This of course begs the question , "What is art ?"
"I think that Rock & Roll songs are pretty ephemeral... when I've done one I want to write another one", Mick Jagger
Obviously a comment from a very prolific writer with a great deal to say.
"I don't think that rock & roll writers should worry about art. I don't think it comes into it... As far as I'm concerned, art is just short for Arthur", Keith Richard
A view that says I'm in it for the money! It is probably a form of inverted snobbery. Is art highbrow only?
"As far as I know, Brian Jones never wrote a single finished song in his life; he wrote bits and pieces but he never presented them to us. No doubt he spent hours, weeks working on things but his paranoia was so great he could never bring himself to present it to us", Keith Richard
We should take from this the advice that a writer must have faith in him/herself, otherwise pack it in, it's not worth worrying about it.
There are many artists on the pop scene with classical training, thoughts turn to Elton John and Rick Wakeman amongst others. Many high-brow orchestras include pop songs in their repetoire, The Boston Pops Orchestra and The London Philharmonic have recorded albums of pop songs and have performed with artists like Sting and Sir Paul McCartney. The Royal Philharmonic has played in concert with Deep Purple and there are no doubt many more examples. Where should one draw the line?
What makes a certain piece of music art? Like popular music, classical music goes through phases or fashions: Renaisance, Baroque, Rococo for example. It also has its share of moments. The audience largely walked out of the first performance of Ravel's Bolero because of the shock of its insistant rythms and lack of melodic development. Does anyone know the name of the composer who recently wrote a symphony for metronomes (with no other instruments at all) ? The only difference is that it used to take a generation for differences to surface whereas now its every six months. If we take a leaf out of the visual arts, art is produced by "trained" artists. Hence we see the minimalist creations which are drooled over by critics in modern galleries described as important statements as if people without "training" cannot have a say.
In music, pop stars (often untrained) have a ready audience for their "statements", an audience who are also most usually "untrained". But the water is murky and the line is not fixed as indicated above.