Art punk

Art punk
Jerry Harrison (left) and David Byrne (right) of art-punk band Talking Heads performing at Jay's Longhorn Bar in Minneapolis, 1978
Other names	Avant-punk Experimental punk
Stylistic origins	Post-punk punk rock avant-garde art rock experimental rock
Cultural origins	1970s, United Kingdom and United States
Regional scenes
Brixton, London
Other topics
Art pop post-hardcore post-punk avant-rock pub rock progressive rock

In the rock music of the 1970s, the "art" descriptor was generally understood to mean either "aggressively avant-garde" or "pretentiously progressive".^[3] Musicologists Simon Frith and Howard Horne described the band managers of the 1970s punk bands as "the most articulate theorists of the art punk movement", with Bob Last of Fast Product identified as one of the first to apply art theory to marketing, and Tony Wilson's Factory Records described as "applying the Bauhaus principle of the same 'look' for all the company's goods".^[4] Wire's Colin Newman described art punk in 2006 as "the drug of choice of a whole generation".^[5]

Music critic Simon Reynolds in his book, Rip It Up and Start Again,^[6] attributed the rise of avant-garde alternative rock movements like art punk and post-punk in the late 1970s to British art school culture:

Especially in Britain, art schools have long functioned as a state-subsidized bohemia, where working-class youths too unruly for a life of labor mingle with slumming bourgeois kids too wayward for a middle-management career.

Author Gavin Butt^[7] writes that:

People went to art school to be in a band. That was even the principle principal reason they went […] this was because art school was a place where you could get a local authority grant, have the costs of your tuition paid for by the government, and have three years to do whatever you wanted.

Artists often utilized angular guitar riffs, intricate rhythms, and a wide array of influences equal to that of post-punk which included but was not limited to krautrock, dub, funk, free jazz and glam.^[8]

While post-punk and art punk are not mutually exclusive and frequently intersect. Art punk is a more avant-garde and artier form of punk, blending literary and abstract influences and general art school culture with the genre. Art punk is often marked by well-read musicians with middle-class sensibilities, bookish lyrics, art school backgrounds, and a stripped-back fashion style that rejects punk fashion clichés (as seen with bands like Talking Heads, the Fall and Wire).^[6]

Forerunners

The Velvet Underground have been credited as early pioneers in the development of art punk, with the Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat, serving as an early blend of art rock, avant-garde music and punk.^[9]^[10] Pitchfork attributes Captain Beefheart^[11] and Lou Reed^[12] as "the primary oracle for a generation of art punks".^[13] Subsequently, experimental rock artists such as the Residents,^[14] Frank Zappa^[15] and Monks^[16] as well as krautrock bands like Neu!,^[17] Faust,^[18] and Can^[19] would also prove influential to the genre.

In England, art rock band Roxy Music^[20] emerged during the early 1970s, singer Bryan Ferry briefly attended art school^[21], while keyboardist Brian Eno, later drew influences from Germany's krautrock scene, alongside frequent collaborator David Bowie, with Eno releasing influential debut and sophomore albums, and producing albums for bands like Television, Devo and Talking Heads as well as the No New York compilation album. Bowie also collaborated with Iggy Pop,^[22] on his solo album The Idiot, which merged the punk music of the Stooges with art rock, and later released the influential Berlin Trilogy during the late 1970s.^[23]

1970s-1980s

In the early 1970s, New York City artists such as Television, Patti Smith, Richard Hell and the Voidoids and Talking Heads would emerge out of the burgeoning early NYC punk scene, performing at local clubs like CBGB and Max's Kansas City. Their music blended the raw energy of early punk with influences from the local art and avant-garde scenes, contrasting with what would become the standard rudimentary punk sound associated with other acts in the scene like the New York Dolls, Heartbreakers, Dead Boys and Ramones.^[6]

Talking Heads, originally known as "the Artistics," formed while studying at the Rhode Island School of Design.^[24] In Ohio, bands such as Devo, Mirrors, the Styrenes and Pere Ubu would form, blending garage rock and proto-punk with avant-garde experimentation. Additionally, Oklahoma band Debris' who merged the Stooges with Beefheart, acid rock and early Roxy Music have been described as a "proto-art-punk band".^[25] Other early art punk groups were often formed at art schools or composed primarily of musicians who had studied at art schools.^[26]^[6]

AllMusic called Patti Smith's Horses produced by ex-Velvet Underground member John Cale "essentially the first art punk album".^[27] Subsequently, retrospective reviews cited Television's debut album Marquee Moon as an "art punk masterpiece" and Talking Heads single Psycho Killer as the "art-punk stomper" that helped popularize the band.^[28]^[29]

In the UK, the post-punk scene often intersected with art punk, bands such as the Fall, Public Image Ltd and Magazine being attributed the label interchangeably with post-punk. Author Gavin Butt linked art education as a "really important part of the cultural ecology" of Leeds-based bands such as Delta 5, Gang of Four, Scritti Politti and the Mekons. ^[30]

However, Simon Reynolds^[6] cites that not all bands in the UK post-punk scene had gone to art school:

Some accused these experimentalists of merely lapsing back into the art rock elitism that punk originally aimed to destroy […] Of course, not everyone in postpunk attended art school, or even college. Self-educated […] figures like John Lydon or Mark E. Smith […] fit the syndrome of the anti-intellectual intellectual.

By late 1977, English band Wire released their debut album Pink Flag, marking the start of a string of highly influential records—including Chairs Missing and 154 that would go on to define and lay the groundwork for art punk and broader alternative music.^[32]^[33] Other bands such as Swell Maps whose debut single "Read About Seymour" gained cult success after being played on the John Peel show, blended DIY sensibilities with more experimental and artier influences. Their albums "A Trip to Marineville" and "Jane from Occupied Europe" later became staple art punk releases.^[34]

By the early 1980s, bands such as the Feelies came to further define the genre, with their debut album "Crazy Rhythms" being described as "oddball art punk".^[35] Followed by, Kansas band the Embarrassment described as "Midwest art-punk heroes", who blended the nerdy sound of Jonathan Richman's "The Modern Lovers" with the quirky, cerebral style of Talking Heads.^[36] Audiences noted that "they looked more like nerds than punks", resulting in the band being retrospectively assessed as a template for geek rock.^[37]^[38] In England, the band Cardiacs made avant-prog and post-punk influenced art rock, with the Guardian describing the song R.E.S. as an "art-punk Bohemian Rhapsody".^[39]

Subsequently, groups such as the Slits, Alternative TV, Au Pairs, the Flying Lizards and the Pop Group would further develop the art punk sound, crafting songs that blended abstract lyrics and avant-garde music with punk and post-punk elements, whilst bands such as Half Japanese^[40], the Birthday Party, and Blurt incorporated a noise rock influence.^[41]^[42] Later, the New York no wave scene also saw brief intersections with art punk, evinced by artists like James Chance and the Contortions, Rosa Yemen, Mars, Theoretical Girls, the Static, A Band, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and most notably Sonic Youth.

Californian punk bands such as MX-80 Sound and the Minutemen took influences from jazz, blending intricate rhythms, and unconventional song structures to create a more experimental and cerebral form of punk.

The scene also took form internationally, Anna Szemere traces the beginnings of the Hungarian art-punk subculture to 1978, when punk band the Spions performed three concerts which drew on conceptualist performance art and Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, with neo-avant-garde/anarchist manifestos handed out to the audience.^[43]

Late 1980s-1990s

In Ireland, the band Stump drew influence from Captain Beefheart and Pere Ubu further developing the sound of art punk into the late '80s, as they were featured on the NME's infamous C86 cassette compilation, alongside other art punk groups such as the Manchester-based band bIG*fLAME.^[44]

By the late 1980s to early 1990s, Scottish bands like Country Teasers and Dog Faced Hermans emerged from the scene, with the latter forming in art school. They continued the legacy of experimental and art-driven punk, though they were preceded by the Fire Engines a few years earlier.^[45] Subsequently, American band Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 blended the sound of experimental art punk with that of indie rock.^[46]^[47]

2000s-2010s

In the early 2000s, the post-punk revival scene briefly revived the art punk sound with bands like the Rapture, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the latter being labeled by the Guardian as "New York's favourite art-punk rockers". ^[49]

During the 2010s, American groups such as Preoccupations and Protomartyr, as well as Australian band Tropical Fuck Storm, and Danish band Iceage continued to develop the art-punk sound. Additionally, the egg punk scene pioneered by Indiana-based punk trio the Coneheads,^[50] drew from DEVO, garage punk and synth-punk, whilst post-punk and art punk elements became exemplified by bands like Uranium Club^[51] and Snõõper.^[52]

By the late 2010s and early 2020s, a new wave of UK and Irish post-punk bands began to gain popularity. Originally emerging out of Brixton's Windmill scene, terms such as "crank wave" and "post-Brexit new wave" were used to describe these bands,^[53]^[54] who blended the more experimental sides of post-punk with post-rock, no wave and other art-based influences, some of these bands include Squid,^[55] Parquet Courts,^[56] Dry Cleaning, Fat White Family, Shame, Black Country, New Road, Idles and Yard Act.^[57]^[58]

Characteristics

History

Forerunners

1970s-1980s

Late 1980s-1990s

2000s-2010s

See also

References

Bibliography

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