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mentioning u2 in art-rock article is not relevant - thus removed. confusion around the term shouldn't be the center of the article. Marduk.

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. For example, Robert Smith's song "Killing an Arab" is art rock because he "experimented" with a middle eastern melody and was "inspired" by a classic of existentialist literature. But if some white supremacist punk band had written a similar tune with no such inspiration, it would have been seen very differently, from an artistic as well as a moral standpoint. Not to defend white supremacists, but this illustrates how "art rock" is closely entwined with not only an artist's music itself, but their inspirations for it, their way of describing it in an interview, and perhaps more than anything the often arbitrary media image they pick up with their first release due to knee jerk critical opinions (which tend to assume that anything "weird" at first listen is art, and anything poppy at first listen isn't), an image which will often carry over with them forever, no matter how much their music itself changes, unless they start consciously describing themselves in different 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.

And how about the bands now that do cynically set out to be weird, shocking or avant garde in ways that are never going to be considered easy to listen to by most people, but by this point are arguably just as uncreative and market driven as the latest Robbie Williams hit (if not more) given their pandering to a specific audience and adherence to a tired formula (in this case a formula by which to make "nonconformist" music) that others pioneered, back when this stuff actually was original and nonconformist.

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.

But maybe complexity as well, as in prog rock, though not as important as initial attitude.

And perhaps uniqueness/strangeness, given chart pop's tendency not to want to be strange. But as seen, those three elements don't form much of a good definition, all of them are very arguable, and that's about as far as I can see it going.

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."

But then again, is a product or commodity a bad 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... oops, except "Walk on the Wild Side" was a huge mainstream hit, and exceedingly catchy. It feels so damn art rock, but is that just because it has the Lou Reed name? Does it count as art because it uses an upright bass instead of electric and has jazz elements (then, is Norah Jones art rock)? Or because it's about a transvestite (I could swear Robbie Williams has written songs about that. And how about the Police writing a song about a hooker, or about tribal spirits, or using "cunt" in a song??)

Radiohead is mentioned in that article. In terms of their influences, and even some of their own music, they have brilliant "art rock" credentials. Regardless of my opinion of their music, I would not dispute that if any popular rock band today could be considered "art rock," they could.

However, it's interesting to contrast Thom Yorke's claim that Coldplay is "lifestyle music" (whatever that actually means, it sounds right) with his claim that his own band is "not an art project" or "just pop music" (paraphrase). Given the societal function of "just pop music," how exactly is "lifestyle music" necessarily different from "just pop music"? Surely some Radiohead listeners might use Radiohead's music as a room or iPod filler as a way of affirming their own lifestyle choices to those around them, or soothing themselves with musical comfort food after a tough day, similar to how a Coldplay fan might do so. In any case the Radiohead frontman, supposedly an exemplary of art rock, on the one hand goes to great lengths to claim his own band should never be considered "art rock," but also rebukes another band in a roundabout way for NOT being art rock ("lifestyle music" seems to imply no higher goal than easy listenability by a wide range of people).

Any fair definition can't assume popularity removes art-rock credentials. But doesn't it have to allow for societal context? The fact that "See the Show," that shitty (and yes, fucking weird, probably very difficult to play) Emerson Lake & Palmer thing, is on classic rock radio 15 times an hour fulfilling a very utilitarian drivetime function kind of dents anyone's claim that it is proper "art rock." It's not because it's popular, it's because of the type of popularity it has, which. Then again, this argument is TOTALLY based on taste. THE SAME EXACT ARGUMENT COULD BE MADE FOR BANDS RANGING FROM THE CURE TO THE VELVET UNDERGROUND. Like, I don't think "Sister Ray" is proper art rock cause it's raw and primal and accessible to the kids in that way just like hits by the Stones or Janis Joplin, or I don't think the Cure is proper art rock cause they're romantic and synth washed just like any soft rock hit, and angsty just like anything that appeals to a 12 year old, which obviously couldn't be real "art." In some way, every band that reaches the Lou Reed, the Cure level of popularity, or even Can's level of popularity ("Pinch" is more tuneless, but not far from early rock n' roll), has to be making some accomodation to popular tastes whether intentional or not.

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 an. 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. Which is the great thing about it-- it can remain largely vague and subjective, tied to the tastes of whoever is talking about it. If they're a fan of the Velvet Underground they will call them art rock.. maybe. Or maybe they intentionally won't, if they think that's pretentious and aren't hung up on such things. If they're a fan of Dave Matthews and find "art rock" an admirable designation, maybe they'll give it to him. Obviously some people who like pop music that's either ambitious or experimental (even old U2 would certainly qualify there) or underground and independent, are going to want to claim that the music they like is more "artistic" than other pop music, to combat the inferiority complex we get when confronted with the classical canon and assert the academic validity of our own personal taste.

Which perhaps calls into question the need for an article about it.

I admit to writing parts of this article in the first place as a way of glorifying certain bands I was into. To be honest I didn't think much of it, I had never written anything for wiki before and just found there was no article on this subject.

Short of revising/shortening the article to the simple idea that "art rock" tends to designate artists who consider themselves "art rock" or whose fans like to think of them that way, and perhaps mentioning that "art rock" may have arisen as a designation in the first place to note the outlook and attitude of bands whose members had gone to art school... maybe this should be nominated for deletion, or reduced one sentence in the "art" article.

How do you guys handle "art films"? That's gotta be an even tougher category, as most people who use words like "arthouse" never seen or even heard of things like "Dog Star Man" or "Meshes of the Afternoon."

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, 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.

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.