Power Rangers (film)

Power Rangers (or Saban's Power Rangers) is a 2017 American superhero film based on the franchise of the same name (itself based on the Super Sentai franchise), and directed by Dean Israelite from a screenplay by John Gatins. It is the third installment in the Power Rangers film series, and is a reboot that loosely adapts "Day of the Dumpster", the pilot episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The film features the main characters of the television series with a new cast, starring Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Becky G, Ludi Lin, Bill Hader, Bryan Cranston, and Elizabeth Banks. The film follows a group of teenagers who gain newfound powers, and must use them to protect Earth from an ancient reawakened threat. Franchise creator Haim Saban returned to produce the film under his investment firm.

Power Rangers premiered in Berlin, Germany on March 17, 2017, and was released in the United States on March 24 by Lionsgate Films. It was met with mixed reviews, with criticism primarily focusing on its uneven tone, product placement and divergences from its source material while praise was directed at its performances, visual effects, and musical score. It was also a box-office bomb, grossing \$142 million worldwide against a budget between \$100‒105 million. The film was intended to launch a film series with multiple sequels, but all plans were cancelled due to its commercial failure, leading Saban to sell the franchise rights to Hasbro. Another reboot is in development.

## Plot

In the Cenozoic era, a team of warriors known as the Power Rangers are tasked with protecting life on Earth and the Zeo Crystal. The Green Ranger, Rita Repulsa, betrays them and plans to dominate the universe. The Red Ranger, Zordon, survives Rita's attack and hides five of the Power Coins. He orders Alpha 5, his robotic assistant, to perform a meteor strike that kills him, the dinosaurs, and sends Rita to the bottom of the sea, foiling her scheme.

Sixty-five million years later in the town of Angel Grove, high school football star Jason Scott is dismissed from the team and placed under house arrest after a prank led to a car crash while escaping the police. In detention, he encounters autistic class nerd Billy Cranston and former cheerleader Kimberly Hart. Billy is placed in detention after experimenting explosives using his lunchbox while Kimberly is placed in detention for cyberbullying. After defending Billy from a bully, Billy offers to deactivate Jason's ankle monitor for help at an old gold mine that evening. Once there, Jason leaves to explore and runs into Kimberly. Billy detonates explosives to break some rock, attracting the attention of Jason, Kimberly and nearby students Trini Kwan and Zack Taylor. The five discover the Power Coins and each take one. While escaping mine security, their car is hit by a train. The five find themselves at home Monday morning and discover that the coins have granted them superhuman abilities. Elsewhere, Rita's body is found. Waking, she goes on a rampage, hunting pieces of gold to raise her minion Goldar to find the Zeo Crystal.

The five teenagers return to the mine and discover an ancient spaceship where they meet Alpha 5 and Zordon's consciousness. They inform the teenagers about the Rangers' history and Rita, warning that they have less than two weeks until Rita has her full power, finds the Zeo Crystal, and uses it to destroy life on Earth. Zordon pleads with Jason to convince the team to help.

The five spend the next week training against simulated Putties and trying to morph, to little success. To inspire the Rangers, Alpha reveals the Zords. Zack takes his Zord out for a joyride and almost kills the other Rangers when he crashes it. This angers Jason, and they fight. While trying to separate the two, Billy spontaneously morphs. However, when he becomes conscious of it, the armor disappears. Angered at their lack of progress, Zordon dismisses the group. Jason returns to the ship to confront Zordon and discovers that once the Rangers morph, it will open the Morphing Grid and allow Zordon to restore himself to a physical body. Feeling betrayed, Jason accuses Zordon of bringing the team together for the sole purpose of escaping the Grid. That night, the team camp at the mine and bond with each other.

Later that night, Rita attacks Trini and orders her to bring the Rangers to the docks. Trini informs them about Rita and they arrive to fight but are quickly defeated. Rita forces Billy to reveal the location of the Zeo Crystal, which he figured out is under a Krispy Kreme, kills him, and releases the others. The Rangers take Billy's body to the ship and ask Zordon to resurrect him, but he says he is unable to do so. The Rangers agree they would give their lives for each other and resolve to defeat Rita. In doing so, they unlock the Morphing Grid. Zordon revives Billy, sacrificing ever being able to restore his physical self. With the team restored and confident, the Rangers morph into their armor.

Rita creates Goldar, raises an army of Putties, and attacks Angel Grove to find the Zeo Crystal. The Rangers battle the Putties and head to Angel Grove in their Zords. After the Rangers destroy the Putties, Goldar pushes the Rangers and their Zords into a fiery pit. In the pit, the Zords combine and form the Megazord. Rita merges with Goldar. The Rangers battle and destroy Goldar. After refusing Jason's offer to surrender, a defiant Rita tells the Rangers that more will come for the Zeo Crystal and leaps at the Megazord only to be slapped into space. The Rangers are praised as local heroes, and with Rita defeated, they return to their normal lives while keeping their new powers.

Back at school, the teacher announces that Tommy Oliver will be joining them, but the desk is empty save for a green jacket.

## Cast

### Power Rangers

- Dacre Montgomery as Jason Scott, the Red Ranger and leader of the team. Jason was Angel Grove High's star quarterback, until a failed prank led to a run-in with the law, followed by his removal from the AGHS football team.
- Naomi Scott as Kimberly Hart, the Pink Ranger. A cheerleader at Angel Grove High, until being dropped from the squad for cyberbullying (she spread a private image of her friend around school).
- RJ Cyler as Billy Cranston, the Blue Ranger. An autistic loner, and a target of frequent harassment by fellow student Colt Wallace.
- Becky G as Trini Kwan, the Yellow Ranger. A new girl in town, struggling to make friends, she has difficulty relating to her family. She also questions her own sexual orientation.
- Ludi Lin as Zack Taylor, the Black Ranger and second-in-command of the team. Zack's mother has been ill for some time, and his greatest fear is returning home one day to find her dead.

### Allies

- Bill Hader as the voice of Alpha 5, the robot assistant to Zordon.
- Bryan Cranston as Zordon, the Power Rangers' mentor and the former Red Ranger. Zordon lived millions of years ago before his consciousness became a part of the Morphing Grid at the time of his death.

### Villains

- Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa, the former Green Ranger who went rogue and killed her old team before being subdued by Zordon for millions of years. She works to form the monster Goldar while attempting to steal the Zeo Crystal, an artifact that channels the Morphing Grid, a dimension that gives the Power Rangers their powers.
- Fred Tatasciore as the voice of Goldar, a gigantic winged monster made of gold.
  - Tatasciore also provides the vocal effects of the Putties who are depicted as stone golems that can be made from any Earth element.

### Supporting

- David Denman as Sam Scott, Jason's father.
- Caroline Cave as Beverly Scott, Jason's mother.
- Anjali Jay as Maddy Hart, Kimberly's mother.
- Robert Moloney as Ted Hart, Kimberly's father.
- Patrick Sabongui as Mr. Kwan, Trini's father.
- Erica Cerra as June Kwan, Trini's obsessive mother.
- Kayden Magnuson as Pearl Scott, Jason's sister.
- Fiona Fu as Mrs. Taylor, Zack's mother.
- Morgan Taylor Campbell as Harper
- Sarah Grey as Amanda Clark
- Emily Maddison as Rebecca
- Wesley MacInnes as Colt Wallace, the school bully at Angel Grove High. His favorite victim is Billy.
- Jaime Callica as Officer Bebe
- Matt Shively as Damo
- Garry Chalk as Captain Bowen.
- Fiona Vroom as Fenix Saleswoman
- Drew Ray Tanner as Young Lover
- Sophie Lui as Television Anchor
- Lisa Berry as Candace Cranston, Billy's mother.

Jason David Frank and Amy Jo Johnson, two of the cast members of the original TV series, make cameo appearances as Angel Grove citizens.

## Production

### Development

Saban Capital Group and Lionsgate Films announced the film in May 2014, with Roberto Orci originally attached to produce. Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz were hired to write the film's script. When theirs was rejected, another script was proposed by Max Landis, which was also turned down as the studio wanted a grittier tone. Orci eventually left the project to work on Star Trek Beyond (2016). In April 2015, TheWrap reported that Dean Israelite was in negotiations to direct the film. Israelite told IGN in an interview that the film would be "completely playful, and it needs to be really fun and funny. But like Project Almanac, it's going to feel very grounded at the same time, and very contemporary and have a real edge to it, and a real gut to it, it's going to be a fun, joyful [movie] but one that feels completely grounded in a real world, with real characters going through real things". Brian Tyler was brought on to compose the film's music. Israelite has said that the film updates itself from the original series, being more character-driven and incorporating naturalism and a grounded nature.

### Casting

Actors began testing for the roles of the five Power Rangers in October 2015. On October 7, 2015, Naomi Scott was cast as Kimberly. Newcomers Dacre Montgomery, Ludi Lin and RJ Cyler were then cast as Jason, Zack, and Billy, respectively. At the month's end, Becky G was chosen to play Trini. When it came to casting the Rangers, director Dean Israelite said, "From the very beginning, diversity was a very important part of the whole process," and that while the characters' races were switched around, he added that, "We made sure that the essence of each of those characters are who they were in the original show, and this really will be an origin story of those characters." On February 2, 2016, it was announced that Elizabeth Banks would portray Rita Repulsa. Four months later, Bryan Cranston, who voiced Twin Man and Snizzard in the original series, announced he was cast as Zordon. Cranston revealed that he would perform motion-capture and CGI. In September 2016, Walter Emanuel Jones, the actor who played Zack in the original series, stated none of the original cast would cameo in the film. Towards the end of the month, comedian Bill Hader was cast as Alpha 5. In March 2017, it was reported that Amy Jo Johnson and Jason David Frank, who played Kimberly and Tommy in the original series, would cameo in the film, despite Jones' earlier comments.

### Filming

Filming was originally set to begin in January 2016 but was rescheduled and began on February 29 in Vancouver. On May 28, 2016, filming was complete. Additional filming occurred in October 2016. A cast member claims that the film has broken the record for the longest wire jump, but this has not been independently confirmed.

The film was released in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos sound.

## Music

The official soundtrack, with music by Brian Tyler, was released digitally on March 24, 2017, and on CD on April 4, distributed by Varèse Sarabande. "Give It All", a song by With You. featuring Santigold and Vince Staples was also featured on the soundtrack and played during the film's credits.

Track listing

## Release

### Theatrical

Originally scheduled for release on July 22, 2016, Lionsgate delayed it to March 24, 2017. The film received its world premiere in Berlin, Germany on March 17, 2017. The then-five of the surviving actors who originally portrayed the Rangers in the series (Thuy Trang had passed away in 2001 and Jason David Frank passed away in 2022) attended the film's Los Angeles premiere on March 22, 2017. It was the first time they had been together publicly since 1995.

### Marketing

On March 3, 2016, Lionsgate released the first official photo of the five Rangers, and the following month, the company released the first official photo of Banks as Rita Repulsa. On May 5, the company unveiled the first official images of the Rangers' suits. Speaking of the suits, director Dean Israelite said that "The show was about kids coming of age, about metamorphosis, these suits needed to feel like they were catalyzed by these kids and their energy, their spirit", while production designer Andrew Menzies commented that the new suits are "an alien costume that grows on them, that’s not man-made. You can’t win everyone over, but we are trying to appeal to a more mature audience and gain new fans." A teaser poster was released in June, with additional character posters released in July, September, and October. On October 8, 2016, a Discover The Power teaser trailer for the film was released.

A fictional Angel Grove High School Newspaper website was created, alongside the official Power Rangers website, which features a GIF creator that allows users to make a GIF out of scenes from the teaser trailer. There is also an official toyline, produced by Bandai, and an extensive merchandising range was produced to promote the film.

Landis, whose draft was rejected, criticized the trailer, saying that it looked too similar to Chronicle (2012), a film that he had written. The trailer garnered mixed reactions, with some praising it for its darker, contemporary reimagining of the classic characters, while still looking action-packed and fun at the same time, and others criticizing it for its lack of connection to the original series, saying it appeared "brooding". The trailer received over 150 million views in the first two days after it was uploaded. Lionsgate revealed the T-Rex zord toy, among others, on October 28, 2016, and the Power Rangers Twitter account revealed the Megazord toy on November 4, 2016. On November 15, 2016, Lionsgate revealed the toys based on the film's individual Zords.

On December 8, 2016, a new poster debuted, as well as a photo of Rita Repulsa. On December 19, 2016, Lionsgate and Boom! Studios announced that they would release a graphic novel titled Power Rangers: Aftershock, set immediately after the events of the movie. An international trailer was released on December 22, 2016. Qualcomm and Lionsgate produced a virtual reality mobile app of the film Power Rangers Movie Command Center that was exhibited at the CES 2017, from January 5–8, 2017, and was released in the App Store on March 8, 2017. On January 19, a second trailer, titled It’s Morphin Time!, was released. Lionsgate debuted yet another trailer, which it called the All-Star Trailer, on February 17. New TV spots were released on February 27, two about the Power Rangers, and one about Rita Repulsa. A clip was released on March 6, followed by two more on March 9. Thirty-seven stills were then released. Another TV spot was released on March 10. In the final week before the movie premiered, two more clips, as well as photos, were released.

A Build-A-Bear Workshop Power Ranger product range was announced on March 9, 2017. Krispy Kreme released doughnuts to promote the film, and served as an advertising partner. Placement of Krispy Kreme products and locations were featured in the film numerous times.

The group collaborated with YouTube sports entertainment group Dude Perfect ahead of the film's release, in a video titled Dude Perfect vs. Power Rangers.

### Video game

Lionsgate and Saban, in collaboration with nWay Games, released a PvP fighting mobile game called Power Rangers: Legacy Wars on March 24, 2017, to coincide with the film's release. The game was featured on both Android and the Apple Store and got to the top spot on the Apple App Store for both iPhones and iPads, for two consecutive days and number two on the Google Play Store.

### Home media

Power Rangers was released on Digital HD on June 13, 2017, and was followed by a release on DVD, Blu-ray, and Ultra HD Blu-ray on June 27, 2017 with retail exclusive variants being made available at Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart. The film debuted at the No. 1 spot on the NPD VideoScan overall disc sales chart which tracks combined DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales; NPD's dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart; and Home Media Magazine's video rental chart for the week ending July 2, 2017. The film retained the top spot on the NPD VideoScan's overall disc sales chart for the week ending on July 9, 2017.

## Reception

### Box office

Power Rangers grossed \$85.4 million in the United States and Canada, and \$57 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of \$142.3 million, against a production budget of \$100-105 million. The film lost the studio an estimated \$74 million, when factoring in all revenues and expenses.

In the United States and Canada, Power Rangers opened alongside Life, CHiPs and Wilson, and was projected to gross \$30–35 million from 3,693 theaters on its opening weekend. The film made \$3.6 million from Thursday night previews and \$15 million on its first day. It went on to debut to \$40.3 million, finishing second at the box office behind Beauty and the Beast (\$90.4 million). The audience was notably diverse and mostly 18–34 years old. In its second weekend the film grossed \$14.5 million (a drop of 64%), finishing fourth at the box office. In June 2017, Dean Israelite said that the film's PG-13 rating probably contributed to the film's underperformance at the box office.

### Critical response

Power Rangers received mixed reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, and an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "Power Rangers has neither the campy fun of its TV predecessor nor the blockbuster action of its cinematic superhero competitors, and sadly never quite manages to shift into turbo for some good old-fashioned morphin time." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score 44 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 66% of audience members gave the film a "definite recommend".

IGN gave the film a 7/10, saying, "Power Rangers doesn’t quite pull off everything it wants to, but it’s a fun time at the theater nonetheless." Mike McCahill of The Guardian wrote that "the film achieves a functioning mediocrity we perhaps might have thought beyond this franchise," and gave it 2 out of 5 stars.

Mike Ryan of Uproxx gave the film a negative review, writing: "Power Rangers has one of the most zig-zagged tones of any big budget studio film I’ve seen in a long time. It’s jarring at times how often it goes back and forth between 'gritty' and 'silly'." Owen Gleiberman of Variety criticized the film's conflicting tones, saying: "...25 years ago, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was launched as superhero fodder for kids, and there was indeed a place for it, but we’re now so awash in superhero culture that kids no longer need the safe, lame, pandering junior-league version of it. They can just watch Ant-Man or the PG-13 Suicide Squad. Safe, lame, and pandering have all grown up." In a review for The Telegraph, Robbie Collin gave it one star out of five, criticizing the "abjectly embarrassing frenzy of product placement".

### Accolades

The film was nominated in six categories at the 2017 Teen Choice Awards, the film for Choice Sci-Fi Movie, Dacre Montgomery for Choice Sci-Fi Movie Actor, Becky G. and Naomi Scott for Choice Sci-Fi Movie Actress, RJ Cyler for Choice Scene Stealer, and Elizabeth Banks for Choice Movie Villain.

## Future

### Cancelled sequels

In a May 2016 conference call to analysts, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer stated, "We could see doing five or six or seven." On March 22, 2017, Haim Saban said that he and Lionsgate already have a six-film story arc. However, in May 2017, Forbes noted that due to the underwhelming performance of the film in most markets, it was unlikely any sequels would be made. Later that same month, it was reported that the sequels could still be made thanks to record-breaking merchandise sales. Prior to the home release of the movie, Israelite confirmed that talks were taking place regarding a sequel and that he would like to include Lord Zedd and Tommy Oliver (Green Ranger) in it. The possibility of a sequel increased once more in early July 2017 when it was reported that the film held the number one spot in home media sales and rentals in its first week. In August 2017, Saban abandoned its trademark for the film's logo. A Saban Brands representative stated in October 2017 that "Power Rangers continues to own and renew hundreds of trademark registrations worldwide, including for the 2017 movie logo. The trademark registration process is very nuanced, and the status of the single application has no bearing on our ownership of or the future plans for Power Rangers. The franchise remains as strong and enthusiastic about its future as ever." On May 1, 2018, Saban Brands agreed to sell Power Rangers and other entertainment assets to Hasbro for US\$522 million in cash and stock with the sale expected to closed in the second quarter.

On August 8, 2018, Hasbro announced they would be working with a film studio to develop a follow-up to Power Rangers. In February 2019, Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner announced in a financial call that Hasbro was in talks with Paramount Pictures to produce the sequel.

### Planned reboot

On July 11, 2019, in the AMA thread on the Stranger Things subreddit, Dacre Montgomery revealed that the studio had plans to produce a second reboot, without him, the rest of the cast or the director returning. On December 13, 2019, it was reported that Jonathan Entwistle is in early negotiations to direct the reboot, with Patrick Burleigh being set to write the script. The plot will reportedly involve time travel and will be set in the 1990s. On October 20, 2020, It was announced that Entwistle will work on the reboot with Hasbro and eOne as he will be overseeing, and directing, both film and television adaptations and the next week, Deadline reported that Bryan Edward Hill will write the script for the reboot.

2017 film by Dean Israelite

American science fiction adventure films


Edward Said

Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian American academic, literary critic and political activist. A professor of literature at Columbia University he was among the founders of postcolonial studies. Born in Mandatory Palestine, he was a citizen of the United States by way of his father, a U.S. Army veteran.

Educated in the Western canon at British and American schools, Said applied his education and bi-cultural perspective to illuminating the gaps of cultural and political understanding between the Western world and the Eastern world, especially about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in the Middle East; his principal influences were Antonio Gramsci, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Michel Foucault, and Theodor Adorno.

As a cultural critic, Said is known for the book Orientalism (1978), a critique of the cultural representations that are the bases of Orientalism—how the Western world perceives the Orient. Said's model of textual analysis transformed the academic discourse of researchers in literary theory, literary criticism, and Middle Eastern studies—how academics examine, describe, and define the cultures being studied. As a foundational text, Orientalism was controversial among scholars of Oriental studies, philosophy, and literature.

As a public intellectual, Said was a controversial member of the Palestinian National Council, due to his public criticism of Israel and the Arab countries, especially the political and cultural policies of Muslim régimes who acted against the national interests of their peoples. Said advocated the establishment of a Palestinian state to ensure equal political and human rights for the Palestinians in Israel, including the right of return to the homeland. He defined his oppositional relation with the status quo as the remit of the public intellectual who has "to sift, to judge, to criticize, to choose, so that choice and agency return to the individual" man and woman.

In 1999, with conductor Daniel Barenboim, Said co-founded the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, based in Seville. Said was also an accomplished pianist, and, with Barenboim, co-authored the book Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society (2002), a compilation of their conversations and public discussions about music held at New York's Carnegie Hall.

## Life and career

### Early life

Edward Wadie Said was born on 1 November 1935, to Hilda Said and Wadie Said, a businessman in Jerusalem, then part of the British mandate of Palestine (1920–1948). Wadie Said was a Palestinian who joined the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. This war-time military service earned American citizenship for Said's father and his family. Edward's mother Hilda Said was of Palestinian and Lebanese parentage, born and raised in Nazareth, Ottoman Empire.

In 1919, in partnership with a cousin, Wadie Said established a stationery business in Cairo. Like her husband, Hilda Said was an Arab Christian, and the Said family practiced Protestantism.

Edward and his sister Rosemarie Saïd Zahlan (1937–2006) both pursued academic careers. He became an agnostic in his later years.

### Education

Said lived his boyhood between the worlds of Cairo and Jerusalem; in 1947, he attended St. George's School, Jerusalem, a British-style school whose teaching staff consisted of stern Anglicans. About being there, Said said:

> With an unexceptionally Arab family name like "Saïd", connected to an improbably British first name...I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years: a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport, and no certain identity, at all. To make matters worse, Arabic, my native language, and English, my school language, were inextricably mixed: I have never known which was my first language, and have felt fully at home in neither, although I dream in both. Every time I speak an English sentence, I find myself echoing it in Arabic, and vice versa.

By the late 1940s, Said's schooling included the Egyptian branch of Victoria College, where "classmates included Hussein of Jordan, and the Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, and Saudi Arabian boys whose academic careers would progress to their becoming ministers, prime ministers, and leading businessmen in their respective countries."

During the period of Palestinian history under the British mandate, the function of a European-style school such as the Victoria College was to educate selections of young men from the Arab and Levantine upper classes to become anglicized post-colonial politicians who would administer their countries upon decolonization. About Victoria College, Said said:

> The moment one became a student at Victoria College, one was given the student handbook, a series of regulations governing every aspect of school life—the kind of uniform we were to wear, what equipment was needed for sports, the dates of school holidays, bus schedules, and so on. But the school's first rule, emblazoned on the opening page of the handbook, read: "English is the language of the school; students caught speaking any other language will be punished." Yet, there were no native speakers of English among the students. Whereas the masters were all British, we were a motley crew of Arabs of various kinds, Armenians, Greeks, Italians, Jews, and Turks, each of whom had a native language that the school had explicitly outlawed. Yet all, or nearly all, of us spoke Arabic—many spoke Arabic and French—and so we were able to take refuge in a common language, in defiance of what we perceived as an unjust colonial structure.

In 1951, Victoria College expelled Said, who had proved a troublesome boy, despite his academic achievements. He then attended Northfield Mount Hermon School, Massachusetts, a socially élite, college-prep boarding-school where he lived a difficult year of social alienation. Nonetheless, he excelled academically, and achieved the rank of either first (valedictorian) or second (salutatorian) in a class of one hundred sixty students.

In retrospect, being sent far from the Middle East he viewed as a parental decision much influenced by "the prospects of deracinated people, like us the Palestinians, being so uncertain that it would be best to send me as far away as possible." The realities of peripatetic life—of interwoven cultures, of feeling out of place, and of homesickness—so affected the schoolboy Edward that themes of dissonance feature in the work and worldview of the academic Said. At school's end, he had become Edward W. Said—a polyglot intellectual (fluent in English, French, and Arabic). He graduated with an A.B. in English from Princeton University in 1957 after completing a senior thesis titled "The Moral Vision: André Gide and Graham Greene." He later received Master of Arts (1960) and Doctor of Philosophy (1964) degrees in English Literature from Harvard University.

### Career

In 1963, Said joined Columbia University as a member of the English and Comparative Literature faculties, where he taught and worked until 2003. In 1974, he was Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard; during the 1975–76 period, he was a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science, at Stanford University. In 1977, he became the Parr Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and subsequently was the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities; and in 1979 was Visiting Professor of Humanities at Johns Hopkins University.

Said also worked as a visiting professor at Yale University, and lectured at more than 200 other universities in North America, Europe, and the Middle East. In 1992, Said was promoted to full professor. Editorially, Said served as president of the Modern Language Association, as editor of the Arab Studies Quarterly in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, on the executive board of International PEN, and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Royal Society of Literature, the Council of Foreign Relations, and the American Philosophical Society. In 1993, Said presented the BBC's annual Reith Lectures, a six-lecture series titled Representation of the Intellectual, wherein he examined the role of the public intellectual in contemporary society, which the BBC published in 2011.

In his work, Said frequently researches the term and concept of the cultural archive, especially in his book Culture and Imperialism (1993). He states the cultural archive is a major site where investments in imperial conquest are developed, and that these archives include "narratives, histories, and travel tales." Said emphasizes the role of the Western imperial project in the disruption of cultural archives, and theorizes that disciplines such as comparative literature, English, and anthropology can be directly linked to the concept of empire.

In the 1980s, according to Nubar Hovsepian, Said was banned from contributing to The New York Review of Books. The co-editor, Robert Silvers, allegedly told him that he could not publish in that journal.

## Literary production

Said's first published book, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography (1966), was an expansion of the doctoral dissertation he presented to earn the PhD degree. Abdirahman Hussein said in Edward Saïd: Criticism and Society (2010), that Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness (1899) was "foundational to Said's entire career and project". In Beginnings: Intention and Method (1974), Said analyzed the theoretical bases of literary criticism by drawing on the insights of Vico, Valéry, Nietzsche, de Saussure, Lévi-Strauss, Husserl, and Foucault. Said's later works included

- The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983),
- Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature: Yeats and Decolonization (1988),
- Culture and Imperialism (1993),
- Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures (1994),
- Humanism and Democratic Criticism (2004), and
- On Late Style (2006).

### Orientalism

Said became an established cultural critic with the book Orientalism (1978), a critique of Orientalism as the source of the false cultural representations with which the Western world perceives the Middle East—the narratives of how The West sees The East. The thesis of Orientalism proposes the existence of a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo–Islamic peoples and their culture", which originates from Western culture's long tradition of false, romanticized images of Asia, in general, and the Middle East in particular. Such cultural representations have served, and continue to serve, as implicit justifications for the colonial and imperial ambitions of the European powers and of the U.S. Likewise, Said denounced the political and the cultural malpractices of the régimes of the ruling Arab élites who have internalized the false and romanticized representations of Arabic culture that were created by Anglo–American Orientalists.

> So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Moslems and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab–Moslem life has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab world. What we have, instead, is a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world, presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression.

Orientalism proposed that much Western study of Islamic civilization was political intellectualism, meant for the self-affirmation of European identity, rather than objective academic study; thus, the academic field of Oriental studies functioned as a practical method of cultural discrimination and imperialist domination—that is to say, the Western Orientalist knows more about "the Orient" than do "the Orientals".

According to Said, the cultural representations of the Eastern world that Orientalism purveys are intellectually suspect, and cannot be accepted as faithful, true, and accurate representations of the peoples and things of the Orient. Moreover, the history of European colonial rule and political domination of Asian civilizations distorts the writing of even the most knowledgeable, well-meaning, and culturally sympathetic Orientalist.

> I doubt if it is controversial, for example, to say that an Englishman in India, or Egypt, in the later nineteenth century, took an interest in those countries, which was never far from their status, in his mind, as British colonies. To say this may seem quite different from saying that all academic knowledge about India and Egypt is somehow tinged and impressed with, violated by, the gross political fact—and yet that is what I am saying in this study of Orientalism.

Western Art, Orientalism continues, has misrepresented the Orient with stereotypes since Antiquity, as in the tragedy The Persians (472 BCE), by Aeschylus, where the Greek protagonist falls because he misperceived the true nature of The Orient. The European political domination of Asia has biased even the most outwardly objective Western texts about The Orient, to a degree unrecognized by the Western scholars who appropriated for themselves the production of cultural knowledge—the academic work of studying, exploring, and interpreting the languages, histories, and peoples of Asia. Therefore, Orientalist scholarship implies that the colonial subaltern (the colonised people) were incapable of thinking, acting, or speaking for themselves, thus are incapable of writing their own national histories. In such imperial circumstances, the Orientalist scholars of the West wrote the history of the Orient—and so constructed the modern, cultural identities of Asia—from the perspective that the West is the cultural standard to emulate, the norm from which the "exotic and inscrutable" Orientals deviate.

### Criticism of Orientalism

Orientalism provoked much professional and personal criticism for Said among academics. Traditional Orientalists, such as Albert Hourani, Robert Graham Irwin, Nikki Keddie, Bernard Lewis, and Kanan Makiya, suffered negative consequences, because Orientalism affected public perception of their intellectual integrity and the quality of their Orientalist scholarship. The historian Keddie said that Said's critical work about the field of Orientalism had caused, in their academic disciplines:

> Some unfortunate consequences ... I think that there has been a tendency in the Middle East [studies] field to adopt the word Orientalism as a generalized swear-word, essentially referring to people who take the "wrong" position on the Arab–Israeli dispute, or to people who are judged "too conservative." It has nothing to do with whether they are good or not good in their disciplines. So, Orientalism, for many people, is a word that substitutes for thought, and enables people to dismiss certain scholars and their works. I think that is too bad. It may not have been what Edward Saïd meant, at all, but the term has become a kind of slogan.

In Orientalism, Said described Bernard Lewis, the Anglo–American Orientalist, as "a perfect exemplification [of an] Establishment Orientalist [whose work] purports to be objective, liberal scholarship, but is, in reality, very close to being propaganda against his subject material."

Lewis responded with a harsh critique of Orientalism accusing Said of politicizing the scientific study of the Middle East (and Arabic studies in particular); neglecting to critique the scholarly findings of the Orientalists; and giving "free rein" to his biases.

Said retorted that in The Muslim Discovery of Europe (1982), Lewis responded to his thesis with the claim that the Western quest for knowledge about other societies was unique in its display of disinterested curiosity, which Muslims did not reciprocate towards Europe. Lewis was saying that "knowledge about Europe [was] the only acceptable criterion for true knowledge." The appearance of academic impartiality was part of Lewis's role as an academic authority for zealous "anti–Islamic, anti–Arab, Zionist, and Cold War crusades." Moreover, in the Afterword to the 1995 edition of the book, Said replied to Lewis's criticisms of the first edition of Orientalism (1978).

### Influence of Orientalism

In the academy, Orientalism became a foundational text of the field of post-colonial studies, for what the British intellectual Terry Eagleton said is the book's "central truth ... that demeaning images of the East, and imperialist incursions into its terrain, have historically gone hand in hand."

Both Said's supporters and his critics acknowledge the transformative influence of Orientalism upon scholarship in the humanities; critics say that the thesis is an intellectually limiting influence upon scholars, whilst supporters say that the thesis is intellectually liberating. The fields of post-colonial and cultural studies attempt to explain the "post-colonial world, its peoples, and their discontents", for which the techniques of investigation and efficacy in Orientalism, proved especially applicable in Middle Eastern studies.

As such, the investigation and analysis Said applied in Orientalism proved especially practical in literary criticism and cultural studies, such as the post-colonial histories of India by Gyan Prakash, Nicholas Dirks and Ronald Inden, modern Cambodia by Simon Springer, and the literary theories of Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Hamid Dabashi (Iran: A People Interrupted, 2007).

In Eastern Europe, Milica Bakić–Hayden developed the concept of Nesting Orientalisms (1992), derived from the ideas of the historian Larry Wolff (Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, 1994) and Said's ideas in Orientalism (1978). The Bulgarian historian Maria Todorova (Imagining the Balkans, 1997) presented the ethnologic concept of Nesting Balkanisms (Ethnologia Balkanica, 1997), which is derived from Milica Bakić–Hayden's concept of Nesting Orientalisms.

In The Impact of "Biblical Orientalism" in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (2014), the historian Lorenzo Kamel, presented the concept of "Biblical Orientalism" with an historical analysis of the simplifications of the complex, local Palestinian reality, which occurred from the 1830s until the early 20th century. Kamel said that the selective usage and simplification of religion, in approaching the place known as "The Holy Land", created a view that, as a place, the Holy Land has no human history other than as the place where Bible stories occurred, rather than as Palestine, a country inhabited by many peoples.

The post-colonial discourse presented in Orientalism, also influenced post-colonial theology and post-colonial biblical criticism, by which method the analytical reader approaches a scripture from the perspective of a colonial reader. Another book in this area is Postcolonial Theory (1998), by Leela Gandhi, explains Post-colonialism in terms of how it can be applied to the wider philosophical and intellectual context of history.

## Politics

In 1967, consequent to the Six-Day War (5–10 June 1967), Said became a public intellectual when he acted politically to counter the stereotyped misrepresentations (factual, historical, cultural) with which the U.S. news media explained the Arab–Israeli wars; reportage divorced from the historical realities of the Middle East, in general, and Palestine and Israel, in particular. To address, explain, and correct such Orientalism, Said published "The Arab Portrayed" (1968), a descriptive essay about images of "the Arab" that are meant to evade specific discussion of the historical and cultural realities of the peoples (Jews, Christians, Muslims) who are the Middle East, featured in journalism (print, photograph, television) and some types of scholarship (specialist journals).

In the essay "Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims" (1979), Said argued in favour of the political legitimacy and philosophic authenticity of the Zionist claims and right to a Jewish homeland; and for the inherent right of national self-determination of the Palestinian people. Said's books about Israel and Palestine include The Question of Palestine (1979), The Politics of Dispossession (1994), and The End of the Peace Process (2000).

### Palestinian National Council

From 1977 until 1991, Said was an independent member of the Palestinian National Council (PNC). In 1988, he was a proponent of the two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and voted for the establishment of the State of Palestine at a meeting of the PNC in Algiers. In 1993, Said quit his membership in the Palestinian National Council, to protest the internal politics that led to the signing of the Oslo Accords (Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, 1993), which he thought had unacceptable terms, and because the terms had been rejected by the Madrid Conference of 1991.

Said disliked the Oslo Accords for not producing an independent State of Palestine, and because they were politically inferior to a plan that Yasir Arafat had rejected—a plan Said had presented to Arafat on behalf of the U.S. government in the late 1970s. Especially troublesome to Said was his belief that Yasir Arafat had betrayed the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their houses and properties in the Green Line territories of pre-1967 Israel, and that Arafat ignored the growing political threat of the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories that had been established since the conquest of Palestine in 1967.

In 1995, in response to Said's political criticisms, the Palestinian Authority (PA) banned the sale of Said's books; however, the PA lifted the book ban when Said publicly praised Yasir Arafat for rejecting Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offers at the Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David (2000) in the U.S.

In the mid-1990s, Said wrote the foreword to the history book Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years (1994), by Israel Shahak, about Jewish fundamentalism, which presents the cultural proposition that Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians is rooted in a Judaic requirement (of permission) for Jews to commit crimes, including murder, against Gentiles (non-Jews). In his foreword, Said said that Jewish History, Jewish Religion is "nothing less than a concise history of classic and modern Judaism, insofar as these are relevant to the understanding of modern Israel"; and praised the historian Shahak for describing contemporary Israel as a nation subsumed in a "Judeo–Nazi" cultural ambiance that allowed the dehumanization of the Palestinian Other:

> In all my works, I remained fundamentally critical of a gloating and uncritical nationalism. . . . My view of Palestine . . . remains the same today: I expressed all sorts of reservations about the insouciant nativism, and militant militarism of the nationalist consensus; I suggested, instead, a critical look at the Arab environment, Palestinian history, and the Israeli realities, with the explicit conclusion that only a negotiated settlement, between the two communities of suffering, Arab and Jewish, would provide respite from the unending war.

In 1998, Said made In Search of Palestine (1998), a BBC documentary film about Palestine, past and present. In the company of his son, Wadie, Said revisited the places of his boyhood, and confronted injustices meted out to ordinary Palestinians in the contemporary West Bank. Despite the social and cultural prestige afforded to BBC cinema products in the U.S., the documentary was never broadcast by any American television company. In 1999, the American Jewish public affairs monthly Commentary cited ledgers kept at the Land Registry Office in Jerusalem during the Mandatory period as background for his boyhood recollections, claiming that his "Palestinian boyhood" was, in fact, no more than occasional visits from Cairo, where his parents lived, owned a business and raised their family.

### In Palestine

On 3 July 2000, whilst touring the Middle East with his son, Wadie, Said was photographed throwing a stone across the Blue Line Lebanese–Israel border, which image elicited much political criticism about his action demonstrating an inherent, personal sympathy with terrorism; and, in Commentary magazine, the journalist Edward Alexander labelled Said as "The Professor of Terror", for aggression against Israel. Said explained the stone-throwing as a two-fold action, personal and political; a man-to-man contest-of-skill, between a father and his son, and an Arab man's gesture of joy at the end of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon (1985–2000): "It was a pebble; there was nobody there. The guardhouse was at least half a mile away."

Despite having denied that he aimed the stone at an Israeli guardhouse, the Beirut newspaper As-Safir (The Ambassador) reported that a Lebanese local resident reported that Said was at less than ten metres (ca. 30 ft.) distance from the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers manning the two-storey guardhouse, when Said aimed and threw the stone over the border fence; the stone's projectile path was thwarted when it struck the barbed wire atop the border fence. Nonetheless, in the U.S., despite a political fracas by students at Columbia University and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith International (Sons of the Covenant), the university provost published a five-page letter defending Said's action as an academic's freedom of expression: "To my knowledge, the stone was directed at no-one; no law was broken; no indictment was made; no criminal or civil action has been taken against Professor Saïd."

Nevertheless, Said endured political repercussions, such as the cancellation of an invitation to give a lecture to the Freud Society, in Austria, in February 2001. The President of the Freud Society justified withdrawing the invitation by explaining to Said that "the political situation in the Middle East, and its consequences" had rendered an accusation of anti-Semitism a very serious matter, and that any such accusation "has become more dangerous" in the politics of Austria; thus, the Freud Society cancelled its invitation to Said in order to "avoid an internal clash" of opinions, about him, that might ideologically divide the Freud Society. In Culture and Resistance: Conversations with Edward Saïd (2003), Said likened his political situation to the situation that Noam Chomsky has endured as a public intellectual:

> "It's very similar to his. He's a well-known, great linguist. He's been celebrated and honored for that, but he's also vilified as an anti–Semite and as a Hitler worshiper. ... For anyone to deny the horrendous experience of anti–Semitism and the Holocaust is unacceptable. We don't want anybody's history of suffering to go unrecorded and unacknowledged. On the other hand, there's a great difference, between acknowledging Jewish oppression and using that as a cover for the oppression of another people."

### Criticism of U.S. foreign policy

In the revised edition of Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (1997), Said criticized the Orientalist bias of the Western news media's reportage about the Middle East and Islam, especially the tendency to editorialize "speculations about the latest conspiracy to blow up buildings, sabotage commercial airliners, and poison water supplies." He criticized the American military involvement in the Kosovo War (1998–99) as an imperial action; and described the Iraq Liberation Act (1998), promulgated during the Clinton Administration, as the political license that predisposed the U.S. to invade Iraq in 2003, which was authorised with the Iraq Resolution (2 October 2002); and the continual support of Israel by successive U.S. presidential governments, as actions meant to perpetuate regional political instability in the Middle East.

In the event, despite being sick with leukemia, as a public intellectual, Said continued criticising the U.S. Invasion of Iraq in mid-2003; and, in the Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly newspaper, in the article "Resources of Hope" (2 April 2003), Said said that the U.S. war against Iraq was a politically ill-conceived military enterprise:

> My strong opinion, though I don't have any proof, in the classical sense of the word, is that they want to change the entire Middle East, and the Arab world, perhaps terminate some countries, destroy the so-called terrorist groups they dislike, and install régimes friendly to the United States. I think this is a dream that has very little basis in reality. The knowledge they have of the Middle East, to judge from the people who advise them, is, to say the least, out of date and widely speculative. . . .
>
> I don't think the planning for the post–Saddam, post-war period in Iraq is very sophisticated, and there's very little of it. U.S. Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman and U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith testified in Congress, about a month ago, and seemed to have no figures, and no ideas [about] what structures they were going to deploy; they had no idea about the use of [the Iraqi] institutions that exist, although they want to de–Ba'thise the higher echelons, and keep the rest.
>
> The same is true about their views of the [Iraqi] army. They certainly have no use for the Iraqi opposition that they've been spending many millions of dollars on; and, to the best of my ability to judge, they are going to improvise; of course, the model is Afghanistan. I think they hope that the U.N. will come in and do something, but, given the recent French and Russian positions, I doubt that that will happen with such simplicity.

### Under surveillance

In 2003, Haidar Abdel-Shafi, Ibrahim Dakak, Mustafa Barghouti, and Said established Al-Mubadara (The Palestinian National Initiative), headed by Mustafa Barghouti, a third-party reformist, democratic party meant to be an alternative to the usual two-party politics of Palestine. As a political party, the ideology of Al-Mubadara is specifically an alternative to the extremist politics of the social-democratic Fatah and the Islamist Hamas. Said's founding of the group, as well as his other international political activities concerning Palestine, were noticed by the U.S. government, and Said came under FBI surveillance, which became more intensive after 1972. David Price, an anthropologist at Evergreen State College, requested the FBI file on Said through the Freedom of Information Act on behalf of CounterPunch and published a report there on his findings. The released pages of Said's FBI files show that the FBI read Said's books and reported on their contents to Washington.

## Music

Besides having been a public intellectual, Edward Said was an accomplished pianist, worked as the music critic for The Nation magazine, and wrote four books about music: Musical Elaborations (1991); Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society (2002), with Daniel Barenboim as co-author; On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain (2006); and Music at the Limits (2007) in which final book he spoke of finding musical reflections of his literary and historical ideas in bold compositions and strong performances.

Elsewhere in the musical world, the composer Mohammed Fairouz acknowledged the deep influence of Edward Said upon his works; compositionally, Fairouz's First Symphony thematically alludes to the essay "Homage to a Belly-Dancer" (1990), about Tahia Carioca, the Egyptian dancer, actress, and political militant; and a piano sonata, titled Reflections on Exile (1984), which thematically refers to the emotions inherent to being an exile.

In 1999, Said and Barenboim co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, composed of young Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab musicians. They also established The Barenboim–Said Foundation in Seville, to develop education-through-music projects. Besides managing the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Barenboim–Said Foundation assists with the administration of the Academy of Orchestral Studies, the Musical Education in Palestine Project, and the Early Childhood Musical Education Project, in Seville.

## Honors and awards

Besides honors, memberships, and postings to prestigious organizations worldwide, Edward Said was awarded some twenty honorary university degrees in the course of his professional life as an academic, critic, and Man of Letters. Among the honors bestowed to him were:

- the Bowdoin Prize by Harvard University.
- He twice received the Lionel Trilling Book Award; the first occasion was the inaugural bestowing of said literary award in 1976, for Beginnings: Intention and Method (1974). He also received the
- Wellek Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association
- The inaugural Spinoza Lens Prize.
- Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2001
- Prince of Asturias Award for Concord in 2002 (shared with Daniel Barenboim).
- First U.S. citizen to receive the Sultan Owais Prize (for Cultural & Scientific Achievements, 1996–1997).
- The autobiography Out of Place (1999) was bestowed three awards, the 1999 New Yorker Book Award for Non-Fiction; the 2000 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction; and the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award in Literature.

## Death and legacy

On 24 September 2003, after enduring a 12-year sickness with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, Said died, at 67 years of age, in New York City. He was survived by his wife, Mariam C. Said, his son, Wadie Said, and his daughter, Najla Said. The eulogists included Alexander Cockburn ("A Mighty and Passionate Heart"); Seamus Deane ("A Late Style of Humanism"); Christopher Hitchens ("A Valediction for Edward Said"); Tony Judt ("The Rootless Cosmopolitan"); Michael Wood ("On Edward Said"); and Tariq Ali ("Remembering Edward Said, 1935–2003"). Said is buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Broumana, Jabal Lubnan, Lebanon. His headstone indicates he died on 25 September 2003.

In November 2004, in Palestine, Birzeit University renamed their music school the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music.

The tributes to Said include books and schools; such as Waiting for the Barbarians: A Tribute to Edward W. Said (2008) features essays by Akeel Bilgrami, Rashid Khalidi, and Elias Khoury; Edward Said: The Charisma of Criticism (2010), by Harold Aram Veeser, a critical biography; and Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representations (2010), essays by Joseph Massad, Ilan Pappé, Ella Shohat, Ghada Karmi, Noam Chomsky, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Daniel Barenboim. The Barenboim–Said Academy (Berlin) was established in 2012.

In 2002, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nayhan, the founder and president of the United Arab Emirates, and others endowed the Edward Said Chair at Columbia University; it is currently filled by Rashid Khalidi.

In 2016, California State University at Fresno started examining applicants for a newly created Professorship in Middle East Studies named after Edward Said, but after months of examining applicants, Fresno State canceled the search. Some observers claim that the cancellation was due to pressure from some individuals and groups.

Palestinian-American academic (1935–2003)

20th-century American non-fiction writers

21st-century American non-fiction writers

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences fellows

Middle Eastern studies in the United States

Presidents of the Modern Language Association


Patrick Maroon

Patrick Maroon (born April 23, 1988) is an American professional ice hockey left winger for the Minnesota Wild of the National Hockey League (NHL). Nicknamed the "Big Rig", Maroon has previously played for the Anaheim Ducks, Edmonton Oilers, New Jersey Devils, St. Louis Blues, and Tampa Bay Lightning. Maroon is a three-time Stanley Cup champion, winning in three consecutive seasons (with the Blues in 2019, and the Lightning in 2020 and 2021).

Growing up in St. Louis, Maroon attended Oakville High School where he was recruited to play in the North American Hockey League (NAHL) by Kelly Chase and Al MacInnis. Following two standout seasons with the Texarkana Bandits, he was drafted 161st overall by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft. He spent three years within their organization before being traded to the Anaheim Ducks and subsequently making his NHL debut in the 2011–12 season.

Maroon played three seasons at the NHL level with the Ducks where he made an impact during their 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs run. Due to inconsistency, he was traded to the Edmonton Oilers and New Jersey Devils before landing in St. Louis Blues in 2018.

In his only season with the Blues, he helped them win the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history. He would win the Stanley Cup twice more in the next two years with the Lightning, becoming one of twelve players in NHL history to win back-to-back Stanley Cups on different teams, and the first since Cory Stillman in 2006. In 2021, Maroon became the first player to win three consecutive Stanley Cups since several members of the New York Islanders did so from 1980 to 1983.

## Early life

Maroon was born on April 23, 1988, in St. Louis, Missouri, to parents Patti and Phil Maroon. His father formerly played Division I soccer at St. Louis University and wished to encourage his sons to play the sport. He grew up the youngest of four siblings, two brothers, and one sister. His father owned season passes to the St. Louis Blues and he would alternate going to games with his brother Phil or one would sit on their father's lap. When reflecting on his childhood, Maroon said, "My family has been the biggest influence on my career...my parents have always been so dedicated and my brothers were always into the game, and helped me along."

Growing up in St. Louis, Maroon attended Rogers Elementary, Oakville Middle School, and Oakville High School. He played minor ice hockey for the St. Louis Amateur Blues from 2003 until 2005 where he was nicknamed "Fat Pat" due to his size, and 260 lb (120 kg). In order to improve on his playmaking ability, Maroon would stickhandle a golf ball in his garage for hours and skate in roller rinks. As a youth, Maroon also competed in the 2002 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with the St. Louis Blues minor ice hockey team. In 2004, Maroon was drafted in the 11th round of the 2004 Ontario Hockey League (OHL) draft by the London Knights but was dismissed from their training camp due to his weight. When he entered high school with his older brother Justin, Maroon earned a spot on the varsity team as a freshman. By the time he reached senior year, Maroon led the team to the 2006 Missouri State Championship.

## Playing career

### Early career

While playing high school hockey, Maroon caught the attention of Kelly Chase and Al MacInnis who had recently purchased a North American Hockey League (NAHL) team, the Texarkana Bandits. After meeting with his parents, Maroon joined their team for one season and recorded 60 points in 57 games. He was subsequently named to the NAHL's All-Rookie Team. As the team was in its early stages, Maroon and other rookies would build the rink, paint the ice, and put up boards, as well as cover the ice if the rodeo was in town. In spite of his success, he still went undrafted in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft and Chase and MacInnis encouraged him to work out every day. This resulted in him losing 30 pounds over the summer and increasing his offensive output to 95 points in 57 games during the 2006–07 season. In the same season, the team moved to St. Louis and won their first Robertson Cup National Championship title. During their playoff berth, Maroon recorded 23 points in 12 playoff games and set the league record for most points in a single postseason. Maroon subsequently became the first Bandits player to win the NAHL's MVP award and was drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers in the sixth round, 161st overall, in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft. He had been unaware he had been drafted until his father saw his name on ESPN while watching Maroon at a roller hockey tournament. Prior to his selection, Maroon was ranked by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau as a "B" prospect, meaning he was expected to be drafted in the later rounds.

Following the draft, Maroon was assigned to major junior ice hockey team, the London Knights of the OHL, who had drafted him in the 2004 OHL Selection Draft. Maroon had been invited to the Flyers' rookie and main training camps but was reassigned to the Knights after one exhibition game with their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate. Although he had previously agreed to play NCAA ice hockey with Ferris State University, Mark and Dale Hunter convinced him to play in the OHL. When speaking about his decision, Maroon said "I am really excited about coming to London and playing for the Knights. I think it is a great place for me to develop to be a hockey player." Due to his consistent weight struggles, the Knights hired Maroon a personal trainer during the season and he dropped to 217 pounds. In his first, and only, season with the team Maroon was named to the Western Conference All-Star Team and earned team MVP. He ended the season leading the team with 90 points in 64 games and one assist in five playoff games before joining the Flyers' AHL affiliate the Philadelphia Phantoms. He played one game with the Phantoms as they closed out their 2007–08 season.

### Philadelphia Flyers organization

Maroon began his first full professional season during the 2008–09 AHL season with the Phantoms after being assigned to the AHL following the Flyers' training camp. He ranked fourth on the team with 54 points in 80 games and recorded a team-high three points in four playoff games. The following year, the Phantoms were the only team in the league to record under 200 goals, of which Maroon contributed 11. His season lacked consistency due to injuries but he managed to set a new career-high in assists with 33.

During the summer of 2010, Maroon led the United States men's national inline hockey team to a gold medal performance at the 2010 IIHF InLine Hockey World Championship. He had been allowed on the team without trying out due to his infamous play at the AHL level. He scored 7 goals and 14 points in 6 games at the in-line worlds including a goal and an assist in the gold medal game in Karlstad, Sweden, against the Czech Republic. When he returned to the AHL, the coaching staff was unhappy with his conditioning and released him from the team. Head coach Greg Gilbert told the media that "he wasn't committed to himself...in Patrick's case, I don't really think he knew how to train and play at that level." His agent tried arraigning for him to play in the ECHL or with a Swiss team but the Flyers wouldn't release his rights. For two months, he skated with the Montclair State University Red Hawks Men's Hockey team to stay in shape. He considered enrolling in college but was then informed he had been traded. On November 21, 2010, Philadelphia traded Maroon and David Laliberté to the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for forward Rob Bordson and defenseman Danny Syvret.

### Anaheim Ducks

Shortly after the trade, Maroon was assigned to Anaheim's AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch. Upon his arrival in Syracuse, coach Mark Holick told him, "I traded my best player for you. I don't know what you did in Philly, but I hope you can play." He scored 11 minutes 10 seconds into his first game with the Crunch, and ended the season with 21 goals and 48 points in 57 games. Maroon credited his success to his off-season training and the Crunch's coaching staff. As a result of his successful season, he was invited to the Ducks' training camp prior to the 2011–12 season but was sent on waivers back to the Crunch. After scoring three points in the Crunch's home opener against his former team, the Ducks recalled him to the NHL level for his debut. He made his debut on October 25 against the Chicago Blackhawks, playing 15:19 minutes of ice time. He played two more games for the team alongside Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf before being returned to the AHL. Upon reuniting with the Crunch, Maroon eclipsed 200 AHL points and recorded a hat trick in a 6–3 win over the Norfolk Admirals. He was subsequently signed to a contract extension with the Ducks through the 2012–13 season.

The 2012–13 season was shortened due to a lockout but when the Ducks returned to play, Maroon was placed on a line with Mathieu Perreault and Teemu Selanne. Speaking of the experience, Maroon said "hugging Teemu Selanne, scoring goals, you'll never forget those moments...Those are the moments I can tell Anthony, tell my future kids, that I played with the best players in the world." He played the majority of the season in the AHL but scored two goals in 11 games with the Ducks during call ups throughout the season. On March 21, 2013, the Ducks signed Maroon to a two-year contract extension. The 2013–14 season was Maroon's first full NHL season, during which he appeared in 62 games, scoring 11 goals to go with 18 assists. Although he had a year left on his contract, the Ducks signed him to a three-year contract extension on August 2, 2014.

In the final year of his second contract, Maroon appeared in 71 games, only missing a few due to injury. He missed four weeks at the beginning of the season due to a sprained MCL which he suffered during a game against the Buffalo Sabres. Upon returning to the lineup, Maroon would appear in 71 games, scoring a career high 9 goals with 25 assists. His offensive game came alive in the 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs, scoring 8 goals in 16 games while playing on the Ducks' top line. Maroon was one of the Ducks' most consistent players during their series, finishing third on the team in goals and power play points as well as limited his penalty minutes.

In the 2015–16 season, Maroon found himself playing with the fourth line for the Ducks at the beginning of the season. At times his play was exemplary and other times he often saw his ice time drop to below ten minutes a game. He was reunited with Corey Perry and found his scoring touch, picking up consecutive points in consecutive games, while scoring just 4 goals and 13 points in 56 games. In spite of his low offensive output, he traveled with Perry and his wife to Pelican Hill Resort on trade deadline day where he was then informed by his mother that he had been traded to Edmonton.

### Edmonton Oilers

On February 29, 2016, Maroon was traded to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for Martin Gernát and a fourth-round pick in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft. He made his Oilers debut on March 3 against the Philadelphia Flyers, where he scored his fifth goal of the season during the second period to bring their lead to three. After scoring against his old organization, Maroon said "it all hit me...it brought me back to my time in Philly, when I didn't know how to train, I was out of shape, my dark days. And then now, like, holy f---, this is really happening." His style of play earned him time on the wing of Connor McDavid who he said played differently than his former Ducks teammates. "With Connor, you have great speed in the neutral zone and I just try to play big on the boards, chip the puck out and make sure he gets it. He skates with speed, and Ebs has got really good skill and a good shot. It’s been good. They’re two different experiences, but it’s been good for me." As the Oilers failed to qualify for the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs, Maroon, Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli and head coach Todd McLellan discussed their expectations of Maroon for his offseason conditioning. During the offseason, Maroon returned home to St. Louis where he made a change to his lifestyle and training habits. The Oilers Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Chad Drummond teamed him up with a nutritionist who helped him manage his portion controls and eating habits. As a result, he dropped roughly 15 pounds and 3% body fat in the off-season.

On April 11, 2016, Maroon was named to Team USA's 2016 IIHF World Championship roster alongside teammate Matt Hendricks. He became the first United States player to represent his country at both an inline and ice hockey world championship. In his debut game with the United States men's national ice hockey team, Maroon scored their first and only goal in an eventual 5–1 loss to Canada. His goal came less than five minutes into the first period off an assist from Kyle Connor. He would end the tournament collecting two more points as Team USA failed to medal. When Maroon returned to the Oilers for their 2016 training camp, McLellan was pleased with Maroon's offseason condition. During a preseason game against the Vancouver Canucks, Maroon was checked hard into a corner and was forced to leave the game early. In spite of this, he returned to the Oilers lineup for their preseason game against the Anaheim Ducks on October 5 where he recorded one assist and his first goal of the preseason. Following the exhibition games, the Oilers opened their 2016–17 season playing in their new arena, Rogers Place. In the Oilers first home game on October 12, Maroon scored the first goal in the Rogers Place arena in a 7–4 victory over the Calgary Flames.

Maroon continued to play the remainder of the 2016–17 season with the Oilers alongside Connor McDavid where they recorded a combined Corsi percentage above 50 percent. During the offseason, the Oilers had signed Milan Lucic to play with McDavid but Maroon was deemed to be a better fit. On January 5, 2017, Maroon scored his first career NHL hat-trick in a 4–3 win over the Boston Bruins, breaking the Oilers losing record against Boston which began in November 1996. He ended the season with a new career high 27 total goals and 15 assists, the best for any NHL player born and raised in St. Louis. McDavid, who ended the season with 100 points, assisted on 14 of Maroon's 27 goals. In March, Maroon was named the Oilers nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, given to a player who "best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey." With his assistance, the Oilers qualified for the 2017 Stanley Cup playoffs where they faced off against the San Jose Sharks in Round 1. He scored his first goal of the playoffs in Game 5 to lift the Oilers 4–3 over the Sharks and lead the series 3–2. Upon winning their first series against the Sharks, Maroon and the Oilers began the Western Conference Second Round against the Anaheim Ducks. In Game 2 of the series, Maroon scored his first career goal against his former team to lift the Oilers in a 2–1 win. The Ducks would come back to win the series in seven games and Maroon recorded eight points in 13 games.

Following his career-best season, Maroon returned to the Oilers for the 2017–18 season determined to continue his high scoring play on McDavid's wing. Both McDavid and winger Leon Draisaitl had signed contracts to remain with the Oilers during the offseason while Maroon remained unsigned on his final year of his contract. During training camp, Maroon continued to play with McDavid and Draisaitl on the Oilers top line. On January 3, 2018, Maroon was suspended for two games for interfering against Los Angeles Kings defenseman Drew Doughty. Following the game, Doughty publicly stated that he felt no ill will towards Maroon and acknowledged that "he’s just trying to finish a hit. I don’t know that he meant to try and hurt me. I forgive him." He later missed another game against the Los Angeles Kings in February due to a lower body injury. At the time of his injury, he had recorded 14 goals and 16 assists in 57 games. Maroon acknowledged that as an upcoming unrestricted free-agent in July, there was a high likelihood of him being traded before the season ended. He said, "you know the situation I’m in...but I’m an Edmonton Oiler, I want to stay here. I love this city, the fans, this group of guys. I think my teammates know that."

### New Jersey Devils

On February 25, 2018, Maroon was traded to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for J. D. Dudek and a third-round pick in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. He was displeased with the trade and said "I didn’t really want to get traded out of Edmonton...I actually loved it there. I actually liked it. The fans are great. I liked it. You know what the most important thing was? The guys were great. Unbelievable guys. You could not have found a better group of guys. But obviously I got traded for a reason. We weren’t winning." He made an immediate impact on the team, recording eight points in his first 12 games and earned praise from his teammates on his playmaking ability. Center Travis Zajac spoke highly of Maroon saying, "we're a high-skill, fast team, but you add a player like Patty who can grind away and protect the puck, and bring pucks to the net, go to the net, it adds another threat for us, and it's been a good addition." He ended the season with 13 points in 16 games as he underwent surgery during the offseason to repair a herniated disc in his back.

### St. Louis Blues

Due to his success with the Devils and Oilers, Maroon expected to be selected quickly as a free agent. Yet, after a week passed and he had only met with the St. Louis Blues, Maroon switched agents. His newest agent tried to bring him another deal with New Jersey but Maroon chose to return home and be closer to his son. On July 10, 2018, Maroon signed a one-year, \$1.75 million contract with his hometown St. Louis Blues. In 74 regular season games, Maroon scored 10 goals to go with 18 assists for 28 points.

The Blues qualified for the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs as the third seed from the Central Division, capping a turnaround in a campaign that saw them in last place in the NHL as late as January 2019. As the Blues geared up to face the Winnipeg Jets in the first round of the playoffs, Maroon's grandfather died. Maroon returned to play with the team for Game 1 and later said he felt his grandfather's presence while assisting on the game-winning goal. He helped the team eliminate the Jets in six games and faced off against the Dallas Stars in the second round. Their series was tied 3–3 and they entered Game 7 facing elimination. During the game, Maroon scored the game-winning goal in double overtime to give the Blues a 4–3 series win. Following the win, the Blues defeated the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference Final to face the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Finals. On June 12, Maroon and the Blues won the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history, defeating the Bruins in seven games. He finished the playoffs with seven points.

### Tampa Bay Lightning

During the offseason, Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper pursued Maroon in order to sign him with the team to fill the void of the premature retirement of Ryan Callahan and since Cooper had previously coached Maroon while he played in the North American Hockey League. On August 24, 2019, Maroon signed a one-year, \$900,000 contract with the Lightning and changed his jersey number to 14. He played the entirety of the 2019–20 season, which was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pause in play, Maroon used inline skating to remain in shape. He was named to the Lightning's return to play roster for the Stanley Cup Qualifiers on July 26, 2020. On September 28, 2020, after the Lightning won the Stanley Cup, Maroon became the third player in the post-expansion era to win consecutive Stanley Cups with different teams, following Claude Lemieux and Cory Stillman.

Following the Lightnings' Stanley Cup win, Maroon signed a two-year, \$1.8 million contract to remain with the Lightning on October 29, 2020. On July 7, 2021, the Tampa Bay Lightning won their franchise's third Stanley Cup, and Maroon won his third straight Stanley Cup. He subsequently is the first player to go three-for-three in different uniforms since the expansion era began in 1967 and expanded the league beyond six teams. By February 2022, Maroon was re-signed to a two-year contract after tallying seven goals and 13 points through 45 games.

### Minnesota Wild

On July 2, 2023, Maroon's four-year tenure with the Tampa Bay Lightning concluded when he was traded due to salary cap considerations, along with Maxim Cajkovic, to the Minnesota Wild in exchange for a seventh-round pick in 2024.

## Personal life

Maroon is married to Francesca Vangel, another St. Louis native whose family runs a restaurant called Charlie Gitto's. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Missouri, they distributed food from the restaurant to the Clayton Missouri Police Department and the City of Clayton Fire Department. Maroon has a son from a previous relationship.

In November 2022, after Bruins commentator Jack Edwards remarked about his weight during a game broadcast, Maroon donated \$2,000 to a Tampa Bay charity to support those struggling with mental health and body image.

## Career statistics

### Regular season and playoffs

Bold indicates led league

### International

## Awards and honors

American ice hockey player


1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?)

1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) is the debut studio album by British electronic band The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (the JAMs), later known as the KLF. 1987 was produced using extensive unauthorised samples that plagiarised a wide range of musical works, continuing a theme begun in the JAMs' debut single "All You Need Is Love". These samples provided a deliberately provocative backdrop for beatbox rhythms and cryptic, political raps.

Shortly after independent release in June 1987, the JAMs were ordered by the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society to destroy all unsold copies of the album, following a complaint from ABBA. In response, the JAMs disposed of many copies of 1987 in unorthodox, publicised ways. They also released a version of the album titled 1987 (The JAMs 45 Edits), stripped of all unauthorised samples to leave periods of protracted silence and so little audible content that it was formally classed as a 12-inch single.

## Background and recording

On New Year's Day 1987, Bill Drummond decided to make a hip hop record under the pseudonym "the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu". Knowing little about modern music technology, he invited Jimmy Cauty, a former member of the band Brilliant, to join him. Cauty agreed, and the JAMs' debut single "All You Need Is Love" was independently released on 9 March 1987 as a limited-edition one-sided white label 12-inch. Cauty became "Rockman Rock", and Drummond used the nickname "King Boy D".

The reaction to "All You Need Is Love" was positive; the British music newspaper Sounds listed it as the single of the week, and lauded The JAMs as "the hottest, most exhilarating band this year". The song's reliance on uncleared, often illegal samples made commercial release impossible. In response, the JAMs re-edited the single, removing or doctoring the most antagonistic samples, and re-released it as "All You Need Is Love (106 bpm)" in May 1987. According to Drummond, profits from this re-release funded the recording of their first album. The JAMs had completed and pressed copies of the album by early May 1987, but did not have a distributor.

Like "All You Need Is Love", the album was made using an Apple II computer, a Greengate DS3 digital sampler peripheral card, and a Roland TR-808 drum machine. Several songs were liberally plagiarised, using portions from existing works and pasting them into new contexts, with the duo stealing "everything" and "taking... plagiarism to its absurd conclusion". This mashup of samples was underpinned by rudimentary beatbox rhythms and overlaid with Drummond's raps of social commentary, esoteric metaphors, and mockery. Drummond later said that:

> We'd just got ourselves a sampler, and we went sample-crazy. We just ... went through my whole collection of records, sampling tons of stuff and putting it all together, and it ... was a real rush of excitement, when we were doing it.... When we put that record out, we knew what we were doing was illegal, but we thought it was gonna be such an underground record, nobody would ever hear about it. So the first thing that shocked us is that British rock papers gave a big review.

## Composition

1987 is built around samples of other artists' work, "to the point where the presence of original material becomes questionable". The album is raw and unpolished, the sound contrasting sharply with the meticulous production and tight house rhythms of the duo's later work as the KLF. The beatbox rhythms are basic (described as "weedy" by Q magazine), samples often cut abruptly, and distinctive plagiarised melodies are often played with a high-pitched rasping accompaniment. The plagiarised works are arranged so as to juxtapose with each other as a backdrop for the JAMs' rebellious messages and social comments. The lyrics include self-referential statements of the JAMs' agenda, imbued with their fictional backstory adopted from The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

### Side one

The album's opening song, "Hey Hey We Are Not The Monkees", begins with simulated human sexual intercourse noises (which Drummond later referred to as "sampled breathing stuff") arranged as a rhythm. The album's first sample is "Here we come..." from the Monkees' theme. It progresses into a cryptic and bleak spoken verse from Drummond: "Here we come, crawling out of the mud, from chaos primeval to the burned out sun, dragging our bad selves from one end of time, with nothing to declare but some half-written rhymes". A cacophone of further samples from The Monkees' theme and Drummond's voice follow – "We're not The Monkees, I don't even like The Monkees!" – before it gets interrupted by an original a cappella vocal line that later became The KLF's "Justified and Ancient" – "We're justified/And we're ancient ... We don't want to upset the apple cart/And we don't wanna cause any harm".

The track is followed by a long sample of a London Underground train arriving at and leaving a tube station, with its recorded warning to passengers, "Mind the gap...". "Don't Take Five (Take What You Want)" follows, featuring The JAMs' associates Chike (rapper) and DJ Cesare (scratches). Built around The Dave Brubeck Quartet's "Take Five" and Fred Wesley's "Same Beat", the lyrics are mostly unconventional, with the majority of the song containing references to food: "I was pushing my trolley from detergent to cheese when I first saw the man with antler ears. I tried to ignore but his gaze held my eyes when he told me the truth about the basket of lies". Sounds considered the message of the song (if any) to be a modern version of Robin Hood: "This is piracy in action, with the venerable music industry figure, King Boy D, setting himself up as the Robin Hood of rap as he steals from the rich vaults of recording history".

The first side of the LP closes with "Rockman Rock (Parts 2 and 3)", a homage to Jimmy Cauty that plagiarises from an array of sources, including the "Bo Diddley Beat" and "Sunrise Sunset" from the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack. Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" (interspersed with Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower"), "Since I've Been Loving You" and "Houses of the Holy" can be also heard in this track. Side one would not close until "Why Did You Throw Away Your Giro?", a track consisting of a question in reference to a line from "Rockman Rock" from a female adult jokingly answered by a male person, ended in 20 seconds.

### Side two

The second side begins with "Me Ru Con", a traditional Vietnamese song performed a cappella by the JAMs' friend Duy Khiem. According to Drummond, it was a spontaneous recital by Khiem, who was in the studio contributing clarinet and tenor sax to the album. Khiem's vocal performance was later sampled by The KLF on the ambient house soundtrack to their movie, The Rites of Mu.

"The Queen and I" features extensive samples from ABBA's "Dancing Queen", often overlain with a rasping detuned accompaniment. These lead into Drummond's satirical and discontent rapping, a fictional account of his march into the British House of Commons and Buckingham Palace to demand answers. The song also protests the involvement of cigarette companies in sport ("When cancer is the killer/John Player run the league") and lambasts the "tabloid mentality" ("They all keep talking about Princess Di's dress"). The Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" is briefly sampled. After nearly three minutes of samples from the television show Top of the Pops, as well as sound clips from programmes and advertisements on other TV channels, Drummond cries "Fuck that, let's have The JAMs!". The acerbic "All You Need Is Love (106 bpm)" follows. A "stunning audio collage" featuring an AIDS public information film, a rerecording of glamour model Samantha Fox's "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)", and the nursery rhyme "Ring a Ring o' Roses", "All You Need Is Love" comments on sex and the British media's reaction to the AIDS crisis.

The final track on the album is "Next", which Drummond describes as "the only angst-er on the album", with "imagery of war and sordid sex". The track samples Stevie Wonder's "Superstition", Scott Walker's "Next" from Scott 2, the Fall's "Totally Wired," and Julie Andrews' "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music, alongside Khiem's original melancholy clarinet and tenor saxophone contributions ("a saxophone of stupefying tediosity", according to Danny Kelly).

Bill Drummond summed up The JAMs' approach to composition in the first "KLF Information Sheet", sent out in October 1987: "We made [the album] not giving a shit for soul boy snob values or any other values, we just went in and made the noise we wanted to hear and the stuff that came out of our mouths.... Not a pleasant sound but it's the noise we had. We pressed it up and stuck it out. A celebration of sorts." Jimmy Cauty defended sampling as an artistic practice: "It's not as if we're taking anything away, just borrowing and making things bigger. If you're creative you aren't going to stop working just because there is a law against what you are doing."

In 1991, Drummond admitted: "We didn't listen to 1987 What The Fuck's Going On for a long time, and when we did we were embarrassed by it because it was so badly recorded. But I still felt we were able to get a lot out of ourselves through it."

## Release and controversy

1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) was released in June 1987 on The JAMs' own record label, "The Sound of Mu(sic)".

1987 was met with mixed reviews in most of the major British music publications, including Melody Maker, NME, Sounds, and Q, and the album came to the attention of the management of Swedish pop group ABBA: The JAMs had sampled large portions of the ABBA single "Dancing Queen" on the track "The Queen And I". A legal showdown with ABBA and the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) followed, 1987 was forcibly withdrawn from sale, and The JAMs were ordered to "deliver up the master tape, mothers, stampers and any other parts commensurate with manufacture of the record".

King Boy D and Rockman Rock travelled to ABBA's home country of Sweden, in the hope of meeting with ABBA personally, taking an NME journalist and photographer with them, along with most of the remaining copies of the LP and a gold disc of the album. Failing to find ABBA in residence at Polar Studios in Stockholm, they instead presented the gold disc to a blonde prostitute they pretended was Agnetha "fallen on hard times". Of the original LP's stock, some copies were disposed overboard on the North Sea ferry trip across, and the remainder were burned in a field in Gothenburg before dawn (as shown on the cover of their next album, Who Killed The JAMs?, and detailed in that album's single "Burn the Bastards"). The JAMs also played a recording of "The Queen and I" loudly outside the offices of ABBA's record label, Polar Music. The trip was unexpectedly eventful, the JAMs accidentally hitting and killing a moose, and later being shot at by a farmer, a bullet cracking the engine of their Ford Galaxie police car. They were, by their own account, towed back to England by the AA.

The JAMs were not entirely sure what they would have said to ABBA if they had been able to meet them. Rockman told NME: "We were hoping to explain [our artistic justification] to them and that maybe we'd come out of it friends, you know, them producing our album and us producing theirs—the kind of thing that often happens at these meetings." King Boy: "Yeah, we'd have said, 'Look, you haven't had many hits lately, you don't really wanna bother with all this West End musical shit do you? Come and do the new JAMMS [sic] album.'" In 1994, The Guardian looked back on the Swedish sojourn as "a grand, futile, attention-grabbing gesture, the kind that would come to characterise [the duo's] collaborative career... "We were being totally stupid about it" Drummond later acknowledged."

The JAMs offered what they claimed were "the last five" copies of 1987 for sale at £1000 each in a full-page advertisement in the April 1988 edition of The Face. Drummond argued that the offer exploited a loophole in The JAMs' agreement with the MCPS: "We were browsing around this record shop and came across these five copies of 1987.... We made it perfectly clear to the MCPS that we couldn't actually force the shops to send our LPs back.... [B]ecause we bought them in a shop, these LPs don't come into the agreement and we can do what we like with them and not break any laws." The master acetate and all of the band's other masters were donated to the British Library in 2023.

## Critical response

Q magazine had mixed reactions to 1987, saying that there are "too few ideas being spread too thin". The magazine criticised some songs as "overlong" and questioned the overuse of sampling as "the impression of a random hotchpotch". Q also unfavourably commented that The JAMs' "use of the beatbox is altogether weedy". It liked some of its tracks: "there are some wickedly amusing ideas and moments of pure poetry in the lyrics while some of the musical juxtapositions are both killingly funny and strong enough to stand repeated listenings".

A reviewer for Melody Maker found 1987 "inspirational", and "the most exciting, most original record [he'd] heard in years". He also argued that: "Some snatches [of plagiarised music] rather outstay their welcome, tugging tell-tale glitz away from the clifftop and dangerously close to smug obviousness, but when the blows are kept short, sharp and very bloody, they make anything else you're very likely to hear on the radio dull and desperately humourless." "It's easy to dismiss The JAMs frolics as little more than a brightly coloured sideshow to the shabbiest circus in town", a later article said, but "believe me, it's far more than a gimmick".

In awarding 1987 the highest rating, a maximum five stars, Sounds—a publication that offered the duo's work consistent approval—mused, "Taking the sound of the moment (hip hop) as a backbone, 1987 steals sound artefacts from anywhere ... and meshes them together with King Boy's hysterical 'Clydeside' rap method with bewildering effect. ... [Y]ou could call this sampling technology's answer to T. S. Eliot's arch cut up work, The Wasteland. " "What's so good about The JAMs", the magazine said, "is the way they are capturing on disc the whole social and musical confusion and instability of 1987 Britain".

NME'''s Danny Kelly was not so impressed. He also felt that the record was underdeveloped and The JAMs were not the most skilled of practitioners. "Audacity, completely unfounded self-confidence, utter ruthlessness and a fast car will, of course, be useful attributes to the go-ahead noise-pirate of the 90s, but skill, feel, instinct, vision—y'know, boring old talent—will still be bottom line compulsories... it's in these latter commodities that the JAMs seem conspicuously undertooled." Compared to the output of DJ Code Money or Cut Creator ("all humour, vibrancy and colour... – aerosoled version[s] of The Book of Kells") Kelly felt Drummond's efforts to be a "glitter-crusted charity Christmas card". A later NME item called 1987 "the best comment on sampling culture ever made".

A retrospective review by AllMusic commented that 1987 is "a hilarious record" filled with "comments on music terrorism and [The JAMs'] own unique take on the Run-D.M.C. type of old-school rapping"; and The Penguin Price Guide for Record & CD Collectors called 1987 an "entirely brilliant example of the art of disc-jockey-as-producer". Giving another retrospective review from across the Atlantic, Trouser Press described 1987 as "energetic" and "a loopy dance album that isn't unlike a lot of sampled records, but proceeds from an entirely different cultural understanding."

## Personnel

Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty were responsible for the concept and production of 1987, its lyrics and the TR-808 beatbox rhythms. Drummond provided rap, and an additional rapper introduced as 'Chike' appears on "Don't Take Five (Take What You Want)" and "Rockman Rock (Parts 2 and 3)". Duy Khiem contributed lead vocals to "Mẹ Ru Con", as well as clarinet and tenor sax to "Rockman Rock (Parts 2 and 3)" and "Next".

## Track listing

Side one

Side two

## "1987: The JAMs 45 Edits"

Following the enforced deletion of the 1987 album, the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu released an edited version as a 12" single, with all of the unauthorised samples removed, leaving sparse instrumentation, Drummond's social commentary and, in several cases, long periods of silence; the "Top of the Pops" section of the original LP yielded three minutes of silence on 45 Edits, and the only sample remaining from the original was The Fall's "Totally Wired."

The edited single was sold through normal retail channels and also offered as a "reward" to anyone who returned a copy of the LP to The JAMs' post office box. The single was released on 16 October 1987, and on 31 October 1987 The JAMs announced that the case with ABBA "is now closed". The sleevenotes to "1987: The JAMs 45 Edits" explain to the purchaser in a rather tongue-in-cheek fashion how to recreate the original 1987'' album for themselves:

> This record is a version of our now deleted and illegal LP '1987, What The Fuck Is Going On?' with all of the copyright infringing 'samples' edited out. As this leaves less than 25 minutes of music we are able to sell it as a 12-inch 45. If you follow the instructions below you will, after some practice, be able to simulate the sound of our original record. To do this you will need 3 wired-up record decks, a pile of selected discs, one t.v. set and a video machine loaded with a cassette of edited highlights of last weeks 'Top of the Pops'. Deck one is to play this record on, the other two are to scratch in the missing parts using the selected records. For added authentic effect you could use a Roland 808 drum machine (well cheap and what we used in the original recordings) to play along behind your scratching.

Debut album of The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu