What Time Is Love?

Album: The White Room (1990)
Charted: 4 57
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Songfacts®:

  • This song was released on several occasions by KLF, evolving through each reworking. In its original form, the track was an instrumental acid house anthem; subsequent versions with vocals and additional instrumentation, yielded the international hit singles "What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)" (1990) and "America: What Time Is Love?" (1991), both of which reached the Top 5 of the UK Singles Chart and introduced The KLF to a mainstream international audience.
  • The 1991 version featured former Deep Purple, Gary Moore and Black Sabbath vocalist Glenn Hughes, who said the recording session inspired him to kick a cocaine habit.

    "I suddenly understood that there was more to life than drugs," he explained. "I mean, the KLF guys were aware of my previous record of drug-induced unreliability but were willing to give me a chance… I did 10 vocal tracks for them in just 25 minutes, and realized that 'America' would be huge and probably my last chance to make a go of my career again. My credit on the single: 'Glenn Hughes - The Voice Of Rock' restored my confidence and was a kind of a lifeline... Drugs are for losers."
  • Scooter's 2002 UK Top 20 hit "Posse (I Need You On The Floor)" had a similar bassline to "What Time Is Love."
  • "The First Cut Is The Deepest" singer PP Arnold was a session vocalist during the late 1980s and 1990s, and her credits in this period included The KLF's "What Time Is Love?" and "3 A.M. Eternal." The American didn't get paid properly for her contributions after the controversial duo burned (literally) £1,000,000 of cash for an arts project.

    Arnold told Uncut: "I asked them that if they used anything that I did, they would give me 5%. And it's unfortunate and really annoying that they supposedly burned the money. Everybody knows it's me singing, 'KLF! Uh huh, uh huh,' but they even tried to say that wasn't the hook of the song."

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