''Artistička radna akcija'' (meaning: ''"Artistic Work Action"'', also known under the

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

: ''ARA'') is a new wave and

punk rock Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...

compilation album released in 1981 by

Jugoton Jugoton was the largest record label and chain record store in the former Yugoslavia based in Zagreb, SR Croatia. History Jugoton was formed in 1947. It replaced Elektroton, which had been founded in 1937, nationalized in 1945, and liquidated ...

SFR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...

. It presents a snapshot of the early 1980s

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

underground music Underground music is music with practices perceived as outside, or somehow opposed to, Popular music, mainstream popular music culture. Underground styles lack the commercial success of popular music movements, and may involve the use of avant-g ...

scene through bands Radnička Kontrola, Bezobrazno Zeleno, Profili Profili, Defektno Efektni, Urbana Gerila, Petar i Zli Vuci, U Škripcu, Pasta ZZ, VIA Talas and TV Moroni, all of whom took part in the compilation as means of showcasing their material to a wider audience.

Background

The album was released by

as a followup to the hugely successful ''

Paket aranžman ''Paket aranžman'' () is a New wave music in Yugoslavia, new wave compilation album released in 1981 by Jugoton. Featuring eminent Belgrade acts Šarlo Akrobata, Idoli and Električni Orgazam, it is considered to be one of the most important and ...

'' that presented three

bands (

Idoli Idoli ( sr-Cyrl, Идоли; trans. The Idols) were a Serbian new wave band from Belgrade. They are considered to be one of the most notable acts of the Yugoslav rock scene, and their 1982 album ''Odbrana i poslednji dani'' was on several occas ...

Šarlo Akrobata Šarlo Akrobata ( sr-Cyrl, Шарло Акробата, lit= Charlot the Acrobat) were a seminal Serbian new wave/post-punk band from Belgrade. Short-lived but extremely influential, in addition to being one of the most important acts of the Yug ...

and

Električni Orgazam Električni Orgazam ( sr-cyr, Електрични Оргазам, lit=Electric Orgasm, translit=) is a Serbian rock band from Belgrade. Originally starting as a combination of new wave, punk rock and post-punk, the band later slowly changed th ...

), which, after the compilation release, quickly gained mainstream popularity. Still, despite employing a similar concept, ''Artistička radna akcija'' never managed to replicate the critical and commercial success of its predecessor. The compilation was recorded at Druga Maca studio during April and May 1981 and, like ''Paket aranžman'', was also produced by Enco Lesić. Dušan Vasiljević was among the engineers. The compilation featured the U Škripcu tracks surf

Spaghetti Western The spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's filmmaking style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

"Pamflex dom" and

ska Ska (; , ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a w ...

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...

oriented "Južno voće", which became minor hits, along with Bezobrazno Zeleno tracks "Bežim niz ulicu" and "Beograd", and the seven piece band Petar i Zli Vuci tracks "Ogledalo" and "Kozaci", which were also released on single. The former appeared on the B92 list of 100 Greatest

Yugoslav rock Popular music in Yugoslavia includes the pop music, pop and rock music of the former SFR Yugoslavia, including all their genres and subgenres. The scene included the Federated state, constituent republics: SR Slovenia, SR Croatia, SR Bosnia and H ...

songs in 2006, ranked in the 90th place.Psycho_555’s Journal – 100 Najboljih Domaćih Pesama (B92) – Last.fm
/ref> The VIA Talas track "Lilihip" is a cover version of the

Millie Small Millicent Dolly May Small Order of Distinction, CD (6 October 1947 – 5 May 2020) was a Jamaican singer who is best known for her international hit "My Boy Lollipop" (1964). The song reached number two in both the UK Singles Chart, UK and ...

song "

My Boy Lollipop "My Boy Lollipop" (originally "My Girl Lollypop") is a song written in the mid-1950s by Robert Spencer of the doo-wop group The Cadillacs, and usually credited to Spencer, Morris Levy, and Johnny Roberts. It was first recorded in 1956 by American ...

". Half of the bands did not release any other recordings except the ones on this compilation. Bezobrazno Zeleno released two studio albums, Profili Profili released a split album with Kazimirov Kazneni Korpus, Petar i Zli Vuci released two singles, U Škripcu had several studio releases and gained mainstream popularity moving to synthpop, and VIA Talas released one studio album before disbanding in 1982. Unlike ''

'', which featured three young acts that almost immediately became critically acclaimed, even commercially successful, each one of the ten bands on ''Artistička radna akcija'' (with the exception of U Škripcu) remained largely obscure. Still, many of the individuals who took part in ''Artistička radna akcija'' found success in other bands, other forms of artistic expression or other professions altogether, such as: *Radnička Kontrola members: vocalist Zoran "Cane" Kostić who formed the popular

garage punk A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicl ...

band

Partibrejkers Partibrejkers (Serbian Cyrillic: Партибрејкерс, transliteration for: ''Partybreakers'') is a Serbian rock band from Belgrade, as well as one of the most acclaimed acts of the Yugoslav rock scene. The band was formed in 1982 and rel ...

, and drummer Srđan Todorović who later played with

Disciplina Kičme Disciplin A Kitschme, originally known as Disciplina Kičme ( sr-Cyrl, Дисциплина Кичме, transl. ''Backbone Discipline''), was a Serbian and SFR Yugoslavia, Yugoslav and, for a period of time, Great Britain, British Rock music, r ...

Ekatarina Velika Ekatarina Velika ( sr-Cyrl, Екатарина Велика, lit=Catherine the Great), sometimes referred to as EKV ( sr-Cyrl, ЕКВ) for short, was a Serbian and Yugoslav rock band from Belgrade, and was one of the most successful and influ ...

and

Kazna Za Uši Kazna Za Uši ( sr-Cyrl, Казна За Уши; trans. ''Ear Punishment'') is a Serbian garage rock band from Belgrade. History Band formation, first releases (1986–1991) The band was formed in Autumn 1986 by lead guitarist and vocalis ...

, and in parallel started a successful acting career * VIA Talas members:

Bojan Pečar Bojan Pečar (Serbian Cyrillic: Бојан Печар) (22 March 1960 – 13 October 1998) was a Yugoslav and Serbian musician, best known as bass player of the cult Yugoslav rock band Ekatarina Velika. Previously he was a member of the new ...

who joined

and Miško "Plavi" Petrović who joined the popular

synthpop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s ...

duo D' Boys *Urbana Gerila members: Nenad "Kele" Krasavac who joined Disciplina Kičme, Branislav "Kebra" Babić who formed the

alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...

band Obojeni Program. Also Branko Rosić, later to become a journalist, and Vladimir Arsenijević, later to become awarded and internationally acclaimed writer-novelist as well as co-founder and editor of the magazine ''Rende'', and Slobodan "Loka" Nešović, later founder of Automatik Records company. In the years since its release, ''Artistička radna akcija'' has managed to gain some slightly wider recognition as a referential work that endeared itself to many, and, along with '' Novi Punk Val'' and ''Paket aranžman'', is considered an important symbol of the Yugoslav new wave era and the former Yugoslav punk scene. The record today is a rarity and a collectors item and has a

cult status A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The latter is often called a cult classic. A film, book ...

in the countries that emerged after the

breakup of Yugoslavia After a period of political and economic crisis in the 1980s, the constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart in the early 1990s. Unresolved issues from the breakup caused a series of inter-ethnic Yugoslav ...

. The album was re-released on CD in July 2014.

Track listing

# Radnička Kontrola - "Dosada" (3:50) # Radnička Kontrola - "TV u koloru" (1:45) # Bezobrazno Zeleno - "Bežim niz ulicu" (2:27) # Bezobrazno Zeleno - "Beograd" (2:05) # Profili Profili - "Majke ih guraju u metalnim kolicima" (2:55) # Profili Profili - "Nemir živaca" (3:25) # Defektno Efektni - "A" (3:00) # Defektno Efektni - "D" (2:00) # Urbana Gerila - "Proces" (2:05) # Urbana Gerila - "Bez naslova" (1:45) # Petar i Zli Vuci - "Ogledalo" (3:28) # Petar i Zli Vuci - "Kozaci" (2:20) # U Škripcu - "Pamflex dom" (2:20) # U Škripcu - "Južno voće" (2:07) # Pasta ZZ - "FG & Acreppy" (3:20) # Pasta ZZ - "Drakula" (2:07) # VIA Talas - "Hawaii (Najlepši kraj)" (2:00) # VIA Talas - "Lilihip (

)" (2:00) # TV Moroni - "Moja borba" (2:05) # TV Moroni - "Pada noć" (2:25)

References

* ''Punk u Jugoslaviji'' (Punk in Yugoslavia), Dragan Pavlov and Dejan Šunjka, publisher: IGP Dedalus, Yugoslavia, 1990
''Ilustrovana Enciklopedija Yu Rocka 1960-1997'' (Illustrated Encyclopedia of YU Rock), Petar Janjatović, publisher: Geopoetika, 1997

"Paket Aranžman" and "Artistička radna akcija" Review at terapija.net e-zine

* ttp://www.discogs.com/Various-Artisti%C4%8Dka-Radna-Akcija-Beograd-81/release/1015428 Artistička radna akcija at Discogs {{DEFAULTSORT:Artisticka Radna Akcija Serbian-language compilation albums Punk rock albums by Serbian artists New wave albums by Serbian artists Punk rock compilation albums New wave compilation albums 1981 compilation albums Regional music compilation albums Jugoton compilation albums Punk rock albums by Yugoslav artists New wave albums by Yugoslav artists

Background

Track listing

See also

References