLF phrase.

Sure, Scooter's sound is clearly descended from the proto-techno of the KLF, crowd noise and all, but.. Scooter's new album is called 'The Stadium Techno Experience', a phrase incredibly close to the KLF's own 'Stadium House Trilogy', and the album cover compared to the KLF's classic 'White Room' - uhm, rip-off, meet the original. Bizarre.

Oh, and one more thing - if you like Scooter, then you'll love.. the Scooter cover band, Moped, whose amazing mangling of Coldplay's 'Clocks' is currently downloadable for your delectation and mine. Love it.