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The term "art rock" is more of an umbrella phrase for many different genres of music than it is an actual genre in itself. To imply that everything from The Beatles to Henry Cow to The Dillinger Escape Plan to Frank Zappa and then some, fall under one category, is kind of unfair to the particular artists. It is especially offensive to suggest that "experimental music," which describes a specific goal of a type of music, lose it's entry and be called another type of "art rock." The phrase really is only useful for people who aren't familiar with music other than what's on the radio. I think the article should describe this briefly and then encourage the reader to research various other genres of music. The exception to this would be the wave of UK brands in the 00's that were specifically called "artrock" in magazines based on certain common ambitions and characteristics, but I agree with the other person on this discussion that that should be a seperate entry. ---

The suggestion wasn't to merge "art rock" into "experimental music", but to merge "art rock" with "experimental rock," an article I really have a problem with because it is a purely descriptive, and thus subjective term, and has never been applied with even the consistency of "art rock" to designate specific styles or influences. There are many subcategories of under-the-radar pop and rock music one could call "experimental," and mostly, all those artists are already treated in detail within those categories (i.e. "psych-rock", "apocalyptic folk", "noise music", etc).

The suggestion for "experimental rock" itself was to delete the entry, merging the bands and artists listed there that truly do exemplify the "experimental music" aesthetic (even though they are supposedly "pop") into the "experimental music" article, and putting the remainder of bands, and generalizations about what "experimental rock" means, here into "art rock". 172.165.45.49 08:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

from the artical: Though each generation of artists spawns its own set of quickly abandoned labels-- prog, new wave, grunge, alternative-- perhaps in this age of low expectations and cookie cutter radio playlists, "art rock" is the only term that can accurately hint at the variety of influences and unbridled creativity that the most unique bands of any genre aspire to.

I agree, but does this really belong in an encyclopedia?

THe POLICE???? THere is NOTHING experimental about them. ART???? Is this a joke????

I don't see the Police in that article, but have you ever paid attention to their rhythm section or style of production in the early 80s? I don't think so.

Art rock does not designate something as being good or groundbreaking. If you like, it designates it as having pretentions to be "art." While I might say a Damned song was far more genuinely artistic than a Police song, the Police and Sting had some of the most obvious "arty" pretentions ever. U2 certainly had them as well, even. Not that these bands belong in the article, but art rock doesn't really mean anything, so you shouldn't get offended if you see something there you don't like. In fact as it is, this article seems way too bent on proving "art rock" is a good thing. It should only reflect the way the term is already used-- which is varied and includes music I love and music I hate. It needs more of the bad examples (I'm not thinking Police, who are ok, more like Emerson Lake & Palmer).

Art rock is basically a broad designation that can include anything ranging from progressive rock to punk, depending on whether someone has seen it as "art," the band drew influence from other forms of "art," or fans and the media like to think of it as being "art" to distinguish it from other music out there which doesn't aspire to such a designation. As the first song the biggest Police album is based on a book by Carl Jung and the last is based on a book by Paul Bowles, and in between there's a song consisting of tuneless shouting over a Middle Eastern instrumental part, I think this definitely qualifies. :)

Something truly uncommercial that exists outside the pop or indie music industries, should probably not be designated under the umbrella "art rock" anyway, but as experimental music or something. To be art rock, it still has to be rock or pop in some form. For some reason Radiohead is mentioned in the experimental music article. really, they should not be there, they are the ultimate example of art rock.

This is the incomplete text from the article, some of which has potential:

In the years since, "art rock" bands have had

Though the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are,

Many artists working within "art rock" would counter that . At the same time, it is clear that art rock forms have been hijacked as well.

Art rock may prominently feature instruments beyond the standard rock band combo.

tape loops, synthesizers, samples, and electronic manipulation may also play a heavy role. It may feature cryptic lyrics

t may be accessible to the ear, or it may be noisy, chaotic, and avant-garde.

tending toward the avant-garde.

With this background, one would think serious bands would go out of their way to identify their

Much of the stigma that keeps current bands from identifying themselves as "art rock" arose during the 1970s, when

of lyrical imagery and exotic instruments. Few pop artists openly ascribe to "art rock" bands, but

Marlowe 15:45, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The list of notable artists seems to be a bit over-inclusive. (Nine Inch Nails? The Cure? The criterion for inclusion seems to be something like "more alternative than Robbie Williams".) Perhaps it should be pruned down to artists who primarily epitomise art rock, such as the Velvet Underground and Can. Acb 15:00, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's arguable whether the Velvet Underground, despite their originality at the time and huge influence on bands in today's indie or alternative scene, could be considered particularly more "art rock" than the Cure or Nine Inch Nails when the music is taken on its own merits by today's standards. Just follow me here for a bit...

Yeah, there is White Light/White Heat and certain tracks on VU&Nico, but there's also "Pale Blue Eyes" and "Who Loves the Sun." So each band has its range.

But more important than that, one person's definition of supreme "artyness" may center around something totally abrasive like "Sister Ray," and that person may find the Cure's Disintegration or one of those interminable Trent Reznor songs to be sophomoric new agey angst shit... but another person may see "Sister Ray" with its guitar/drums/bass/scratchy vocals/sensual lyrics as pure rock n' roll in the Chuck Berry mold, and see even one of the most melodic, easy to listen to songs from Disintegration as more unique, for its lack of adherence to standard rock instrumentation/production style/whatever.

Anyway the point is, both the Cure and the Velvet Underground just to go with those easy examples, in their own ways contain typical elements of rock music, and untypical elements. It's obvious that if "art rock" means anything, it's a sliding scale, and hopefully no one would dispute Can is further along the scale than either the Cure OR the Velvet Underground, and that in turn Can is just the tip of the iceberg if you're talking about true "art rock"...

But then that's also assuming "the weirder and less accessible, the more 'arty'." Which could be a bad thing to get into assuming-- who can really say what is typical or "commercial" even in today's stifling radio climate, when the strangest sounding songs can occasionally become hits, without anyone ever having necessarily set out to be "arty"? There's something elitist about the term "art rock" that seems to presume bands with a certain education level and ability/inclination to describe their own work in intellectual terms.

You have someone like Bowie whose music was pretty conventional from the start (admit it), although slightly less so in terms of lyrics, but still had nothing on "Sister Ray" much less "Aumgn." Yet he always saw himself, and thus was seen, from an arty perspective. He had probably been to art school, and he hung out with artsy types. His album covers were ingenious.

I'm not saying Bowie is an elitist. But a system that designates "Changes" as art rock and a Tina & Ike Turner single from the same period as something else, because of elements in the performers' style, audience or biography that have nothing directly to do with the music, is a silly one, and I'm sure Bowie himself would agree.

There seems to be a consensus that part of what makes something "art rock" would be an attitude, as opposed to "prog rock," where the end complexity of the music, rather than the spirit in which it's created, have come to be all that's considered.

The artist's attitude, the most important, is also the most subjective kind of musical designation, because who is to say what does and doesn't have an arty ambition, just as who is to say what is and isn't "art"? Attempting objectivity vis a vis different tastes, the only way to define these terms is to self-define them, where "arty" or "art" denotes any work that aspires to something more than a meaningless product or commodity, just as "music" cannot be defined more specifically than denoting sound created with the intent of being listened to. So we define it by what ISN'T art rock. "Robbie Williams isn't art rock. Oasis isn't art rock." Because they set out not to be.

But then again, is a product or commodity not an "artistic" thing? Considering that's just a shorthand for something a lot of people listen to, and mostly do get SOMETHING out of? Sometimes art has been defined as art precisely because it comments on its own status as such (i.e. Warhol). But maybe some very mainstream pop music is commenting without us realizing it... how would we know? Bowie is not the only pop star of his kind. And all music with words is saying SOMETHING. Would we consider a conventional sounding song with strange lyrics to be art? What about a weird sounding song with conventional lyrics? What about a song that's so ambitiously bad it had to be intentional, to make some point? Yet these three song scenarios appear somewhat frequently on the pop charts. Do they stop being art?

Another thing is audience. Sigur Ros is art rock in America and Britain, but in Iceland they're mainstream pop music. Lou Reed is art rock... except "Walk on the Wild Side" was a huge mainstream hit. Does it count as art because it uses an upright bass instead of electric and has jazz elements (then, do we have to consider Norah Jones "art rock"- are other things that aren't rock at all, and aren't anything else either, "art rock" by default)? Or because it's about a transvestite (I could swear Robbie Williams has written songs about that.)

Defining it comes down to elitism, the desire by indie types who reject the idea of rock n' roll having a canon, to hypocritically create their own. Where "art rock" ends, everything else rock, which ostensibly is less artistic, begins.

So what if we try to limit what ISN'T "art rock" to products or commodities that not only aspire to having no higher meaning, but whose societal function is especially to recede into the background and not say anything. Mannheim Steamroller, etc. Unfortunately Eno's ambient records, whose "art rock" credentials are impeccable, would fit just right in that category as well.

The sad truth is that most rock bands on major labels now probably aspire to being art, if only because there are always people out there willing to consider them as such, and in our era those people's opinion is more readily available than ever before due to internet, etc.

The saving grace of this whole "art rock" paradox is that unlike "progressive rock" or "alternative music," art rock has never yet quite become a marketable genre in itself, it's still mainly a description. it can remain largely vague and subjective, tied to the tastes of whoever is talking about it. 172.147.119.54 08:57, 1 January 2007 (UTC) (I said it, I edited it)[reply]

What about Fischerspooner? They claim to be a "art rock" band. 72.130.198.232 21:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article is way too inclusive. For one thing, it should decide on whether art rock is a broad label or a specific genre when deciding which bands to focus on. The POV also needs to be toned down. And an incorporation of soruces would be beneficial. At this point, I feel the article may need to be completely rewritten. WesleyDodds 02:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is an excellent article (though, of course, it could always be improved). It does a good job of touching on the difficulties of defining "art rock" as a genre and some of the issues surrounding that, without getting too far into the "what is art" and "is band X really art rock?" questions--that way lies wanking of the sort we see at the top of this page--"NO WAY is <your favorite band> part of <you beloved genre>". Art rock, if it means anything, is more a "move" within a market context than an identifiable type of music. If you start with some genre of music, and move in the direction of a conscious critique or exploration of the form, you're moving in an art-rock direction. There's no reason the starting place can't be pop, and the end point something like Devo or Shonen Knife, or the Velvets, hovering in the space between the Brill Building and LaMonte Young.

And yes, the Police were once considered "art rock" for their ties to progressive (Stewart Copeland's stint in Curved Air, Andy Summers's time in Soft Machine). The fact that we see them now as commercial pop doesn't change the fact that they started out as "arty" musicians exploring the new wave genre. The whole landscape of pop gets redefined every few years.

Alas, I think the term has started to gain new currency as a genre definition (for "Montreal scene"-type bands or freakfolk types) and a new generation of consumers coming up without much context is going to think that the term simply means that one thing. The same thing happened with "progressive" which once meant a certain kind of rock and now seems to mean anything the listener considers outside the standard conventions of pop (the Cure again). It's the nature of cultural discourse, a real-world case of WP:OWN. But expect an onslaught of Arcade Fire fans here any day now. —rodii 18:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, to 72.130.198.232 above: I wanted to write a note of appreciation on your talk page, but you don't have one! Do you have an actual account anywhere on WP? rodii

I do now. :) Pleasehelp 08:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So one person added Smashing Pumpkins to the "Some Notable Artists" list, and then someone else took them off. No discussion happened, because none is really possible. Some people think Smashing Pumpkins obviously is, some think it obviously isn't. It's a neverending, deeply pointless argument.

So here's an idea: that list is dumb and should go. If you can't define something in any way better than pointing to a list of 32 randomly chosen examples, you don't really have anything to say about it. And the fact that Can is on and Rachel's isn't, or Kayak is and Premiata Forneria Marconi isn't, is so arbitrary that it just doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. It doesn't add anything to the article but fanservice. If that list was an article, it would be on AfD as soon as it hit the servers. So let's get rid of it. Really. It's dumb. · rodii · 23:36, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the 00s in the UK there has been a real explosion of bands that the NME and Artrocker Magazine call "Artrock". By this they generally mean the current crop of Brit-pop and post-punk influenced bands, such as Neils Children, The Futureheads, Les Incompetents etc etc and even bands that undeniably do not fall under the definition offrered in this article, such as Franz Ferdinand and The Killers. The term 'artrock' is commonly used to describe these bands. It's used in a completely different way to that described in this article. I really feel a new section is necessary. sludge

Never make a new section cause one magazine told you to...but seriously, you may have a good point. adding a lot of bands like Franz Ferdinand and Futureheads to this article would reaaaaally confuse things, because those bands' position within the indie scene (which provides most of their fans) is actually the opposite: as the most poppy, least pretentious bands.

but here's an idea. the most arty thing about Franz Ferdinand is their album artwork, their attitudes toward gender and their fashion sense. The sound of their music, though now conventional, is influenced by post punk bands that were originally being quite "arty" and original. HOWEVER, let's say that even if it was not, there is still something of an art band in Franz Ferdinand. just look at their band name.

Franz Ferdinand went to art school. That is also very important to this article. Without necessarily having to dwell on whatever nonsense "scene" the NME's been happily making up, the article could be broadened and organized better to encompass ideological, rather than necessarily musical influences, which could designate a band as "art rock." Basically, rather than putting forth a phony definition for art rock, how it supposedly sounds or what its lyrics are like, and then listing arbitrary bands that fit, it could have a paragraph each on different REASONS a band might be considered as such and give examples of bands only in that context.

It's not just proggy bands that wrote lyrics directly based on their favorite books, but bands that are influenced by IDEAS (especially postmodern ones), regardless of their superficial musical style, that tend to make up art rock. By this definition, punk itself is art rock, due to its Situationist basis (or see Greil Marcus). And by this definition, bands that play with conceptions of gender identity, stretching from the New York Dolls to Morrissey and even Franz Ferdinand, are art rock. Disco could be art rock, except it's not usually placed in the category of rock at all. You have to stop somewhere. But it's all about the ideas and spirit influencing the band.

• I am entirely aware that Franz Ferdinand do not sit comfortably in this article with the current definition of artrock – hence my suggestion that the article be broadened in order that it may conform with the general usage of the term ‘artrock’, which is consistently used to describe bands such as FF. Even under the MUSICAL, rather than ideological (although I think this is a great idea), definition of artrock that this article ascribes to, FF etc should be included. Not doing so could constitute orgingal research [of the definition of the term ‘artrock’]. Including them is only confusing because the term 'artrock' is used to describe so many different things. as an encyclopaedia, wikipedia should reflect these many meanings.

As regards the nme and artrocker magazine, I believe that the media can often be accurate in reflecting the consensus meaning ascribed collectively to cultural terms, even if this is because of a trickle-down effect… subjective disdain for these publications should not cloud one’s sense of what is or isn’t encyclopaedic. More positively, I think you may have something with the ideological definition. Although I’m sure bickering would ensue as to what ideologies are/aren’t artrock etc etc etc Peacex Sludgehaichoi 13:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• To me the current usage of the term artrock is far removed from the main thrust of this definition which seems to eminate from a book of 1992. As such it would be worth adding a post script or similar to indicate this. Admittedly I would still struggle to come up with a close definition because the term is used so loosely and across several genres. Often the bands to whom the term is applied are from an art college background and maybe this is a part of the reason for application to them of this term, rather than their musical approach. ArtRocker magazine named The Velvet Underground as their ultimate art rock band but many of the bands they champion do not obviously share much in common with them.

I believe that the definition should get straight to the point. The rest of it is overkill due to the fact that it is only opinions of others; not all of it is facts.

The comment "The art rock designation is a vague one, since few rock and pop musicians openly aspire to the title" isn't quite true, since the term has been openly embraced by the band Sparks (band) for some time, even to the point of using it on official merchandise.

More importantly, it's an insult that the band is not mentioned at all in the article. Sparks is arguably the best known band to fall under this category within the past three decades.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.145.73 (talk • contribs)

What the? Why Sparks? (Note: not "the" Sparks, just Sparks.) Everyone wants their hobbyhorse band mentioned. Why not Henry Cow? Magma? John Zorn? Third Ear Band? Neu!? Art Zoyd? The Art of Noise? Art Blakey? Art Carney?

If Sparks has embraced the term and you can document that, great. If you think something needs mention, write about it, instead of yammering about "insults." If it's cogent, sourced and NPOV, it'll be good. But this article is not going to become every fanboy's list of favorite bands.

(Moving comment to bottom where it belongs.) · rodii · 03:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been a big fan of Sparks since their Half Nelson days but I never would have conceived of including them in with art rock. (I didn't say I follow the brothers in the press.) They are relevant to three problems with all this: 1) An act wishing to be catagorized as "art rock" does not make them so. Self-labeling has often been more a matter of marketing than respect for the majesty of rock. 2) Definitions & perceptions have changed greatly over the years. Should Wikipedia define terms only in their current fashion or only in their historical manner or blur things? 3) It amuses me greatly to sometimes hear old bands labeled with terms not even in use yet before they disbanded, which is not to say it is not useful to think of them that way. But, as it says, there's not even a Wikipedian concensus on whether rock and rock & roll are the same thing so I'll just head downstairs and enjoy some old albums. IanHistor 16:35, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why does it say "so called" so much? Sounds sarcastic... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Anarchonihilist (talk • contribs) 20:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Sonic Youth as Art Rock? Joni Mitchell? six million indie and electronica bands? I don't think so. 90% of the bands listed on here are not near experimental enough to be considered Art Rock. King Crimson, Yes, Pink Floyd, and Deerhoof fit well enough. So does Phillip Glass. But The Talking Heads and Queen? You've got to be kidding me. They're almost pop bands compared to King Crimson. For modern Art Rock look more at bands like the extremely experimental anti-pop Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Idiot Flesh. Others I would include are Estradasphere, Secret Cheifs 3, Don Caballero, John Zorn, Hella, even Mike Patton projects Mr. Bungle and Fantomas, maybe even Tom Waits, but The Yeah Yeah Yeahs? Interpol? The Arcade Fire? What praytell are they experimenting with? Their own success? Sounding nearly the same as their contemporaries? I love these bands, but they are in no way art rock or experimental. READ THE FIRST PARAGRAPH.