Art Pop (other variations of the names of artpop and art pop are also known) is a musical genre, a widely characterized style in pop music, inspired by pop art, integrated by elite and non-elite cultures and emphasized by manipulations with symbols, styles and gestures over self-expression. Art-pop artists are inspired by postmodernism turning to aesthetics, as well as other forms of art, such as fashion, fine art, film and avant-garde literature. Also, the genre may deviate from traditional pop audiences and rock music conventions, instead exploring such ideas as status in pop music as commercial art, concepts of artificiality and self, and issues of historicism.
Since the mid-1960s, British and American pop artists, such as Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, and The Beatles, have begun to incorporate the ideas of pop art movement while recording music.British art-pop musicians took inspiration from their studies from the Academy of Fine Arts, when in America art-pop relied on the influence of pop art by artist Andy Warhol and the group The Velvet Underground affiliated to him, and also intersected with the movement of singers and songwriters of folk music. Art-pop experienced its “golden age” in the 1970s thanks to such performers as David Bowie and Roxy Music, whose works embraced theatricality and disposability of pop culture.