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| "Endless Art" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Single byA House | |
| from the albumI Am the Greatest | |
| Released | 1992 |
| Genre | Indie rock |
| Label | Setanta Records |
| Songwriter(s) | A House |
| Producer(s) | Edwyn Collins,Dale Griffin |
"Endless Art" is a song by Irishindie rock bandA House, released initially as the lead track on theBingo EP (1991), and then as a single from their 1991 albumI Am the Greatest. It was later included on the greatest hits albumThe Way We Were.
After the commercial failure of their 1990 albumI Want Too Much, A House had been dropped from their labelBlanco y Negro Records, to be picked up by the indie labelSetanta Records. They quickly released the EPsDoodle andBingo at the end of 1990 and in 1991. The latter included the first appearance of "Endless Art", which A House recorded withEdwyn Collins as producer.[1] Collins went on to work with them onI Am the Greatest from which "Endless Art" was re-released as a single, accompanied by a video.[2]
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 onMTV Europe. The lyrics to "Endless Art" begin with the line "All art is quite useless according toOscar Wilde" 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 ofDave Couse's songs. The majority of the lyrics are declaimed rather than sung, over a repetitive electric guitar motif. Melodically, the song features a quotation fromBeethoven'sFifth Symphony in the chorus.
"Endless Art" was accompanied by an innovative[opinion]stop-motion video which received a lot of praise[by whom?]. WhenPaul King played the video on his finalMTV's Greatest Hits show, as one "of those videos that I really do think deserve to be called great and classic"[citation needed], alongside others such as"Thriller" and "Ashes to Ashes".
For the first appearance of the song onBingo, 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.[3] This is the version called "More Endless Art". In "More Endless Art", the melodic quotation from Beethoven is substituted with one fromCarl Orff.
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".
| Bingo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| EP by | |
| Released | 1991 |
| Genre | Indie rock |
| Label | Setanta Records |
| Producer | Edwyn Collins |
"Endless Art" single (1992)
∗ From a live recording for aJohn Peel session on February 2, 1992.[4]
Bingo EP (1991)