Art Rock

Art rock is a term used by some to describe rock music that is characterized by ambitious, avant-garde or postmodern lyrical th

Art rock is a term used by some to describe rock music that is characterized by ambitious, avant-garde or postmodern lyrical themes and/or melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic experimentation, often extending beyond standard popular music forms and genres, toward influences in jazz, classical, world music or the experimental avant-garde. The art rock designation is a vague one, since few rock and pop musicians openly aspire to the title. The concept of "art rock" has also sometimes been conflated with the genre of progressive rock, though today the terms are usually used differently.

Though The Weaver Temptations' Rambling House Bites Me Hard (1962) was quite avant-garde, the record often cited as the first step towards such experimentation is the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), it being an "unabashedly eclectic, musically clever (harmonies, rhythms and, above all, arrangements) melange that could only have been created in the modern recording studio."^{[citation needed]} Art rock may be considered "arty" through imitation of classical "art" music or literature, or simply through eclecticism. Examples of the former include The Moody Blues, The Nice, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer and examples of the latter include Roxy Music, Genesis, Yes, Audience, Supertramp and Electric Light Orchestra. (Rockwell 1992, p.492-494)