"Burn the Bastards" is a 1988 song by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs), from their second, and final before changing names, album Who Killed The JAMs?. The "bastards" of the title are copies of The JAMs first album, 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?), which Drummond and Cauty burnt on a bonfire in a Swedish field after a copyright dispute with the Swedish pop group ABBA. The song (which is based upon Sly and the Family Stone's "Dance to the Music") was released as a single, along with a separate single of remixes titled "Burn the Beat". Both singles were credited to The KLF, marking a change of name and with it a change of musical genre, from The JAMs' sample-fuelled political hip-hop to The KLF's upbeat and uptempo house music.

Early in 1987, Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond formed a musical outfit, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs), later to also be known as The Timelords and, more famously, The KLF. The JAMs deliberately invited controversy by spending a year producing incendiary electronic music that was built around plagiarised samples of other artists, underpinned by beatbox rhythms and political raps. The song "Burn the Bastards", which was the duo's final single in this mould, was inspired in part by the legal backlash of their provocative output.

Their debut album, 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?), had been investigated by the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, who in August 1987 ordered The JAMs to recall and destroy all unsold copies of 1987, for its illegal use of extensive samples from ABBA's "Dancing Queen". The JAMs journeyed to Sweden—with their unsold LPs and an NME journalist in tow—in an attempt to negotiate with ABBA. When this failed, The JAMs made a bonfire in the Swedish countryside and burnt the LPs. Back in the UK, they continued with their plagiaristic productions, which culminated with a second LP, Who Killed The JAMs?. Its sleeve depicts the 1987 bonfire, and it contains "Burn the Bastards", a sample-heavy celebration of the fire set to house music. Ritualistic burnings became a recurring aspect of Drummond and Cauty's work, including the burning of a 60-ft (18-m) wicker man during the 1991 summer solstice (The Rites of Mu), and, as the K Foundation in 1995, their burning of £1 million.

...
Wikipedia