Music as Art

In the UK at least, during the 60s and 70s Art Rock had an Art College connotation rather than a more high-brow Art Music one. I have read somewhere that Pete Townshend was one of the first to make the association between Pop music and Art (remembering that prior to dropping out and forming The Who he studied Graphics at Ealing Art College alongside Ronnie Wood and Freddy Mercury), essentially putting the Art into Pop (as opposed to Warhol putting the Pop into Art). Though of course Townshend was not the first Art student to form a band and The Who weren't the only band in the mid-60s to be regarded as Art Rock. Pete Brown and Piblokto!'s album 'Things May Come and Things May Go but the Art School Dance Goes on Forever' is a classic example of that Art School/College heritage. From that perspective Floyd can also be regarded as Art College drop-outs (specifically Camberwell College of Arts and Regent Street Polytechnic), though Bowie is more guilt-through-association as he never attended Art School as such (he has 'O' Level Art, which was the secondary school basic qualification that 16-year old's attained in the UK). John Lennon is yet another Art School drop-out (from Liverpool College of Art). This "music made by Art students" was seen as something a little more educated (for want of a better word) than, as Micky would put it, the 'blue-collar' image normally associated with Pop music at the time. That social class distinction of Pop Music being uneducated working class and Classical Music (i.e. Art Music) being University-educated Upper Class is still prevalent over here today to some extent, with these (predominately) middle-class, Art School educated, Art Rock musicians caught in that 'neither one nor t'other' limbo between them, (which is where, as we know, Prog Rock developed from).

The idea that Art Rock was a loftier ambition that purported to elevate music out of the musicologist "Pop Music" classification and into the "Art Music" classification that is generally associated with Classical Music, is a later association in the UK, and one I suspect is an import from the USA where Prog Rock and Art Rock were indeed synonymous. As they switched their allegiance to the Punk Rock upstarts in the latter quarter of the 1970s, that British rock journalists regarded Prog Rock as 'pretentious' can be seen as part of that class divide that was then present in Pop Music rather than a dismissal of the notion that Pop Music can be Art (Music). {Muso-Journalists later disdain of Prog Rock was never about the music - it was a faux class-war}.

Finally someone hits the nail on the head. Art is something that is done on a computer. Paintbrush? What's that?

Please refer to my previous comments, I think it was obvious I was trolling, lol

No worse than what the drummer appears to be doing.