Disco 2000

Disco 2000 was a British pop band, a side project of The KLF. Vocals were handled by Cressida Cauty (wife of KLF co-founder Jimmy Cauty) and June Montana, also known as Mo (former vocalist of Jimmy Cauty's previous band Brilliant). Between 1987 and 1989, Disco 2000 released three singles on the KLF Communications label, none of which entered the top 75 of the UK Singles Chart.

History

In 1981, Cressida Bowyer and Jimmy Cauty performed in the band Angels 1–5.^[2] They later married. Between 1983 and 1986, Jimmy Cauty and June Montana were members of the band Brilliant, in which Jimmy Cauty played guitar.^[3] Brilliant were signed to WEA Records by their A&R man of the time, Bill Drummond, but despite considerable investment, the act was commercially unsuccessful. Tired of his job and disillusioned with the industry, Drummond left WEA in July 1986, and some months later co-founded The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs) with Jimmy Cauty. The duo established an independent record label, KLF Communications, as a means to release The JAMs' material, and, as a side project, they dabbled in pop music with 'Disco 2000', a group fronted and vocalised by Cressida Cauty and Mo Brathwaite, who arrived from Leicester. Disco 2000's debut single, the first of three, was "I Gotta CD", released on 30 October 1987. Neither this nor its follow-ups "One Love Nation" (1988) and "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" (1989) entered the UK Singles Chart,^[4] despite the pop production sound and some publicity, including music videos for "One Love Nation" and "Uptight".^[5][6] A track entitled "Feel This" was contributed by the group to the 1989 Eternity Project One LP (assembled by former Brilliant member Martin Glover), under the name 'Discotec 2000'.

Cressida and Jimmy Cauty later set up home in a squat that also housed the KLF Communications recording studio, Trancentral.^[3] As Drummond and Jimmy Cauty dedicated themselves to The KLF, Cressida took on an organisational role for KLF Communications,^[7] in addition to design and choreography work for The KLF, and her own work as an artist.^[3]

Reviews

Reporting on a 1988 gig by Disco 2000, NME writer Barbara Ellen described Mo and Cressida Cauty as "two raucous, wicked, hideously beautiful she-cats with diamonds for brains.... For men, Disco 2000 must be like sex without the draggy chat-up scenario, Mae West without the lard, Madonna staked out in a jacuzzi looking anything but helpless."^[8]

In 1987, NME reviewer James Brown described Disco 2000's single "I Gotta CD" as "A captivating KLF offshoot from the Jamms' backing singers crammed with slogans, metal solos, Farley Jackmaster style pianos, and gorgeously rank clap-a-long choruses. Addictive."^[9] NME also considered "I Gotta CD" alongside The JAMs' "Whitney Joins The JAMs" and "Down Town" in remarking upon the "accessibility" and increasing "dance-awareness" of KLF Communications releases.^[10]

In 2005, International DJ magazine ranked Disco 2000's "Uptight (Everything's Alright)"—a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Uptight"—amongst the twenty "worst cover versions in the history of dance music": "The KLF had some brilliant ideas, but forming their own girl group and covering this classic Stevie Wonder Motown stomper wasn't one of them. The resulting lurid day-glo fusion of Stock, Aitken and Waterman pop, edit-heavy '80s house and dodgy female rap was possibly one of the worst records in the history of the world."^[11] In contrast, a retrospective piece on the work of The KLF and related acts by Trouser Press magazine called "Uptight" "entertaining" and "like Bananarama on a rap tip".^[12]

Discography

Formats and track listings

Key

References