Art pop

Art-pop as a genre emerged from the collapse of postmodernism based on both elite and non-elite art with elements of contemporary problems of art-pop artists in terms of sociological interpretation and historical authenticity, while drawing inspiration from the concept of artificiality and commerce ^{[14 ]} :

If postmodernism means the disintegration of elite / non-elite cultural boundaries, it also means the end of this historical myth, which includes art-pop musicians who have complicated the sociological readings about what music means, putting into action their own evidences of authenticity and temptation.

- Matthew Bannister. White Boys, White Noise: Masculinities and the 1980s Indie Guitar Rock ^[8]

In contrast to the romantic and autonomous tradition of art and progressive rock , this genre emphasizes manipulation with different symbols and signs based on the aesthetics of everyday and disposable ^[15] :

Historically, “art rock” was used to describe at least two related, but different types of rock music ^[16] . The first is progressive rock, while the second is related to groups that rejected psychedelics and hippie counterculture in favor of the modernist avant-garde approach defined by The Velvet Underground ^[16] In 1970s rock music under an “artistic” descriptor It was usually understood as an “aggressive avant-garde” and a “pretentious progressive”.

- Noel Murray. The AV Club ^[17]

The musical sociologist Simon Frith distinguished the appropriation of art to pop music as a special concern for fashion , gesture, and the ironic use of historical eras and genres ^[18] . The central part for such practitioners of style distributors was the concept of self as work on construction or art ^[11] , as well as anxious desire to create different terms, images, processes and influences ^[19] . Nick Coleman from The Independent wrote the following: “Art-pop partly concerns attitude and style, but it also concerns art itself. It is, if possible, a way to make pure formalism socially acceptable in a pop context. ” ^[20]

The bodybuilder theorist Mark Fisher wrote that the development of art pop music evolved from the triangulation of pop music, art and fashion ^[11] . At the same time, Simon Frith claims that it was “more or less” inspired directly by pop art ^{[2] [3]} (musicologist Allan Moore suggests that the term “pop music” may have originated from pop art ^{[ 21]} ). According to the critic Steven Holden , art pop often refers to any pop style that consciously strives for the formal values ​​of classical music and poetry, although these works are often sold as a commercial product, rather than settling in respected cultural institutions ^[6] . DJ Taylor from The Independent and Peter Aspden from the Financial Times noted attempts by art-pop music to distance their audiences from the general public ^{[22] [23]} .

Background

In the second half of the 20th century, the boundaries between art and pop music became more blurred ^[24] . In the 1960s, pop musicians such as John Lennon , Syd Barrett , Pete Townshend , Brian Eno, and Brian Ferry began to draw inspiration from their studies in the field of art school in the past ^[3] . Simon Frit claims that in the UK, the art school was a “traditional escape route for bright children of the working class, as well as a breeding ground for young groups such as The Beatles and above” ^[14] . Art-pop in North America was influenced by Bob Dylan and the beat generation and became more literary thanks to the movement of the singer and songwriter of folk music ^[25] . Even before art / progressive rock became the most commercially successful British sound in the early 1970s, the psychedelic movement in the 1960s combined art and commercialism, clarifying the question of what it means to be an “artist” in the mass media. ^[26] . The musicians of progressive music believed that artistic status depended on personal autonomy, and therefore the strategy of “progressive” rock groups was to present themselves as performers and composers “above” the usual pop activity ^[27] .

Another major influence on the development of art pop was a new movement in art known as pop art ^[25] . The term “pop art” itself was first coined to describe the aesthetic value of mass-produced goods and was directly applicable to the modern phenomenon of rock and roll music (including Elvis Presley , an icon of early pop art) ^[28] . According to Simon Frith: “[Pop Art] turned out to be a signal of the end of romanticism — to be art without artists. Progressive rock was the last step of the bohemians ... In this context, the key theorist of pop music was not [Richard] Hamilton or any other British artist who, despite their interest in the mass market, remained only an academic fan, but Andy Warhol . For Warhol, a significant problem was not the relative merits of "elite" and "non-elite" art, but the relationship between all art and "commerce" as a whole " ^[29] . The American group The Velvet Underground , whose protege was Warhol, imitated the synthesis of art and pop music inherent in Warhol, echoing his emphasis on simplicity and the innovative modernist avant-garde approach to art rock, which ignored the traditional hierarchies of artistic representation ^[30] .

When The Velvet Underground first appeared in the mid-1960s, they faced rejections and were usually fired as a “fagot group”.

- Matthew Bannister. White Boys, White Noise: Masculinities and the 1980s Indie Guitar Rock ^[31]

1960s: Emergence

Stephen Holden traces the origins of pop music in the mid-1960s, when producers such as Phil Spector and musicians such as Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys , began to include pseudo-symphonic textures in their pop records (both are Americans), and The Beatles' first recordings with a string quartet ^[25] :

Thanks to his influential work, Wilson and The Beatles producer George Martin spread the idea of ​​a recording studio as a creative medium that could help in the songwriting process. ^[33] . Writer Michael Johnson emphasizes the Pet Sounds (1966) of The Beach Boys and Sgt. The Beatles ' Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) as the first documented rock n' roll climb ^[34] . Richard Williams also attributed to Phil Spector the transformation of rock music as a performing art into art that could only exist in a recording studio and which "paved the way for art rock."

- Richard Williams. Phil Spector: Out of His Head ^[35]

According to writer Matthew Bannister, Wilson and Spector were known as “obsessed studio hermits ... [who] were usually absent in their own work,” and, like Warhol, Spector existed “not as present, but as a controlling or organizing principle behind and under the surface MASS MEDIA. Both are extremely successful commercial artists, and both are both absent and present in their own creations. ” ^[36] Writer Eric Davis called Wilson's art-pop "unique in music history" ^[37] , while collaborator Van Dyke Parks compared it with modern works by Warhol and artist Roy Lichtenstein , citing his ability to raise ordinary or beaten material to the level of "high art ” ^[38] :

According to biographer Peter Ames Karlin, who concluded that, with the possible exception of Wilson, "The Beach Boys practically showed no appreciable interest in what you could call the world of ideas ^[39] ." Wilson's unpublished Smile , conceived and recorded in 1966-67, was described as an attempt to create an era of “great art pop album” ^[40] and “outstanding psychedelic pop art statements” ^[41] .

In the movement, which was designated The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Phil Spector and Frank Zappa ^[42] , the dominant format of pop music moved from singles to albums, and many rock bands created works that sought to make great artistic statements where The rock will flourish ^[25] . Musicologist Jan Inglis writes that the cover of The Beatles 1967 album Sgt. The Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was “perceived to be largely responsible for the connections between art and pop music” ^[43] . Although Sgt. Pepper’s was preceded by several albums that began to connect the line between “one-off” pop and “serious” rock music; he successfully gave the established “commercial” voice to alternative youth culture ^[44] . Writer Michael Johnson wrote that art pop music will continue to exist after The Beatles, but will never reach the level of success in terms of popularity ^[34] :

Frith compared the complex design of the album with the “reading of the underground press” ... [a skill that] was always built around a sense of difference from a “mass” pop audience. Art rock was "higher" at all levels. ... the townsfolk needed to be kept away. He also notes that Zappa aimed at the problem of pop commercialism with the cover of the album The Mothers of Invention of 1968 We're Only in It for the Money , which parodied the cover of Sgt.Pepper’s ^[45] .

The Who were the “first pop art group” according to their manager, while team member Pete Townshend explains: “We stand for pop art clothes, pop art music and pop art behavior ... we don’t change behind the scenes, we live pop art " ^[46] . Frith believes that their album The Who Sell Out (December 1967) is "possibly an art-pop masterpiece" that uses the "vitality" of commerce itself, the tactics repeated by Roy Wood from The Move , and then Kevin Godley and Lola Krima from 10cc ^{[ 46]} . The ideas of Townshend were known for their focus on commercialism: “[its] use of pop art rhetoric ... refers not to music making as such - to the problem of self-expression, but to commercial music, to the design of the album (packaging), sales and advertising, to the problems of popularity and fame ” ^[46] . In an interview in May 1967, Townshend coined the term “ power pop ” to describe the music of The Who, The Small Faces and The Beach Boys. Power pop later developed as a genre known for its reconfiguration of the tropes of the 1960s ^[47] .

1970s: New York Scene and Glam