{"id":1034,"date":"2016-12-06T11:46:34","date_gmt":"2016-12-06T16:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/?p=1034"},"modified":"2016-12-06T11:46:34","modified_gmt":"2016-12-06T16:46:34","slug":"singing-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/2016\/12\/singing-artists.html","title":{"rendered":"Singing artists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"singer-1825684_1280\"<\/a>When did singers and songwriters first start getting lumped under the moniker \u201cartists?\u201d\u00a0 I think it happened during my lifetime, but I\u2019m not sure, because I\u2019ve spent a lot of my life in a cave.\u00a0 Hank Williams, Sam Cooke wrote and sang their own songs, but I don\u2019t think they were generally referred to as \u201cthe artist.\u201d\u00a0 Or, rather, when they were referred to as artists it was meant as a compliment, not a job description.<\/p>\n

These thoughts came to me reading Amanda Petrusich\u2019s article on Stevie Nicks in a recent New Yorker<\/em>.\u00a0 Six times the word \u201cartist\u201d crops up, and I\u2019m not sure what it means.\u00a0 Sometimes it seems gratuitous, as in \u201cThe artist Justin Vernon, of the band Bon Iver\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Never mind that the sentence could work just as well without \u201cthe artist\u201d part, but what exactly is being distinguished between Mr. Vernon and the rest of the band?\u00a0 If he is \u201cthe artist,\u201d what are they?\u00a0 The musicians?\u00a0 Does that mean he is not a musician?\u00a0 Is \u201cmusician\u201d simply not a transcendent enough title for someone who writes songs and\/or sings them?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m aware that this kind of inquiry can easily come across as belligerent griping, so I hasten to add that I\u2019m not upset about it, I\u2019m just stumped. \u00a0I don\u2019t have anything against Nicks or Petrusich; in fact, I admire both of them. \u00a0And I understand that Petrusich isn\u2019t guilty of misusing a term: I\u2019m guessing this is the way she has heard that word used all her life \u2013 it has become common usage.\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m just confused about when and why this choice of words came into being. \u00a0As far as I know, people who write, direct and star in their own films aren’t\u00a0habitually called \u201cthe artists,\u201d \u2013 at least I haven\u2019t heard \u201cthe artist Woody Allen\u201d or \u201cthe artist Sylvester Stallone\u201d \u2013 so it can\u2019t just be about avoiding clunky terminology.\u00a0\u00a0 For some reason, \u201cartist\u201d has replaced \u201csinger,\u201d and I believe the shift happened about 25-35 years ago.\u00a0 Maybe someone will enlighten me about that.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I will entertain thoughts of bizarre ramifications.\u00a0 What if, in an act of retribution, people who put paint on canvases start referring to themselves as \u201cmusicians?\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh wait, I\u2019ve heard them do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When did singers and songwriters first start getting lumped under the moniker \u201cartists?\u201d\u00a0 I think it happened during my lifetime, but I\u2019m not sure, because I\u2019ve spent a lot of my life in a cave.\u00a0 Hank Williams, Sam Cooke wrote and sang their own songs, but I don\u2019t think they were generally referred to as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1036,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions\/1036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}