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A Delicious Review of Project Pop's Six-A-Six album
Now standing at 11-years old, the five-guys-one-girl group has recently released an album with a very odd name, "Six-A-Six." Project Pop member Odie Astadi could not wait to send it to me in Malaysia for a review - within a matter of two days, the attractive green and yellow CD arrived from Tangerang at my doorstep in a large Fedex envelope in late May. I did not understand why Project Pop gave the new release such a weird title until I read their CD inlay. The "Six" denotes the band's sixth album, plus there's six of them in the group! The term "A-Six" could also be regarded as trendy distortion of the word "asik" (cool). The album cover champions it as being an "album metal paling dugem." If you're anywhere near fluent in Indonesian slang, the tagline would have made you gawk with confusion. What the band is trying to say is that they have a metal rock album featuring the best of clubbing music. Have I mentioned the band is kooky? :)
12 songs listed, but 19 tracks appear? When I slipped the CD into my PC's DVD tray, my media player listed 19 tracks but only a dozen song names are printed on the album cover. What gives? It appears that Project Pop have listened to my cries of complaint and positively responded! You see, in their last album entitled "Pop Circus" (2005), I lamented to them about leaving out those memorable and funny 1-minute skits prior the start of each song that they're so famous for. Those short introductory and zany dialogues were Project Pop's signature of performance in older albums like PopOK (2004) and Tu Wa Ga Pat (2002). The skits would have them act as ordinary citizens going through bizarre scenarios like a straight yuppie anxiously getting a haircut by a very flamboyant and chatty hairdresser (gay dong), and a middle-aged couple fighting with a group of teenagers about who gets to play their favorite song on a restaurant's jukebox - a saccharine-1970s love song vs. a funky rap song about a pager. Presenting new scenes of satire like these to jumpstart each song in Six-A-Six was a very welcoming feature - and that alone was enough to get me excited about listening to it.
Funky songs ahead I sincerely believe the first song on any album has to be catchy and interesting to grab the listening interest of the intended audience. Project Pop has this concept nailed down to the core with the opening track, Pop 2007. Pop 2007 has got a smooth, funky dance beat about it, and this song sets the tone to how enjoyable and exciting the rest of the Six-A-Six sounds. The track basically exudes the appreciation of Project Pop of its fans, calling the girl fans seksi and boy fans cakep (good-looking), while not forgetting to address the rest of the population like the ibu-ibu, bapak-bapak, nenek-nenek and of course, kakek-kakek! Kencan is the next catchy number about a guy asking a girl for a date but she consistently refuses. When he offers her things to eat like bananas and nuts, she screams in annoyance because the food reminded her of an elephant's diet! I let a friend listen to Kencan and she immediately liked it. It was funny to see her try memorizing the chorus part as she stumbled through some words that are typically Indonesian (she's Malaysian). For example, she couldn't say "kerjaan" without instinctively wanting to put "pe-" in front of it.
Metal vs Dugem
Now we come to the third golden offering of Six-A-Six, Metal Vs Dugem. I suspect the band is trying to recreate the remarkable response it got from Dangdut is the Music of My Country in 2004 when it married dangdut beats to a metal rock song! This time the unthinkable has happened - Project Pop has coupled a metal song with a techno one! It is a wacky dual between kampungan (red-neck) metal rockers and norak (tacky) disco clubbers. If you think that theme is ridiculous, wait till you hear the chorus! It's got the metal rockers going "guk-angguk" (nod) repetitively (to denote the stereotypical way rockers bang their heads at concerts) and the clubbers are going "leng-geleng" ( After listening to this song, I couldn't help but think that Yosie, the creator of the song, has got a particularly sick fondness for mutating metal songs. He also wrote Dangdut is the Music of My Country. Dugem, on the other hand, is an interesting word and it is relatively new in Indonesian slang vocabulary. I first learned of this word in 2001 - it is short for "dunia gemerlap malam," a scenario that possibly describes the flashing of disco balls and lights inside a typically dark dance hall.
The Rest of the Songs There are 9 more songs to cover from Six-A-Six, but I'll just gloss over 5 more of them as they are my favorite and deserve to be mentioned. Kok Kamu...? composed by Udjo is a tongue-in-cheek song about a guy determined to lose weight by various means of exercise like jogging in the morning, lifting weights, dancing, even sumo-wrestling and poco-poco! (Poco-poco is similar to square dancing and is popular among Indonesians when attending formal dinner parties and such.) The reason for such idealistic persistence is his girlfriend who constantly and offendingly asks "kok kamu gendut?" (why are you fat?) Pacaran atau Nggak (TTN) is also another melodically pleasing number. I screamed with laughter as the introduction has Gugum asking his girlfriend whether she was a preman (thug) or kekasih (lover). The reason for such a ludicrous question is the girl who is wishy-washy about being lovers with the boy. She treats him more than a friend but less than a lover, the position in which we all hate to be. TTN incidentally means Teman Tapi Ngarep (A Hopeful Friend). Tataluan is vocal-rich and posesses strong tribal-like beats with its energetic drumming. I liked this song too because it is different and experimental in nature. Cinlok. Now this is one of Project Pop's more unusual presentation of late (but then again nothing is normal with this group), and one which sole girl member Tika Panggabean says is "agak-agak Melayu iramanya." In a text message to me, Tika tells me she strongly thinks the song will be well-accepted in Malaysia. I admit it is very traditional Malay-sounding with the sonic sashaying that is suspiciously like zapin folk music complete with accordian. I also detect a verse with the sitar being played for some reason. I suppose the song will warm the hearts of the Malays in Malaysia, if not make them chuckle in bewilderment at the attempt. If you're wondering what on earth a "cinlok" is, it's short for "Cinta Lokasi," which literally translates as Love Location, or Local Love. It is a phenomenon in which a person falls in love with someone due to the convenience of closer proximity (e.g. someone who works overseas and falls in love with someone local in the host country because it is inevitably easier than maintaining a long distance relationship with the wife back home). Aw...Aw... is a colorful piece by Gugum about people who are too nervous to profess their love to that special someone. When nervous, all sorts of bodily mishaps occur (salting - salah tingkah) like kentut (farting) and gugup (stammering). I told Tika that this song would make a very cute soundtrack for a teen love flick. I should also probably mention to Project Pop that the term "aw aw" in Malaysia is a colloquial and non-derogatory term to refer to a flamboyant man. I have not covered the following and remaining four songs: Beda Sama Kamu, Putusin Aku Dong, Anti Patah Hati and Angkat Dong. All I can say is angkat a copy of Six-A-Six and find out!
The Language Lesson Skit There are a total of 7 skits in Six-A-Six and I won't mention all of them, save for one. It appears just after "Kok Kamu...?" as track number 8. If you've been following Myindo.com for a while now, you will know that I love learning about Indonesian slang and this is exactly what track number 8 is all about - Pelajaran Bahasa Gaul. The 38-second lesson has soothing piano background music as Tika walks you through a smidgen of Indonesia's current trendy slang phrases. In parallel to that, you can hear Yosie's softer voice giving the English translations. Among the hilarious phrases include: ABCD - Aduh bow, capek deh (oh man, I'm tired) The next one sent me into peals of uncontrollable laughter: MET - Mene eke tehe (how would I know?) Mene eke tehe (or meneeketehe) is a contorted phrase for "mana aku tahu!" Golly, it is now my favorite phase ever! It has to be said with a hint of snobbery and bitchiness for it to work, mind you! The other phrase that made me snort was TTM: teman tapi monyet! (a friend but a monkey!)
Conclusion Project Pop's latest Six-A-Six album is a musically-rich plate of juicy nuggets that will turn you into Project Pop addicts. I have been listening to this album almost everyday now for the past one month without even feeling a tinge of boredom and rightfully so. I purposely waited four weeks to write this review because I wanted to fully marinate my mind with it as I think you as a reader deserve to know about the album from someone who has been duly exposed to it. In short, Six-A-Six is an exciting, refreshing set of songs by Project Pop that simply oozes with creativity, pure entertainment and great fun. You'll appreciate it even more after learning that all the songs are composed by members of the band, despite the fact that they don't play a single musical instrument! It is all thanks to their talented music arranger, Irwan "Men" Simanjuntak, that all of Project Pop's musical ideas are brilliantly translated from the voice hummings recorded on their MP3-enabled mobile phones to the songs you hear on their CDs. But I do have one tiny gripe about the album and would like to say something to the group:
Relevant articles: External link: Thank you Odie for sending me this album, and Tika for the endless follow-ups via SMS.
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I've always liked Project Pop - the Bandung-born band's unconventional style of entertainment has always been very kooky. Their songs are forever laced with simplistic but demented lyrics, and their sense of humour is so 
), much2 better......hahaha.. ...
trus kalo di sana ada yang panggil indon, kita gebukin aja, hehehe 
