[History Student Work] Critical Commentary on Visual Pop by George Melly

Original Intro to Visual Pop by George Melly
“REVOLT INTO STYLE by the British writer George Melly (b. 1926) is one of the definitive accounts of the evolution of Pop style in postwar Britain. Melly—jazz singer, authority on Surrealism, and critic—brought a sharp journalistic eye to the visual manifestations of this seismic upheaval in popular culture, social attitudes, and taste.

His 1967 report on Pop’s graphic dimension, first published in a British newspaper, is an early example of commentary that addresses graphic communication not from the designer’s perspective as a professional activity, but as a form of coded subcultural expression in the lives of its intended audience. Melly might, by his own admission, have been an observer of this culture, rather than an active participant in the “Underground” music scene, but his sympathetic assessment and insights come from a critical consumer’s point of view.—RP”