Project Pop

Project Pop is the second generation of Bandung-based Indonesian musical comedy troupe, Padhyangan. Comprised of Oddie, Gummi, Yossi, Udjo, Oon and sole female member Tika, Project Pop has already released several successful albums. While their Padhyangan successors did parodies of popular songs much in the same way Weird Al Yankovic does, Project Pop writes original comedy tunes, with varying levels of success. Their most successful album to date has been 2005's "Pop Circus", which featured the hit "Jangan Ganggu Banci" (Don't Disturb the Transvestites), a riff on the sufferings of the transvestite profession in Indonesia (police raids, ridicule, and the occasional broken leg suffered jumping over a ditch). Project Pop's songs often feature humorous lyrics on themes such as love, dating, and unrequited crushes, while their more comedic stuff features everything from the perils of highlighting your hair (parental disinheritance), traffic jams, dangdut music, haunted houses, body odor, public transportation, and other topics. Despite all the comedy, they are noted for having several songs which speak about Indonesia's racial and cultural diversity while promoting unity and peace, most notably: "Beda Sama Kamu" (Different than You), "Dangdut Is the Music of My Country", and "Indovers". Their latest album, "Six A Six" features the song "Dugem vs Metal", which tells of the rivalry between metalheads and clubbers and their choice of music, memorable for its comparison of the metalheads' 'headbanging' motion and the clubbers 'headshaking' motion. It is especially catchy because the 'clubbing' musical arrangement features not high-end mixing styles, but the rather corny and tacky 'rural' variety with its outdated synthesizers and wacky melody. The same effect was used - with much greater success, in "Dangdut Is The Music of My Country", still regarded as one of the band's best-ever tracks.