{{Short description|Experimental genre of popular music}} {{about-distinguish2|a class of popular music that includes genres not limited to pop music|Experimental pop. For other uses, see Avant-pop (disambiguation)}}
'''Avant-pop''' is popular<!--- Do not change to "pop", per source, "By this I mean a form of popular music that is self-consciously experimental, new, and distinct from existing forms ..." ---> music that is experimental, new, and distinct from previous styles<ref name=f/> while retaining an immediate accessibility for the listener.<ref name="br"/> The term implies a combination of avant-garde sensibilities with existing elements from popular music in the service of novel or idiosyncratic artistic visions.<ref name="bloomsbury"/>
==Definition==
"Avant-pop" has been used to label music which balances experimental or avant-garde approaches with stylistic elements from popular music, and which probes mainstream conventions of structure or form.<ref name="bloomsbury"/> Writer Tejumola Olaniyan describes "avant-pop music" as transgressing "the boundaries of established styles, the meanings those styles reference, and the social norms they support or imply."<ref name=f>{{cite book|last1=Olaniyan|first1=Tejumola|title=Arrest the Music!: Fela and His Rebel Art and Politics|date=2004|publisher=Indiana University Press|page=7|isbn=0253110343|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TK8B5wVun9sC&pg=PA7}}</ref> Music writer Sean Albiez describes "avant-pop" as identifying idiosyncratic artists working in "a liminal space between contemporary classical music and the many popular music genres that developed in the second half of the twentieth century."<ref name="bloomsbury"/> He noted avant-pop's basis in experimentalism, as well its postmodern and non-hierarchical incorporation of varied genres such as pop, electronica, rock, classical, and jazz.<ref name="bloomsbury"/>
Paul Grimstad of ''The Brooklyn Rail'' writes that avant-pop is music that "re-sequences" the elements of song structure "so that (a) none of the charm of the tune is lost, but (b) this very accessibility leads one to bump into weirder elements welded into the design."<ref name="br">{{cite web|author=Paul Grimstad|title=What Is Avant-Pop?|url=http://www.brooklynrail.org/2007/9/music/what-is-avant-pop|website=Brooklyn Rail|date=September 4, 2007|access-date=1 October 2016}}</ref> The Tribeca New Music Festival defines "avant-pop" as "music that draws its energy from both popular music and classical forms."<ref name="avanttribeca">{{cite news|last1=Kozinn|first1=Alann|title='Emerging Avant-Pop': From Charles Ives to Frank Zappa|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/arts/music/11mons.html|work=The New York Times|date=May 11, 2006}}</ref> The term has elsewhere been used by literary critic Larry McCaffery to describe "the most radical, subversive literary talents of the postmodern new wave."<ref name="McCaffery1993">{{cite book|last=McCaffery|first=Larry|author-link=Larry McCaffery|title=Avant-Pop: Fiction for a Daydream Nation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MTdUIy3sc5MC|year=1993|publisher=University of Alabama Press|isbn=978-0-932511-72-0|pages=12, back cover}}</ref>
==History== In the 1960s, as popular music began to gain cultural importance and question its status as commercial entertainment, musicians began to look to the post-war avant-garde for inspiration.<ref name="bloomsbury"/> In 1959, music producer Joe Meek recorded ''I Hear a New World'' (1960), which ''Tiny Mix Tapes''{{'}} Jonathan Patrick calls a "seminal moment in both electronic music and avant-pop history [...] a collection of dreamy pop vignettes, adorned with dubby echoes and tape-warped sonic tendrils" which would be largely ignored at the time.<ref name="tmtpat2013">{{cite web|last1=Patrick|first1=Jonathan|title=Joe Meek's pop masterpiece I Hear a New World gets the chance to haunt a whole new generation of audiophile geeks|url=http://www.tinymixtapes.com/news/joe-meeks-pop-masterpiece-i-hear-a-new-world-gets-the-chance-to-haunt-a-whole-new-generation-of|website=Tiny Mix Tapes|date=March 8, 2013}}</ref> Other early avant-pop productions included the Beatles's 1966 song "Tomorrow Never Knows", which incorporated techniques from musique concrète, avant-garde composition, Indian music, and electro-acoustic sound manipulation into a 3-minute pop format, and the Velvet Underground's integration of La Monte Young's minimalist and drone music ideas, beat poetry, and 1960s pop art.<ref name="bloomsbury">{{cite book |last1=Albiez |first1=Sean |editor1-last=Horn |editor1-first=David |title=Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Vol. XI: Genres: Europe |date=2017 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=9781501326103 |pages=36–38 |chapter=Avant-pop|doi=10.5040/9781501326110-0111 }}</ref>
In late 1960s Germany, an experimental avant-pop scene dubbed "krautrock" saw influential artists such as Kraftwerk, Can, and Tangerine Dream draw inspiration from minimalism, German academic music, and Anglo-American pop-rock.<ref name="bloomsbury"/> According to ''The Quietus''{{'}} David McNamee, the 1968 album ''An Electric Storm'', recorded by the electronic music group White Noise (featuring members from the U.K.’s BBC Radiophonic Workshop), is an "undisputed masterpiece of early avant-pop".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=McNamee|first1=David|title=The Best Of The BBC Radiophonic Workshop On One Side Of A C90|journal=The Quietus|date=January 19, 2009|url=http://thequietus.com/articles/01010-the-best-of-the-bbc-radiophonic-workshop-archive-on-one-side-of-a-c90}}</ref> In the 1970s, progressive rock and post-punk music would see new avant-pop fusions, including the work of Pink Floyd, Genesis, Henry Cow, This Heat, and the Pop Group.<ref name="bloomsbury"/> The "avant-pop cult favorites" Slapp Happy formed in 1972, drawing variously on styles like chanson, cabaret, bossa nova, and tango while collaborating with Henry Cow.<ref>{{cite web |title=Slapp Happy Biography |url=https://www.allmusic.com/artist/slapp-happy-mn0000749462 |website=AllMusic |access-date=4 September 2025}}</ref> More contemporary avant-pop artists have included David Sylvian, Scott Walker, and Björk, whose vocal experimentation and innovative modes of expression have seen them move beyond norms of commercial pop music.<ref name="bloomsbury"/>
Others who have been credited as avant-pop's pioneers include the Velvet Underground's Lou Reed,<ref name="Reed">{{cite magazine|last1=Marmer|first1=Jake|title=Lou Reed's Rabbi|magazine=Tablet Mag|date=October 29, 2012|url=http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/music/115016/lou-reeds-rabbi-2}}</ref> singer Kate Bush,<ref name="bloomsbury"/> performance artist Laurie Anderson,<ref name="Laurie2016">{{cite news|author=Michael Anthony|title=Laurie Anderson, More Than 'Just a Storyteller'|url=http://www.startribune.com/laurie-anderson-more-than-just-a-storyteller/372858491/|work=Star Tribune|date=March 22, 2016|access-date=November 25, 2016|archive-date=July 28, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728143126/https://www.startribune.com/laurie-anderson-more-than-just-a-storyteller/372858491/|url-status=dead}}</ref> art pop musician Spookey Ruben,<ref name="ruben">{{cite magazine|last1=Siegel|first1=Evan|title=Avant-Pop Pioneer Spookey Ruben Conducts a Synth Symphony on 'Granma Faye'|magazine=Spin|date=February 10, 2016|url=http://www.spin.com/2016/02/spookey-ruben-granma-faye-premiere-stream/}}</ref> and Black Dice's Eric Copeland.<ref>Pitchfork Staff [https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2008/nov/18/eric-copeland-black-dice "Eric Copeland: avant-pop pioneer"], ''Guardian Music Blog'', November 18, 2008, accessed March 22, 2011.</ref> As of 2017, contemporary artists working in avant-pop areas include Julia Holter, Holly Herndon and Oneohtrix Point Never.<ref name="bloomsbury"/>
In 1979, Andrew Stiller of ''The Buffalo News'' wrote of two separate strands; "avant-garde pop", he theorised, comprised new wave music and acts like Brian Eno, Devo and Talking Heads, whereas "pop avant-garde", he deemed, was "a popularization of the indeterminacy ''cum'' electronics so widespread among classical composers a decade ago". He counted recent works by Vangelis, Heldon and Bruce Ditmas as examples of the latter, and wrote that it originated in the 1960s counterculture's "notions of universal amateurism" with pieces like the Doors' "Horse Latitudes" (1967), the Beatles' "Revolution 9" (1968) and, later, the solo improvisations of Terry Riley.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stiller |first1=Andrew |title=Classical |journal=The Buffalo News |date=February 9, 1979 |page=27 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/873294393/?terms=indeterminacy&match=1 |access-date=January 5, 2023}}</ref>
==List of artists== {{See|List of avant-pop artists}}
==See also== *Art pop *Outsider music *Progressive pop *Avant-funk *Underground music
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
{{pop music}} {{Avant-garde}} {{experimental music}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Avant Pop}} Category:Avant-pop music Category:20th-century music genres Pop Pop Category:Pop music genres