Your way in
Art rock 1966
Rock made by art-school graduates: concept, image and experiment ahead of formula. It overlaps with prog but cares far less about virtuosity.
- Heaviness
- 3
- Speed
- 4
- Melody
- 7
- Where from
- UK / New York
- Tempo
- 80-130 bpm
- Song length
- 3-7 min
- Written about
- Alienation, Artifice and persona, Technology, The self as a construction
- Vocals
- Sung
Why this one
| You said | Art rock | Match | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singing When someone is singing, what should come out? | clean | 100% | ×3 |
| Light How much weight do you want behind it? | 3 out of 10 | 90% | ×2 |
| The inside of a head What should the words be about? | Alienation, Artifice and persona, Technology, The self as a construction | 100% | ×1 |
| Weighted mean | 97% | ||
Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 3 answers you gave, weighted vocals 3, heaviness 2, about 1 out of 6. Art rock ties with the next, and won on being the broader of the two. Where two genres score the same the broader one wins, because a genre with subgenres under it is somewhere to carry on from and a leaf is a full stop.
Five records, in this order
- 1The one to put on first
Talking Heads, Remain in Light 1980
Talking Heads - Remain in Light. African funk, synthesizers and existential panic.
- 2Then
- 3Then
Radiohead, Kid A 2000
- 4Then
David Bowie, Low 1977
- 5One step further in
Trisomie 21, Passions Divisées 1984
Trisomie 21 - Le Repos des Enfants Heureux. Grey-tower-block melancholy in pure form.
The pick names a track. This is the record the encyclopedia holds by them.
The first is Art rock's own entry point. After it come Art rock's essential records in the order the encyclopedia lists them. Every one of these has a page here with links out to somewhere it can be played.
If that is not it
-
Coldwave / minimal wave 92%
European post-punk on cheap drum machines: cold synths, distant vocals, the atmosphere of a grey housing block in winter.
4 steps from Art rock, meeting it only at Rock.
The way into Coldwave / minimal wave -
Dream pop 92%
The same reverb haze, but with the melody left on the surface and the tempo slower.
4 steps from Art rock, meeting it only at Rock.
The way into Dream pop
Not simply the second and third of the ranking: those are almost always near neighbours of the first, which is three names for one suggestion. An alternate has to sit at least 4 steps through the tree from the headline and from the other alternate, which is the same floor the "sounds like this, but isn't" panel uses.
What your answers ruled out
- Singing put 54 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Black metal, Death metal, Post-hardcore. Worth 3 of 6.
- Light put 12 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Death metal, Brutal death metal, Sludge metal. Worth 2 of 6.
- The inside of a head put 88 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Punk rock, Hardcore punk, Black metal. Worth 1 of 6.
Counted as genres scoring 20% or less on that answer alone. A recommendation that only shows what it chose is hiding half of what it did.