"3 a.m. Eternal" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Pure Trance Original (005T) cover
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Single by The KLF | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
from the album The White Room | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Released | May 1989 (Pure Trance 2) 7 January 1991 (Live at the S.S.L.) January 1992 (The KLF vs ENT version) |
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Format |
12" (Pure Trance Original) 7" (The KLF vs ENT version) |
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Recorded | Trancentral | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Genre | Dance, hip hop, house | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Length | 5:55 (Pure Trance Original) 5:50 (Live at the S.S.L.) 2:43 (The KLF vs ENT version) |
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Label | KLF Communications (UK) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Writer(s) | Jimmy Cauty, Bill Drummond | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Producer(s) | Drummond/Cauty | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The song features Maxine Harvey on vocals
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12" (Pure Trance Original)
"3 a.m. Eternal" is a song by the British acid house group The KLF. Numerous versions of the song were released as singles between 1989 and 1992. In January 1991, an acid house pop version of the song became an international top ten hit single, reaching number-one on the UK Singles Chart and number five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and leading to The KLF becoming the internationally biggest-selling singles band of 1991. When, the following year, The KLF accepted an invitation to perform at the 1992 BRIT Awards ceremony, they caused controversy with a succession of anti-establishment gestures that included a duet performance of "3 a.m. Eternal" with the crust punk band Extreme Noise Terror, during which The KLF co-founder Bill Drummond fired machine-gun blanks over the audience of music industry luminaries. A studio-produced version of this song was issued as a limited edition mail order 7" single, the final release by The KLF and their independent record label, KLF Communications.
The original 1989 12" single release constituted the second of The KLF's "Pure Trance" series. There were two issues, numbered 005T (pink writing on a black sleeve, with two KLF mixes) and 005R (black writing on a pink sleeve, with four more mixes, including remixes by The Orb and The Moody Boys).