Is pop music "art"?

[Hygro]

I've debated over the years whether pop music is art or not. It begs a lot of questions: what is pop music; what is art; is artistic merit a yes/no dichotomy, and if so, is some pop different from others; are art and entertainment distinct categories, and if so, what's pop's role in either? And so forth.

I'm curious what you all think before I wade into the fray with my bam-hammer.

 

[Mise]

I can't see why it wouldn't be art?

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

I'm not entirely ready to wade in yet either, probably easier and less headache to respond to others. But I'm thinking that art is the easier term to define in the sense that it's those pursuits designed to communicate and/or elicit emotion. "What is pop music?"is a tougher one for me. Justin Bieber may mean nothing to me and not stir a single bone in my body thus I don't feel his work is artistic. But try telling a screaming, crying girl at one of his concerts that what he does does not elicit a passionate response.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Pop music is not art and neither are video games.

Next!

 

[Leoreth]

Of course it is art. People who claim otherwise are simply art snobs.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Pop music is not art and neither are video games.

Next!

Surely it's in the ear of the beholder. Everyone from Elvis to The Beatles to Prince have produced, to my ears, art.

 

[Leoreth]

Surely it's in the ear of the beholder. Everyone from Elvis to The Beatles to Prince have produced, to my ears, art.

Easy way to solve this: simply declare they are not really pop music!

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Easy way to solve this: simply declare they are not really pop music!

Yeah I can see how that would be the obvious response(I'm assuming however this is not your opinion). But that would be silly. I can't see how the acts mentioned would not fall into the category of pop music, thus me purposely selecting them.

 

[Kyriakos]

Pop music would seem to rely considerably not on the actual artistic merit of the music (if it exists) but on the image of the singer/band. This is nothing new, from Zola to Thomas Mann to many others, even writers have decidated works to the human image, or presented how it can virtually overshadow anything else.
Now if the song/music itself is pitiful, then it is just bad art. Anything produced that requires some skill and effort applied to one of the genres of artistic creation can be termed art, and the inevitable sieve to cut through what you do not like can materialize in other parts of the equation, such as the quality of the art.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah I can see how that would be the obvious response(I'm assuming however this is not your opinion). But that would be silly. I can't see how the acts mentioned would not fall into the category of pop music, thus me purposely selecting them.

You're right, it's not my opinion.

I was just pointing out how much of an ill-defined term pop music really is. It's just a shorthand for popular music after all, which means it's more a definition from reception than from content, and to say that pop music is not art is nothing but elitism, because it implies that only the obscure one likes are true art, and everything the masses like is just commercialized crap.

 

[Mise]

Well, it can be elitist but still be true... I'm not saying it is, but there's a good argument to say that art is necessarily elitist and thus self-reinforcing/self-selecting.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

@Leoreth...I totally agree. And to paraphrase my earlier post, who am I to suggest that the emotions pouring forth from a screaming, crying 11 year girl at a Justin Bieber concert are not legitimate and a result of his "art"?

 

[Hygro]

A lot of the counter arguments I have read or heard or discussed have said that pop music is entertainment, not art. That it is a largely soulless, calculated factory method of creating a consumable product that has no artistic merit. That it would be like scanning a popular painting and then changing the saturation levels and printing 10 copies and calling them ten different paintings of art by seven different artists and using such a routine process to crank out variations of what may have originally been art just to profit.

 

[Mise]

I wonder whether Justin Beiber considers himself an artist, an entertainer, or both?

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

A lot of the counter arguments I have read or heard or discussed have said that pop music is entertainment, not art. That it is a largely soulless, calculated factory method of creating a consumable product that has no artistic merit. That it would be like scanning a popular painting and then changing the saturation levels and printing 10 copies and calling them ten different paintings of art by seven different artists and using such a routine process to crank out variations of what may have originally been art just to profit.

I realize I'm treading on risky ground arguing the merits of "good" pop music, "good" sculpture, painting etc, but the above example seems more to refer to "bad" pop music expressly diluted to turn such a profit, and as such my whole Justin Bieber analogy falls apart.

But the pyramidal structure of pop music would seem no different to that of great traditional art. For every John Lennon, Hendrix, Da Vinci, Mozart etc there are a million people that tried and simply failed due to their inability, or in the case of the profit chasers didn't even try, to communicate emotion.

Pop acts that simply don't produce good enough material despite noble intentions or just chase the money rarely achieve the level of acclaim whereby we consider their work art. But it doesn't follow that by definition pop music can't be art.

 

[Mise]

Most popular films are watched purely for entertainment value, and are strictly created to make money. But I can't say that films aren't art.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Most popular films are watched purely for entertainment value, and are strictly created to make money.

This is true, however many of the truly great films and the ones that are often subsequently considered "art" make money BECAUSE they entertain so brilliantly, without cynicism. However I am not making the claim that entertaining a mass audience is a pre-requisite of being considered great art, just that popular opinion is often unreasonably decried, thus the claims of elitism.

 

[del62]

Of course Pop music is art, and just as in all fields of the arts, there is much dross to go with the good stuff.

 

[aelf]

I'm not entirely ready to wade in yet either, probably easier and less headache to respond to others. But I'm thinking that art is the easier term to define in the sense that it's those pursuits designed to communicate and/or elicit emotion.

What about art that is not designed to communicate and/or elicit emotion?

Also, we seem to be assuming that artistic intent is important. So are things that are created without artistic intent not art?

A lot of the counter arguments I have read or heard or discussed have said that pop music is entertainment, not art. That it is a largely soulless, calculated factory method of creating a consumable product that has no artistic merit. That it would be like scanning a popular painting and then changing the saturation levels and printing 10 copies and calling them ten different paintings of art by seven different artists and using such a routine process to crank out variations of what may have originally been art just to profit.

Adorno and Horkheimer?

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

What about art that is not designed to communicate and/or elicit emotion?

I did consider this, but after giving myself a very broad definition of communicate, elicit and for good measure, emotion I was kinda satisfied that it was a fair benchmark. I'd actually be quite interested to hear other ways in which you think art "functions".

And yeah, I hear you about artistic intent. But it probably is a requirement. As beautiful as a spectacular sunset or a little kid playing with a puppy is, it's not really art. I can't really imagine a human unintentionally coming up with great art either. When it appears to be the case that's just nature at work too.