. . . and Then We Have the Critics : <i> Uniting disparate art events around a common theme in a three-month festival setting is quite a challenge. How successful was the UK/LA ’88 Festival in doing that? An assessment follows: : </i>

POP

The Beatles. The Stones. Zeppelin. Elton. The Pistols. The Clash. Costello. The Cure.

Considering Britain’s monumental contributions to pop music over the past 25 years, not to mention its current productivity, you might have expected the UK/LA Festival to bounce to a prominent rock beat.

But the only significant pop entry was the L.A. debut of the eclectic Penguin Cafe Orchestra. The fact that the only other pop events were a couple of regular tour stops (Gene Loves Jezebel, David Sylvian) with a festival logo pinned on, and a reggae show at the Watts Towers, suggests that UK/LA didn’t much care about the pop community. The fact that no one in the pop community is crying about it suggests that the feeling’s mutual.