the.com/art rock

means A strand of rock music that borrows the ambitions, structures, and self-seriousness of fine art — concept albums, odd time signatures, theatrical staging — over straightforward verse-chorus songwriting.

from Emerged as a label critics and musicians reached for in the late 1960s and 1970s, when bands like The Velvet Underground, Roxy Music, and various prog acts started treating albums like gallery pieces or manifestos rather than just song collections. 'Art' here points back to its older sense of 'high culture' — painting, classical composition, avant-garde film — the term essentially flagging 'this rock record is borrowing art-world seriousness,' not a single coined origin but a gradual critical shorthand that stuck.