59-564: No-Man are an English art pop duo, formed in 1987 as No Man Is an Island (Except the Isle of Man) by singer Tim Bowness and multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson . The band has so far produced seven studio albums and a number of singles/outtakes collections (including 2006's career retrospective All the Blue Changes ). The band was once lauded as "conceivably the most important English group since The Smiths " by Melody Maker music newspaper, and
118-519: A 2017 article of Drowned in Sound described them as "probably the most underrated band of the last 25 years". Originally creating a sample-based proto- trip hop / ambient / electropop -styled music, No-Man has pursued a more organic, diverse and band-oriented sound in subsequent years. Drawing from a diverse mix of singer-songwriter, post rock , minimalist , progressive rock , jazz and contemporary ambient sources for inspiration, No-Man's musical style
177-436: A different direction from his contemporaries, and collaborated with a wide range of popular musicians of the era. Cultural theorist Mark Fisher characterized a variety of musical developments in the late 1970s, including post-punk, synthpop , and particularly the work of German electronic band Kraftwerk , as situated within art pop traditions. He states that Bowie and Roxy Music's English style of art pop "culminated" with
236-506: A modernist avant-garde approach to art rock that ignored the conventional hierarchies of artistic representation. Holden traces art pop's origins to the mid 1960s, when producers such as Phil Spector and musicians such as Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys began incorporating pseudo-symphonic textures to their pop recordings, as well as the Beatles' first recordings with a string quartet. In
295-492: A move that was indicated by the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Phil Spector, and Frank Zappa , the dominant format of pop music transitioned from singles to albums , and many rock bands created works that aspired to make grand artistic statements, where art rock would flourish. Musicologist Ian Inglis writes that the cover art for the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was "perceived as largely responsible for
354-738: A signifier of wealth and extravagance as well as creative exploration. Fact labels West's 2008 album 808s & Heartbreak as an "art-pop masterpiece" which would have a substantive influence on subsequent hip hop music, broadening the style beyond its contemporary emphasis on self-aggrandizement and bravado. The New York Times ' Jon Caramanica described West's "thought-provoking and grand-scaled" works as having "widened [hip hop]'s gates, whether for middle-class values or high-fashion and high-art dreams." Contemporary female artists who "merge glamour, conceptualism, innovation and autonomy," such as Grimes , Julia Holter , Lana Del Rey and FKA twigs , are frequently described as working in
413-530: A six-piece line-up including three ex-members of the band Japan – Mick Karn , Steve Jansen and (most significantly) keyboardist Richard Barbieri , who had been recruited by Massey. The band's first full-length album (the more pop-oriented Loveblows & Lovecries - A Confession ) followed in May 1993. By this time, the live band included bass player Silas Maitland and the (unrelated) drummer Chris Maitland . (The latter would join both Wilson and Richard Barbieri in
472-481: A voice/violin/guitar-and-tapes trio (with Wilson handling all other instruments and programming in the studio). The first release under the No-Man name was the self-pressed June 1990 single release, "Colours" (a cover of the 1960s Donovan Leich song with crooned vocals and a dub-loop arrangement anticipating the later arrival of trip hop ). The single achieved Melody Maker , Sounds and Channel 4 teletext "Singles of
531-415: A waltz time ballad called "The Girl from Missouri", on Plastic Head Records in mid-1989. The band was disappointed with the single and soon disowned it. Subsequent band evolutions saw flirtations with aggressive synth-pop (on the "Swagger" cassette EP) and the departure of Blagden (who would later become a jazz and Latin music player). By 1990, No Man Is an Island had shortened their name to No-Man and become
590-539: Is a loosely defined style of pop music influenced by art theories as well as ideas from other art mediums, such as fashion , fine art , cinema , and avant-garde literature. The genre draws on pop art 's integration of high and low culture , and emphasizes signs , style, and gesture over personal expression. Art pop musicians may deviate from traditional pop audiences and rock music conventions, instead exploring postmodern approaches and ideas such as pop's status as commercial art , notions of artifice and
649-548: Is an English drummer. Maitland was born in Cambridge , England. After being the drummer for No-Man on their Autumn 1993 tour (and playing on two tracks on their Flowermouth album ), Maitland was asked by the band 's Steven Wilson to join his other main project, the progressive rock band Porcupine Tree . He remained the band's drummer until February 2002, when he was dismissed and replaced by Gavin Harrison . He played on
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#1732883998104708-475: Is distinctive yet difficult to categorise. Steven Wilson originally launched the band in 1986 as a solo project called No Man Is an Island (Except the Isle of Man), recording an instrumental track called "From a Toyshop Window", which blended progressive rock with synth pop. In 1987, he linked up with singer, lyricist and occasional guitarist and keyboard player Tim Bowness, who at the time was singing with Liverpool-based art-pop band, Plenty (not to be confused with
767-520: The Financial Times have noted the attempts of art pop music to distance its audiences from the public at large. Robert Christgau wrote in The Village Voice in 1987 that art-pop results "when a fascination with craft spirals up and in until it turns into an aestheticist obsession." What seems clearer in retrospect [...] is a distinction between the first wave of art school musicians,
826-519: The New Romantic groups of the 1980s, and Róisín Murphy as a part of an art pop lineage. He noted that the development of art pop involved the rejection of conventional rock instrumentation and structure in favor of dance styles and the synthesizer . The Quietus names English New Romantic act Duran Duran , who were formatively influenced by the work of Japan, Kraftwerk and David Bowie, as "pioneering art pop up to arena-packing level", developing
885-471: The punk movement , post-punk era saw a return to the art school tradition previously embodied by the work of Bowie and Roxy Music, with artists drawing ideas from literature , art , cinema , and critical theory into musical and pop cultural contexts while refusing the common distinction between high art and low culture. An emphasis on multimedia performance and visual art became common. Fisher characterized subsequent artists such as Grace Jones ,
944-401: The self as a work of construction and artifice, as well as a preoccupation with the invention of terms, imagery, process, and affect. The Independent ' s Nick Coleman wrote: "Art-pop is partly about attitude and style; but it's essentially about art. It is, if you like, a way of making pure formalism socially acceptable in a pop context." Cultural theorist Mark Fisher wrote that
1003-451: The self , and questions of historical authenticity . Starting in the mid-1960s, British and American pop musicians such as Brian Wilson , Phil Spector , and the Beatles began incorporating the ideas of the pop art movement into their recordings. English art pop musicians drew from their art school studies, while in America the style drew on the influence of pop artist Andy Warhol and
1062-495: The synthesizer . The 2010s saw new art pop trends develop, such as hip hop artists drawing on visual art and vaporwave artists exploring the sensibilities of contemporary capitalism and the Internet . Art pop draws on postmodernism 's breakdown of the high/low cultural boundary and explores concepts of artifice and commerce. The style emphasizes the manipulation of signs over personal expression, drawing on an aesthetic of
1121-518: The 1990s, she became art pop's most commercially successful artist. Discussing Björk in 2015, Jason Farago of The Guardian wrote: "The last 30 years in art history are in large part a story of collaborative enterprises, of collapsed boundaries between high art and low, and of the end of divisions between media. Few cultural figures have made the distinctions seem as meaningless as the Icelandic singer who combined trip hop with 12-tone , and who brought
1180-568: The Internet-based genre vaporwave as consisting of underground art-pop musicians like James Ferraro and Daniel Lopatin "exploring the technological and commercial frontiers of 21st century hyper-capitalism's grimmest artistic sensibilities". Artists associated with the scene may release music via online pseudonyms while drawing on ideas of virtuality and synthetic 1990s sources such as corporate mood music , lounge music , and muzak . Chris Maitland Chris Maitland (born 13 May 1964)
1239-741: The London provincial r & b players who simply picked up the bohemian attitude and carried it with them into progressive rock, and a second generation, who applied art theories to pop music making —Simon Frith, Art into Pop (1988) The boundaries between art and pop music became increasingly blurred throughout the second half of the 20th century. In the 1960s, pop musicians such as John Lennon , Syd Barrett , Pete Townshend , Brian Eno , and Bryan Ferry began to take inspiration from their previous art school studies. Frith states that in Britain , art school represented "a traditional escape route for
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#17328839981041298-506: The Mackenzie School of Speech & Drama and taken LAMDA examinations regularly since the age of eight, between 1985 and 1993 Maitland became involved in theatre at Cambridge as an actor. Also during this period he built up a practice of private percussion pupils and from 1989 took on various posts as a professional drum-kit teacher. As an actor, he has played a wide variety of roles, including Shakespearean roles. In February 2009, it
1357-511: The Move and, later, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme of 10cc . Townshend's ideas were notable for their emphasis on commercialism: "[His] use of Pop art rhetoric [...] referred not to music-making as such – to the issue of self-expression – but to commercial music-making, to issues of packaging, selling and publicizing, to the problems of popularity and stardom." In a May 1967 interview, Townshend coined
1416-670: The Stooges' role as the group linking 1960s hard rock to 1970s punk . In the 1970s, a similarly self-conscious art/pop community (which Frith calls "the most significant" of the period) began to coalesce in the Mercer Arts Center in New York. The school encouraged the continuation of the kinds of collaboration between high and low art once exemplified by the Factory, as drummer Jerry Harrison (later of Talking Heads ) explained: "it started with
1475-615: The Velvet Underground and all of the things that were identified with Andy Warhol." The glam rock scene of the early 1970s would again draw widely on art school sensibilities. Inspired partly by the Beatles' use of alter egos on Sgt. Pepper's , glam emphasized outlandish costumes, theatrical performances, and allusions to throwaway pop culture phenomena, becoming one of the most deliberately visual phenomena to emerge in rock music. Some of its artists, like Bowie, Roxy Music, and ex-Velvet Underground member Lou Reed , would continue
1534-717: The Week in Melody Maker , Sounds and Irish music paper, Hot Press ) and had 2 indie top 20 hits ("Days in the Trees" and "Ocean Song") plus a Billboard Top 40 dance hit (the US only single, "Taking It Like A Man", at No. 34). No-Man’s debut mini-album (a compilation of EP tracks called Lovesighs - An Entertainment ) was released in April 1992, and in October of the same year the band toured England with
1593-478: The Week" accolades and was re-released by Liverpool-based label Probe Plus in October, 1990. The attention which "Colours" had received led to No-Man being signed by Dave Massey to a long-term music publishing songwriting agreement with independent Hit & Run Music Publishing. Massey soon secured a recording contract with the independent label One Little Indian . During this period, the band received highly positive UK music media support (including more Singles of
1652-412: The aesthetic value of mass-produced goods, was directly applicable to the contemporary phenomenon of rock and roll (including Elvis Presley , an early Pop art icon). According to Frith: "[Pop art] turned out to signal the end of Romanticism, to be an art without artists. Progressive rock was the bohemians' last bet [...] In this context the key Pop art theorist was not [Richard] Hamilton or any of
1711-570: The affiliated band the Velvet Underground . The style would experience its "golden age" in the 1970s among glam rock artists such as David Bowie and Roxy Music , who embraced theatricality and throwaway pop culture . Art pop's tradition continued in the late 1970s and 1980s through styles such as post-punk and synthpop as well as the British New Romantic scene, developing further with artists who rejected conventional rock instrumentation and structure in favor of dance styles and
1770-421: The album as "music that in many ways sees a return to our roots as a synth-pop band, albeit with the conceptual sweep of our more recent albums". In September 2019 the band announced their new album, Love You to Bits , which was released on 22 November 2019. Current members Former members Guest studio contributors Current live members Art pop Art pop (also typeset art-pop or artpop )
1829-481: The avant garde to MTV just before both those things disappeared." According to Barry Walters of NPR , 1990s rap group P.M. Dawn developed a style of "kaleidoscopic art-pop" that was initially dismissed by hip hop fans as "too soft, ruminative and far-ranging" but would eventually pave the way for the work of artists like Drake and Kanye West . In 2013, Spin noted a "new art-pop era" in contemporary music, led by West, in which musicians draw on visual art as
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1888-598: The band announced through their Facebook page that a new live recording, titled Love and Endings, recorded at the Leamington Spa Assembly in October 2011 would be released on 27 February 2012. It was followed by a 5-date tour, including first performance in Poland on 26 August 2012. Wilson announced in late 2018 that he was working with Bowness on a new No-Man album, the band's first full length album of original material since 2008's Schoolyard Ghosts . Wilson described
1947-440: The band released Speak , a compilation of mostly-unreleased early ambient songs recorded a decade previously but which Bowness and Wilson considered to be of equal merit to the music released on One Little Indian or 3rd Stone Ltd. Speak ' s quieter and more atmospheric approach pointed the way towards No-Man's subsequent output. 2001's Returning Jesus (the last album to be released on 3rd Stone Ltd.) resurrected and expanded
2006-461: The band's career - a set of ambient dance reworkings of Flowermouth material called Flowermix and a compilation of the band's more ambient and atmospheric One Little Indian-era B-sides and rarities called Heaven Taste . With each subsequent release the band moved further away from its more conventional pop and rock roots, mirroring the evolution of artists such as Talk Talk , David Sylvian , Radiohead , Scott Walker and Kate Bush . Since
2065-422: The bands 10cc , Roxy Music and Sparks "were mixing and matching from different genres and eras, well before the term 'postmodern' existed in the pop realm." The effect of the Velvet Underground gave rock musicians like Iggy Pop of the Stooges a self-consciousness about their work. Iggy was inspired to transform his personality into an art object, which would in turn influence singer David Bowie , and led to
2124-693: The break-up of a relationship and responses to bereavement. In 2006, No-Man made a rare live performance at the Norwich Garage (part of a Burning Shed label event). The band released Schoolyard Ghosts on 12 May 2008, receiving some of the most favourable reviews of the band's career (the album was described as "truly sublime" by Classic rock magazine). Guest musicians included Pat Mastelotto , Theo Travis , Gavin Harrison , Colin Edwin , Bruce Kaphan (ex- American Music Club ) and The London Session Orchestra (arranged by Dave Stewart ). On 27 May 2008, it
2183-503: The bright working class kids, and a breeding ground for young bands like the Beatles and beyond". In North America, art pop was influenced by Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation , and became more literary through folk music 's singer-songwriter movement. Before progressive/art rock became the most commercially successful British sound of the early 1970s, the 1960s psychedelic movement brought together art and commercialism, broaching
2242-453: The connections between art and pop to be made explicit". Although Sgt. Pepper's was preceded by several albums that had begun to bridge the line between "disposable" pop and "serious" rock, it successfully gave an established "commercial" voice to an alternative youth culture. Author Michael Johnson wrote that art pop music would continue to exist subsequent to the Beatles, but without ever achieving their level of popular success. The Who
2301-432: The contemporaneous work of Warhol and artist Roy Lichtenstein , citing his ability to elevate common or hackneyed material to the level of "high art". In his 2004 book Sonic Alchemy: Visionary Music Producers and Their Maverick Recordings , David Howard credits the Beach Boys' 1966 single " Good Vibrations " with launching the "brief, shining moment [when] pop and art came together as unlikely commercial bedfellows." In
2360-544: The debut album by Blackfield in 2003, sharing drumming duties with Gavin Harrison . Harrison has described Maitland as a great drummer. Between 2004 and 2005, Maitland was a member of the progressive rock supergroup Kino . Throughout his career, Maitland has been involved with many West End musicals , and from 2005 onwards, he has been playing drums on the Mamma Mia! International Tour. Aside from these links listing professional drumming engagements, having trained at
2419-464: The development of art pop evolved out of the triangulation of pop, art, and fashion . Frith states that it was "more or less" directly inspired by Pop art . According to critic Stephen Holden , art pop often refers to any pop style which deliberately aspires to the formal values of classical music and poetry, though these works are often marketed by commercial interests rather than respected cultural institutions. Writers for The Independent and
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2478-416: The eclectic ballad, jazz and progressive rock influences of Flowermouth and brought the band to a new and revived audience, some of whom had come in via the continued success of Wilson's other main project Porcupine Tree . Signing a new deal with Snapper Music , the band went on to release Together We're Stranger in 2003 - a sombre, moving record with strong tone poem elements detailing (in abstract)
2537-450: The everyday and the disposable, in distinction to the Romantic and autonomous tradition embodied by art rock or progressive rock . Sociomusicologist Simon Frith has distinguished the appropriation of art into pop music as having a particular concern with style , gesture , and the ironic use of historical eras and genres . Central to particular purveyors of the style were notions of
2596-472: The idea of the Romantic artist in terms of media fame. According to Armond White, Roxy Music's engagement with pop art practices effectively "showed that pop's surface frivolity and deep pleasure were legitimate and commanding pursuits." After leaving Roxy Music in 1973, Eno would further explore art pop styles on a series of experimental solo albums. For the rest of the decade, he developed Warhol's arguments in
2655-405: The live lineup of Porcupine Tree ). In 1994 No-Man released their second album Flowermouth . Although the band parted company with violinist Ben Coleman during the sessions, he made a significant contribution towards most of the tracks on the record. No-Man also stopped performing live in 1994, and would not return to the stage until 2006. Two albums released in 1995 closed the first phase of
2714-611: The mid-1990s, No-Man has released a steady stream of albums via Snapper Music and 3rd Stone/Adasam, featuring guests such as Fripp, Barbieri, Jansen, Theo Travis and Pat Mastellotto . The band has maintained a healthy cult following as well as continued critical acclaim. 1996's Wild Opera and its 1997 companion release Dry Cleaning Ray (both released on 3rd Stone Ltd.) explored a combination of darker dance sounds, experimental art-rock and deep trip hop, while maintaining No-Man's particular skill with ballads. An EP of all-new material, Carolina Skeletons, followed in 1998. In 1999,
2773-527: The more recent Japanese indie rock band, Plenty ). Bowness and Wilson continued working together on recording sessions for the next two years. Violinist Ben Coleman joined the project after becoming involved with recording sessions in late 1988. The band established a four-piece live line-up in 1989 by adding guitarist Stuart Blagden (who had previously played with Bowness in the Manchester-based band, Still). No Man Is an Island released their debut single,
2832-462: The music of the British group Japan . The Quietus characterized Japan's 1979 album Quiet Life as defining "a very European form of detached, sexually-ambiguous and thoughtful art-pop" similar to that explored by Bowie on 1977's Low . Brian Eno and John Cale would serve a crucial part in the careers of Bowie, Talking Heads, and many key punk and post-punk records. Following the amateurism of
2891-439: The other British artists who, for all their interest in the mass market, remained its academic admirers only, but Andy Warhol . For Warhol the significant issue wasn't the relative merits of 'high' and 'low' art but the relationship between all art and 'commerce'." Warhol's Factory house band the Velvet Underground was an American group who emulated Warhol's art/pop synthesis, echoing his emphasis on simplicity, and pioneering
2950-885: The practices associated with the modernist avant-garde branch of art rock. Bowie, a former art-school student and painter, made visual presentation a central aspect of his work, deriving his concept of art pop from the work and attitudes of Warhol and the Velvet Underground. Roxy Music is described by Frith as the "archetypical art pop band." Frontman Bryan Ferry incorporated the influence of his mentor, pop art pioneer Richard Hamilton while synthesizer player Brian Eno drew on his study of cybernetics and art under theorist Roy Ascott . Frith posits that Ferry and Bowie remain "the most significant influences in British pop", writing they were both concerned with "pop as commercial art", and together made glam rock into an art form to be taken seriously, unlike other "camp" acts such as Gary Glitter . This redefined progressive rock and revitalized
3009-457: The question of what it meant to be an "artist" in a mass medium. Progressive musicians thought that artistic status depended on personal autonomy, and so the strategy of "progressive" rock groups was to present themselves as performers and composers "above" normal pop practice. Another chief influence on the development of art pop was the Pop art movement. The term "pop art", first coined to describe
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#17328839981043068-417: The style into "a baroque, romantic escape." Critic Simon Reynolds dubbed English singer Kate Bush "the queen of art-pop", citing her merging of glamour, conceptualism, and innovation without forsaking commercial pop success during the late 1970s and 1980s. Icelandic singer Björk was a prominent purveyor of art pop for her wide-ranging integration of disparate forms of art and popular culture. During
3127-503: The term " power pop " to describe the music of the Who, the Small Faces , and the Beach Boys. Power pop later developed as a genre known for its reconfiguration of 1960s tropes. Music journalist Paul Lester argued that this component could ratify power pop as one of the first postmodern music genres. Music journalist Paul Lester locates "the golden age of adroit, intelligent art-pop" to when
3186-557: The tradition of Kate Bush. Grimes is described by the Montreal Gazette as "an art-pop phenomenon" and part of "a long tradition of fascination with the pop star as artwork in progress", with particular attention drawn to role of the Internet and digital platforms in her success. In a 2012 piece for Dummy , critic Adam Harper described an accelerationist zeitgeist in contemporary art-pop characterized by an ambiguous engagement with elements of contemporary capitalism. He mentions
3245-549: The words of author Matthew Bannister, Wilson and Spector were both known as "eremitic studio obsessives [...] [who] habitually absented themselves from their own work", and like Warhol, Spector existed "not as presence, but as a controlling or organising principle behind and beneath the surfaces of media. Both vastly successful commercial artists, and both simultaneously absent and present in their own creations." Writer Erik Davis called Wilson's art pop "unique in music history", while collaborator Van Dyke Parks compared it to
3304-673: Was No-Man's first concert outside of the UK. Mixtaped —a double DVD package including a film of the sell-out London performance, a documentary of the group's history and assorted promotional videos—was released in October 2009. Early releases of the DVD ordered from Burning Shed included an audio CD recording of highlights from the Bush Hall show. The DVD was voted No. 5 in the Classic Rock Presents Prog 2010 critic's poll. On 22 December 2011,
3363-521: Was announced that Maitland would play drums on Arjen Anthony Lucassen 's latest project, Guilt Machine . On 17 April 2011 in Zoetermeer, The Netherlands, Maitland was supposed to reunite on stage with former fellow Porcupine Tree's bass player Colin Edwin and no-man's singer Tim Bowness as part of the Memories of Machines project (a collaboration between Bowness and Giancarlo Erra of Nosound ). However,
3422-519: Was announced that No-Man's music will be featured in the film by award-winning student film-maker Dan Faltz, Weak Species . The film is based on the writings of Dennis Cooper and is currently being considered for expanded feature film treatment. No-Man played its first full performance in fifteen years at London 's Bush Hall on 29 August 2008,. This performance was followed by two more concerts in Zoetermeer (The Netherlands) and Düsseldorf (Germany) on 3 and 4 September respectively. The Zoetermeer concert
3481-401: Was labelled "the first pop art band" by their manager, while member Pete Townshend explains: "We stand for pop art clothes, pop art music and pop art behaviour [...] we don't change offstage; we live pop art." Frith considers their album The Who Sell Out (December 1967) "perhaps the Pop art pop masterpiece", the Who using the "vitality" of commerce itself, a tactic echoed by Roy Wood 's
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