As a middle-aged fogey, I hadn’t heard of Rock Stardom for Dumbshits so thanks for the comment. I’d be interested to see how it compares to the The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way)¹ by Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond (the KLF aka the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu aka the Timelords). I only vaguely remember reading it in the early nineties so could probably do with a re-read.
Haven't read op's comment, just wanted to +1 The Manual. I'm not a musician but it was a very interesting and illuminating read with some unconventional ideas. I'd recommend it for any creative person. KLF are worth listening to also, even though I was already predisposed to liking them thanks to being a big fan of The Illuminatus! Trilogy books they were inspired by.
The Manual is a fun read for its own sake, but the "one simple trick" turned out to be: take the backing music from one song, sample enough of the vocals from another song to have parity with the first, and merge the two. Thus: "Doctorin' the Tardis" is a mash-up of that Gary Glitter "Rock and Roll" song and the Doctor Who theme. "Whitney [Houston] Joins the JAMs" is a similar experimental medley.
Seemed to work for Fatboy Slim, Prodigy and the rest of the late-90s British DJs too. Not sure it's still a winning formula these days.
If you like all things KLF and want an interesting read, try Bad Wisdom (its sequel, Wild Highway, was "120 Days of Sodom"-level unreadable in my opinion). You'll have to find it on Libgen.
