Background

Pop Art was recorded for one side of a limited edition give-away single at a special night at the Crystal Ballroom in Melbourne.

Credits

Composition, arrangement, drums & bass synth - Philip Brophy
Saxophone - Ralph Traviato
Guitar - Leigh Parkhill
Synthesizer - Anthony Montemurro
Engineering - David Chesworth

1979

Single released on Crystal Ballroom Records

2005 + 2012

Included on INNER CITY SOUND compilation CD, Laughing Outlaw Records, Sydney

Overview

The opportunity to record a one-sided single allowed for a singular one-off crack at writing a pop song. In keeping with nearly all → ↑ → music projects, it would be instrumental. In 1979, → ↑ → and Philip still viewed records mainly as a means of documenting musical projects, and extending the live sets into a recorded medium. With Pop Art, the subject was the very idea of 'pop music', pondering how you defined it (wild debates raged about the pros and cons of 'pop music' at the time due to the prominence of 'New Wave' and 'Power Pop'). The result is a single that mimics the idea of being a 'pop single' - a reflexive pun typical of → ↑ →. The cover to the record spells this out: the words 'pop art' form a stream which floats through the air of a theatrically constructed 'room'; the words pass through an empty guilded picture frame, momentarily transforming pop into art.

That's what the record sounds like.

Philip Brophy, Jayne Stevenson, Brian Parrish, David Chesworth, Ralph Traviato, Leigh Parkhill & Anthony Montemurro - Latrobe University recording studio, Melbourne © 1979

Technical

Recorded in a single session at the Latrobe University recording studio. A few mistakes can be heard in the bass playing (this being pre-computer and MIDI tracking), and at the end Ralph audibly queries "Did I hit the right octave?". He did.