"Endless Art" is a song by Irish

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band A House, released initially as the lead track on the ''Bingo'' EP (1991), and then as a single from their 1991 album '' I Am the Greatest''. It was later included on the greatest hits album '' The Way We Were''. After the commercial failure of their 1990 album ''I Want Too Much'', A House had been dropped from their label Blanco y Negro Records, to be picked up by the indie label Setanta Records. They quickly released the EPs ''Doodle'' and ''Bingo'' at the end of 1990 and in 1991. The latter included the first appearance of "Endless Art", which A House recorded with Edwyn Collins as producer. Collins went on to work with them on ''I Am the Greatest'' from which "Endless Art" was re-released as a single, accompanied by a video. Although the song did not enjoy huge chart success, it reached number 46 in the UK - an achievement by A House's standards - and it gained a certain amount of airplay on

MTV Europe MTV Global (formerly as MTV Europe) is the international version of the American TV channel MTV, a 24-hour music and entertainment TV channel that began broadcasting on August 1, 1987, as part of the worldwide MTV network. Initially, MTV serve ...

. The lyrics to "Endless Art" begin with the line "All art is quite useless according to

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

" and for their remainder are mostly a list of the names and birth and death dates of artists from various fields, with the chorus remark: "all dead but still alive, in endless time and endless art". This "list" style of song is characteristic of many of

Dave Couse Dave Couse (born 1965) is an Irish musician, producer, and radio presenter best known for being the lead singer and main songwriter with the band A House. Couse has also released three albums as a solo artist. Early career and A House Couse w ...

's songs. The majority of the lyrics are declaimed rather than sung, over a repetitive electric guitar motif. Melodically, the song features a quotation from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in the chorus.

Video

"Endless Art" was accompanied by an innovative

stop-motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

video which received a lot of praise. When Paul King played the video on his final ''

MTV's Greatest Hits ''MTV's Greatest Hits'' was a pop music program on the European television channel MTV. It started on 19 March 1990, and between 1991 and 1994 was presented by Paul King, with Pip Dann, Richie Rich and others substituting for King in his absence ...

'' show, as one "of those videos that I really do think deserve to be called great and classic", alongside others such as "Thriller" and " Ashes to Ashes".

Sexism

For the first appearance of the song on ''Bingo'', the band received some criticism for the fact that the artists listed in the song are all male, so they recorded a second version where all the artists are female. This is the version called "More Endless Art". In "More Endless Art", the melodic quotation from Beethoven is substituted with one from Carl Orff, who, it might be quibbled, is not a woman, while the substitution of

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

Minnie Mouse Minnie Mouse is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. As the longtime sweetheart of Mickey Mouse, she is an anthropomorphic mouse with white gloves, a bow, polka-dotted dress, white bloomers, and low-heeled shoes occasionally w ...

for his

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...

may not quite right the gender balance either. Still, "More Endless Art" was better than a defense Dave Couse had offered in interviews, that the band had thought that

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...

''was'' a woman.

Updated version

Dave Couse has subsequently performed a live version of "Endless Art" with a new list of artists, those deceased since the original release of the song. This is available as "Endless Art 06" on the B-side of his 2006 single "A Celebration".

Track listings

"Endless Art" single (1992) # "Endless Art" # "Freak Show"* # "More Endless Art" # "Charity"* ∗ From a live recording for a

John Peel session John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

on February 2, 1992. * All songs written by A House. * Produced by Edwyn Collins (1, 3) and Dale Griffin (2, 4). ''Bingo'' EP (1991) # "Endless Art" # "Our Love Is Good Enough" # "Slipping Away" # "Baby You're Too Much" * All songs written by A House.

References

External links

Endless Art video on YouTube

More Endless Art on YouTube
(version retaining Beethoven chorus, not Orff; video visuals by YouTube user) {{authority control 1992 singles 1991 songs Animated music videos Irish rock songs List songs Setanta Records singles Stop-motion animated music videos Works about artists