Christian Bertrand | Shutterstock
Estimated Read Time: 9 Minutes
The idea of going to school to learn something like how to make great pop music seems kind of crazy. Even when an artist doesn’t write their own material, we still instinctively box their music-making into a category of things that are intrinsically connected to the individual, something that cannot – almost by definition – be learned or mastered in the same way as other crafts. But for a host of the last century’s greatest pop stars, this is almost exactly what they did.
‘Pop music’, ‘contemporary music’ or ‘modern composition’ were not subjects that were often (if ever) offered to those wishing to study at an arts school. For those applying for a place at such an institution, it was more often than not the conventional visual arts subjects that drew them there: Sculpture, Fine Art or Painting for example. However what became most important was the spirit of adventure many found when they arrived. It was inside these buildings that thousands of young people were first introduced to alternate ways of thinking and doing things, a type of education that was distinct from almost anything else on offer. “In the 1960s when the recording studio suddenly really took off as a tool, it was the kids from art school who knew how to use it, not the kids from music school,” describes Brian Eno in an interview with the Guardian. “Music students were all stuck in the notion of music as performance, ephemeral. Whereas for art students… music as painting? They knew how to do that.”
For a generation of young people, art schools like the one Eno attended provided a homely idyll for their creative ambitions. For most parents seeing their offspring head to such an institution, an education in the liberal arts was for them little more than an extended period of play. A few years where their children could experiment with clay and paper mache under the supervision of wayward professors who imbued their child-like creations with profound, abstract importance. This attitude towards the liberal arts was commonplace. But regardless, thousands of pupils joined up every year to these strange centers of learning. Many produced famous faces from outside the world of music too. Peter Capaldi, the latest in a long line of actors to play the famous Doctor Who, has described his experience at the Glasgow School of Art as a time when he was most free to be himself. “I went to art school in the days when it was what you did if you didn’t want to be like everybody else. You wanted to be strange and different, and art school encouraged that.”
For those with humble beginnings, art school not only provided an education but also a lifestyle that was temporarily free from the burdens that came with being something as poorly-paid and financially unstable as an artist. Unlike the children of aristocrats and the upper-middle classes who could rely on their parents to fund their journeys of self-discovery, poorer middle and working class kids had no such luck. David Bowie was one such working class kid who dreamed of making music as a career and as such found himself at art school during the early sixties. Had he been forced to keep a full-time job to fund his attempts at musical greatness, there is little chance he would’ve ended up with a musical catalog as distinguished as the one he has now.
For the 50s and most of the 60s, stars from Melbourne to Motown Records all took an approach to music-making that would seem rigid, commercial and formulaic by today’s standards. The idea of pop music as something that is the inspired creation of an artist (and not just a composition by ‘singers’ and ‘instrumentalists’) was popularized and made normal with the help of these graduates. Simon Frith and Howard Horne in their book From Art to Pop describe the unique influence that the art schools had on our most popular music: “In the 1960s art school students became rock and roll musicians and in doing so inflected pop music with bohemian dreams and romantic fancies and laid out the ideology of rock”. It is largely due to these institutions that music and the visual arts became such natural bedfellows. People whose dreams it was to become famous musicians mingled freely with those who wanted to become great artists in the conventional sense. What followed was a mingling of ideas too.
The concept of the art school as a crucial part of the education system is dying however. Particularly in the UK, institutions, colleges and universities that place too high a priority on so-called “mickey mouse” subjects have been coming under increasing criticism, largely from political conservatives and education traditionalists. In instances where the arts remain a core part of an institution’s scholastic identity there is pressure to combine liberal arts subjects with a more vocational job-orientated approach. This isn’t new though. “My dad saw his art school turned into an art and design school and then into an industrial design school and he was fighting those kind of political decisions every day as well as the cuts,” recalls Damon Albarn of Blur. “I remember him coming home exhausted and angry from fighting that cynical attack on the great art school tradition.”
Despite consistent opposition from their critics the biggest threat to art schools (in the UK at least) came from a much more unexpected place. By the 1990s another way of “finding yourself” whilst having the whole thing subsidized had become a staple of British life. Living “on the dole” (aka. living off of government hand-outs and not paid work) had become the done thing for millions of young musicians seeking the same temporary support that art schools once exclusively gave. Despite the free money, life on the dole mostly involved being the recipient of widespread derision and shame from family members and wider society. Particularly from older people who had lived during the immediate aftermath of WW2, where a culture of hard work and a “getting on with it” mentality made this new British version of American “slacker” culture look positively evil.
But in 1998 things changed. After the success of a number of dole-claiming bands like Oasis proved the worthiness of a system that supported budding musicians, the new Labour Employment Minister Andrew Smith began the so-called “rock ‘n’ dole” scheme to allow 18-to-24-year-olds to continue claiming their Jobseekers’ Allowance. For 13 months young people would be entitled to a small state income providing they could put forward a convincing case that they were genuinely pursuing a career in music.
When Howard and Frith wrote their book From Art to Pop in 1984, they could still confidently state that in the UK “every small town has its art school”. This is no longer the case with there now being only a dozen arts-dedicated institutions left in the country. In 1959 there were a 180.
In the US things haven’t been quite so bad, but just like the UK and other countries: liberal arts education is no longer dominated by the arts-only institutions that schooled many of our pop stars. Creative subjects now find themselves widely dispersed alongside every other avenue of learning.
***
The stereotype of the “art school student” still remains a fixture of youth culture in North America whereas it has virtually disappeared in other places. If you want to study Photography, Fine Art, Textiles or any other creative subject in my country, you’ll no doubt be doing so alongside people studying Politics, Biology, European History and other more traditional subjects. An approach that has on one hand granted arts a safer place in our education system, and allowed “academic students” to incorporate arts subjects into their diet of historical dates, dictionaries and Dalton’s Law. Something which we should all rejoice. While on the other destroying the unique and special places that gave rise to so many of our music icons.
The implications of this – I fear – are far more wide-ranging than what first comes to mind. In my opinion, this fundamental change in arts education – that from insulated spaces crammed exclusively with artists to what we have now – threatens to change how we (and future generations) view music and it’s creation. You can see residual evidence of it in most of today’s stars. The music-makers that congregate in our charts are far more concerned with things like sincerity, personal struggle and ‘proving the haters wrong’ than anything rolling through the heads of young members of The Who or Pink Floyd. Kanye West might talk about making ‘great art’ but his own artisanship is far more accepting of (and based on) commercial success than Jarvis Cocker or Jim Morrison’s own craft were.
Part of this, I think, is the result of an incremental change in how we see music and art. Not all of it for the worse either. Commercial success, popular appeal and “true art” are no longer mutually exclusive terms. Thanks largely (I think) to people like Kanye who have made consistent commercial success a kind of art in itself. But where previous budding musicians went to arts colleges and honed their craft with a knowledge and appreciation of art and the history of it’s ideas placed firmly in the back of their minds. My worry is that in today’s internet age where supposedly anyone with a computer can be an ‘artist’, the natural educational route to supplement a person’s creativity might not be an art subject at all. Business Studies and IT could quite easily fill the gap in a world which sees things like ‘understanding your customer’ and ‘brand identity’ are more important to a viable career in music than what Freddie Mercury and Brian Eno might’ve soaked up in their day.
In the middle of the 1980s, the Scottish city of Glasgow had become widely renowned as one of the nastiest places to live in Europe. Plagued by high unemployment, high crime and an even higher sense of shame: the city would begin to go through something of a renaissance lead by – of all groups – it’s student population, particularly those studying at the Glasgow School of Art. The DIY ethos that began to run through the city lent itself to the creation of record labels, bands and numerous other ventures. Postcard Records, a key part of the indie revolution of the eighties, is one of the more famous examples. A special blend of business acumen, creative passion and eccentric ideas that flowed from the art school students would play its part in making the city a better place to live and do things. In the business courses that I fear could take the place of arts schools — you might only find one of those things.
Art Schools And Their Place In The History Of Great Music
Estimated Read Time: 9 Minutes
The idea of going to school to learn something like how to make great pop music seems kind of crazy. Even when an artist doesn’t write their own material, we still instinctively box their music-making into a category of things that are intrinsically connected to the individual, something that cannot – almost by definition – be learned or mastered in the same way as other crafts. But for a host of the last century’s greatest pop stars, this is almost exactly what they did.
‘Pop music’, ‘contemporary music’ or ‘modern composition’ were not subjects that were often (if ever) offered to those wishing to study at an arts school. For those applying for a place at such an institution, it was more often than not the conventional visual arts subjects that drew them there: Sculpture, Fine Art or Painting for example. However what became most important was the spirit of adventure many found when they arrived. It was inside these buildings that thousands of young people were first introduced to alternate ways of thinking and doing things, a type of education that was distinct from almost anything else on offer. “In the 1960s when the recording studio suddenly really took off as a tool, it was the kids from art school who knew how to use it, not the kids from music school,” describes Brian Eno in an interview with the Guardian. “Music students were all stuck in the notion of music as performance, ephemeral. Whereas for art students… music as painting? They knew how to do that.”
For a generation of young people, art schools like the one Eno attended provided a homely idyll for their creative ambitions. For most parents seeing their offspring head to such an institution, an education in the liberal arts was for them little more than an extended period of play. A few years where their children could experiment with clay and paper mache under the supervision of wayward professors who imbued their child-like creations with profound, abstract importance. This attitude towards the liberal arts was commonplace. But regardless, thousands of pupils joined up every year to these strange centers of learning. Many produced famous faces from outside the world of music too. Peter Capaldi, the latest in a long line of actors to play the famous Doctor Who, has described his experience at the Glasgow School of Art as a time when he was most free to be himself. “I went to art school in the days when it was what you did if you didn’t want to be like everybody else. You wanted to be strange and different, and art school encouraged that.”
For those with humble beginnings, art school not only provided an education but also a lifestyle that was temporarily free from the burdens that came with being something as poorly-paid and financially unstable as an artist. Unlike the children of aristocrats and the upper-middle classes who could rely on their parents to fund their journeys of self-discovery, poorer middle and working class kids had no such luck. David Bowie was one such working class kid who dreamed of making music as a career and as such found himself at art school during the early sixties. Had he been forced to keep a full-time job to fund his attempts at musical greatness, there is little chance he would’ve ended up with a musical catalog as distinguished as the one he has now.
For the 50s and most of the 60s, stars from Melbourne to Motown Records all took an approach to music-making that would seem rigid, commercial and formulaic by today’s standards. The idea of pop music as something that is the inspired creation of an artist (and not just a composition by ‘singers’ and ‘instrumentalists’) was popularized and made normal with the help of these graduates. Simon Frith and Howard Horne in their book From Art to Pop describe the unique influence that the art schools had on our most popular music: “In the 1960s art school students became rock and roll musicians and in doing so inflected pop music with bohemian dreams and romantic fancies and laid out the ideology of rock”. It is largely due to these institutions that music and the visual arts became such natural bedfellows. People whose dreams it was to become famous musicians mingled freely with those who wanted to become great artists in the conventional sense. What followed was a mingling of ideas too.
The concept of the art school as a crucial part of the education system is dying however. Particularly in the UK, institutions, colleges and universities that place too high a priority on so-called “mickey mouse” subjects have been coming under increasing criticism, largely from political conservatives and education traditionalists. In instances where the arts remain a core part of an institution’s scholastic identity there is pressure to combine liberal arts subjects with a more vocational job-orientated approach. This isn’t new though. “My dad saw his art school turned into an art and design school and then into an industrial design school and he was fighting those kind of political decisions every day as well as the cuts,” recalls Damon Albarn of Blur. “I remember him coming home exhausted and angry from fighting that cynical attack on the great art school tradition.”
Despite consistent opposition from their critics the biggest threat to art schools (in the UK at least) came from a much more unexpected place. By the 1990s another way of “finding yourself” whilst having the whole thing subsidized had become a staple of British life. Living “on the dole” (aka. living off of government hand-outs and not paid work) had become the done thing for millions of young musicians seeking the same temporary support that art schools once exclusively gave. Despite the free money, life on the dole mostly involved being the recipient of widespread derision and shame from family members and wider society. Particularly from older people who had lived during the immediate aftermath of WW2, where a culture of hard work and a “getting on with it” mentality made this new British version of American “slacker” culture look positively evil.
But in 1998 things changed. After the success of a number of dole-claiming bands like Oasis proved the worthiness of a system that supported budding musicians, the new Labour Employment Minister Andrew Smith began the so-called “rock ‘n’ dole” scheme to allow 18-to-24-year-olds to continue claiming their Jobseekers’ Allowance. For 13 months young people would be entitled to a small state income providing they could put forward a convincing case that they were genuinely pursuing a career in music.
When Howard and Frith wrote their book From Art to Pop in 1984, they could still confidently state that in the UK “every small town has its art school”. This is no longer the case with there now being only a dozen arts-dedicated institutions left in the country. In 1959 there were a 180.
In the US things haven’t been quite so bad, but just like the UK and other countries: liberal arts education is no longer dominated by the arts-only institutions that schooled many of our pop stars. Creative subjects now find themselves widely dispersed alongside every other avenue of learning.
***
The stereotype of the “art school student” still remains a fixture of youth culture in North America whereas it has virtually disappeared in other places. If you want to study Photography, Fine Art, Textiles or any other creative subject in my country, you’ll no doubt be doing so alongside people studying Politics, Biology, European History and other more traditional subjects. An approach that has on one hand granted arts a safer place in our education system, and allowed “academic students” to incorporate arts subjects into their diet of historical dates, dictionaries and Dalton’s Law. Something which we should all rejoice. While on the other destroying the unique and special places that gave rise to so many of our music icons.
The implications of this – I fear – are far more wide-ranging than what first comes to mind. In my opinion, this fundamental change in arts education – that from insulated spaces crammed exclusively with artists to what we have now – threatens to change how we (and future generations) view music and it’s creation. You can see residual evidence of it in most of today’s stars. The music-makers that congregate in our charts are far more concerned with things like sincerity, personal struggle and ‘proving the haters wrong’ than anything rolling through the heads of young members of The Who or Pink Floyd. Kanye West might talk about making ‘great art’ but his own artisanship is far more accepting of (and based on) commercial success than Jarvis Cocker or Jim Morrison’s own craft were.
Part of this, I think, is the result of an incremental change in how we see music and art. Not all of it for the worse either. Commercial success, popular appeal and “true art” are no longer mutually exclusive terms. Thanks largely (I think) to people like Kanye who have made consistent commercial success a kind of art in itself. But where previous budding musicians went to arts colleges and honed their craft with a knowledge and appreciation of art and the history of it’s ideas placed firmly in the back of their minds. My worry is that in today’s internet age where supposedly anyone with a computer can be an ‘artist’, the natural educational route to supplement a person’s creativity might not be an art subject at all. Business Studies and IT could quite easily fill the gap in a world which sees things like ‘understanding your customer’ and ‘brand identity’ are more important to a viable career in music than what Freddie Mercury and Brian Eno might’ve soaked up in their day.
In the middle of the 1980s, the Scottish city of Glasgow had become widely renowned as one of the nastiest places to live in Europe. Plagued by high unemployment, high crime and an even higher sense of shame: the city would begin to go through something of a renaissance lead by – of all groups – it’s student population, particularly those studying at the Glasgow School of Art. The DIY ethos that began to run through the city lent itself to the creation of record labels, bands and numerous other ventures. Postcard Records, a key part of the indie revolution of the eighties, is one of the more famous examples. A special blend of business acumen, creative passion and eccentric ideas that flowed from the art school students would play its part in making the city a better place to live and do things. In the business courses that I fear could take the place of arts schools — you might only find one of those things.
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