Can Pop Music Be High Art?

Art comes in many forms. Oil paintings hang in museums. Photographs are displayed in gorgeous white gallery spaces. Sculptures get lit dramatically from all sides. Street art is sprayed across city walls. And then there’s music. Often, when we talk about music as being art, the default reference is classical: Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky. Sometimes, perhaps, jazz or avant-garde experimentation gets a nod. But popular music? That’s often dismissed as disposable, or worse (shock horror)…commercial. But should it be?

This week, I found myself wondering: why is popular music rarely considered high art? And what makes one form of creative expression climb the cultural ladder while another is confined to the basement of ‘low brow’?

For centuries, the definition of “art” was dictated by institutions: churches, monarchies, academies…the wealthy. These institutions commissioned and legitimised certain forms of expression. Painting? Yep. Sculpture? Of course. Opera? I guess so, though I don’t get the fascination with it. Music composed for the court or the church was high art by default. Popular music, that which entertained the masses, was viewed as something else entirely. Even folk songs, often beautiful and meaningful, were seen as unworthy of serious critique or preservation…low-brow by default. 

That separation never quite went away, I don’t think. In the 20th century, when rock and roll exploded and later gave way to everything from punk to pop to electronic music, the divide between high and low art was not broken, just reframed. Paintings by Banksy, once dismissed as vandalism, now fetch millions. But a number one single? Still seen by many as ephemeral at best. Why?

One argument goes like this: high art is rare, unique, or expensive to produce, and I do get that. A painting or sculpture can exist as a single physical object, though they are often reproduced in huge quantities. A song, on the other hand, can be streamed billions of times. Perhaps, then, the omnipresence of popular music works against its artistic reputation. If everyone can access it, how can it be special?

But this idea doesn’t really hold up for me. Books are widely available, but literature is still considered an art form. Films, though mass-produced and consumed, are still critically acclaimed for their artistic merit. So why is popular music mostly left out of that conversation?

Perhaps it’s the “here today and gone tomorrow” nature of popular music. The charts change weekly. Trends and fashions come and go. What was cool six months ago is now relegated to nostalgia playlists. There’s a perception that popular music is temporary by design, aimed at commercial success and quickly replaced by the next catchy hook or viral sensation popster. it moves fast and even faster in today’s world of streaming.

But again, this doesn’t tell the whole story. There are pop songs that have endured for decades, becoming part of the cultural fabric. The Beatles. Bowie. Prince. Joni Mitchell. There’s LOADS more. Are these artists not producing high art simply because their work was… popular? Are their works high art?

Another argument is that popular music is, well, popular because it sells. And anything that sells in large quantities is often automatically tainted by commercialism, right? The sellout argument I mentioned.

Is there a double standard at play? When a painter becomes successful, it’s a triumph of vision. When a musician sells millions, it’s often seen as selling out. That’s always been the case, and perhaps that “selling out” thing is because music, even popular music, can often have its roots in rebellion, and “working for the man” is frowned upon. I certainly recall bands being accused of selling out when I was a teen and them losing a degree of respect.

Ultimately, the line between high and low art is determined by the likes of critics, curators, and academics. These are the people who write the histories, compile the lists, and shape the accepted body of what is considered to be worthy of the title “art”. And for a long time, this lot weren’t taking pop music seriously. But things are (perhaps) changing.

In recent years, we’ve seen serious academic and critical attention given to musicians like Kendrick Lamar, whose Pulitzer Prize win for DAMN. sent a strong message that popular music can engage with profound, complex, and urgent issues. The Pulitzer board said this of the record “A virtuosic song collection… unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.” But hasn’t some music always been profound and complex? David Bowie’s exhibitions have been hosted in major museums. The lyrics of Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan are taught in university literature courses.

One reason (I’d argue) popular music deserves recognition as high art is that it often functions as a direct mirror of the culture from which it emerges. Where classical music can represent the ideals of its time in an abstract sense, pop often speaks plainly of real, lived experience in a fast-moving world.

Hip hop and its derivatives, for example, have given voice to communities often excluded from mainstream discussion. It has documented struggle, resilience, politics, fashion, economics, and urban life with a detail and immediacy that rivals any social history book. But is it seen as art?

Electronic music has pushed the boundaries of sound design and performance art. Pop has experimented with gender, image, and identity in ways that are both theatrical and subversive. The idea that any of this is somehow artistically inferior because it’s accessible or commercialised is a bit of a null argument to my mind.

So what does it take for popular music to be considered high art? Time is one thing, for sure. Many artists only gain recognition as serious creators years after their peak popularity. Sometimes, a shift in cultural values allows us to hear something differently.

But perhaps we need to rethink what constitutes an artistic piece. Why wait for critical approval or institutional blessings? Perhaps it’s enough that a song moves people, makes them think, defines a moment, or transcends its immediate function as something commercial. But then we are back to it not really being the public that decides what is art and we find ourselves looking (again) at the institutions I mentioned right at the start of this piece.  

Perhaps pop music is the democratisation of art and I guess the nearest I can get to how it is viewed in literature is to compare pop music to graphic novels or comics. 

If graffiti can become high art, and fashion can be displayed in museums, then so can music that’s sung in stadiums or streamed on phones. Not all popular music is high art, just as not all painting is. But some is…or could be.

Maybe it’s time we let go of the idea that high art must be hard to access, understand, or afford. Maybe it’s enough that it connects us…to each other, to a moment, to a memory.

And if that connection happens through a three-minute pop song? That sounds like art to me.

Or perhaps we can just love pop music for what it is and enjoy its ephemeral and low-brow nature.

Stuart Smith

What do you think? Can a three-minute blast of pop ever become real “Art”? Join the conversation over on our social media channels. 

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