Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Music of Athens, Georgia/archive1

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[edit] Music of Athens, Georgia

recreated incorrectly archived FAC from Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Music of Athens, Georgia.

Had it peer reviewed awhile back, only got one comment, but it was a good one and I have expanded as recommended. Athens' most notable contribution to music is by far in the field of rock, so that's what this article focuses on, but it also gives a bit of music history and some info on symphonies, university music groups and some other stuff. Tuf-Kat 22:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

• Oh, gosh! I was th-th-there, man. I was one of those people (not mentioned in the article, which is just as well, but one of those people performing there then, with an album, radio play, etc.), so I'll probably confine myself to information and to your talk page, as I have a bad feeling that I'm going to be too close to the subject to objectively object or support. Geogre 01:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

• Object—fails Criteria 2(a), and possibly, 3(a). Here are some examples at random:
  • 'the city's music rise'
  • 'somber'?
  • stop-start paragraphing in places; e.g., under 'Rock'
  • the B52's should not have an apostrophe
    • Are you suggesting the band's proper name is the B52's instead of the B-52s? Or that there should be more on them? (or less?)
    • New York Times style sheet, along with a number of grammars, say that all acronymns and numbers, when made plural, take the apostrophe. This is to prevent confusion over "B 5 2 S" vs. "B 5 2"s. Insisting upon no apostrophe is a variation, and a very, very, very American one, and a new one. The group itself uses the apostrophe. Geogre 13:11, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • the opening sentence needs complete rewriting: 'The music of Athens, Georgia includes a long and influential history in Georgian music, and has also become a center for indie rock and other styles of music.' 'in' and 'includes' are awkward'; get rid of 'also', and most of the 'alsos' throughout the text. Who's been influenced? Begs a question that is not directly answered. 'other styles'—bit vague right at the top. Could be good if thoroughly fixed up. Tony 02:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I've given the whole thing a copyedit, and rewrote pretty much the whole lead. Does this help? Tuf-Kat 07:00, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • It's better, but the lead is still a problem. It starts with specifics, then moves in the third sentence to the bigger picture. Why not start with something like:

'Athens, the capital and largest city in the southern US state of Georgia, has a rich history of .... and has made major contributions to the music of Georgia.'

• • Unsure why the emphasis is on the city's influence of music in just one state. Didn't it have a wider influence?
  • There's a link to B-52s and a link to B-52's. I hope it doesn't have an apostrophe, but it needs to be consistent.
  • Reference numbers: please insert non-breaking spaces before them, or better still, jam them up against the preceding character.
    • Well, I wanted a link to music of Georgia since Athens is a part of Georgia, but I guess it's not really all that relevant and really hard to work into the article. I've also slightly further tweaked the lead, unfortunately no longer putting music of Athens, Georgia anywhere in the lead to be bolded. I made it consistent with apostrophes because that's how the band's article is titled. I really don't like putting refs right next to a character, but I put non-breaking spaces in. Tuf-Kat
• Object. Non-comprehensive, doesn't discuss Geogre's band. :-) But seriously, I do have a few issues:
  • The copyright status on Image:Vicchesnutt.jpg is unclear; it has a public domain tag, but a description that grants only "Written permission to use this image for non-commercial purposes from New West Records", which means the image isn't allowable in Wikipedia at all, except as fair-use.
  • The word "scene" is repeated to distraction. This paragraph, with 4 "scenes" in three sentences, is the one that finally got to me:

The local rock scene in Athens dates back to the 1970s, when the local scene was based around house parties, eccentric thrift store fashions and a wild and frequently weird atmosphere. The foundation of the 40 Watt Club in 1978 helped to kickstart the local scene, which had previously had few resources for community performances. Many members of the scene's most prominent later bands became locally renowned in the 1970s, including the B-52s.

I guess that's about it from me. It's a good article, I think. A little hard to judge this one; I'm not sure what a comprehensive article on the music of one city looks like. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:51, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Side issue for Bunchofgrapes: Athens is one of those places like Seattle: whether there was something called "Athens music" or not, the press said that there was. Critics referred to it. Thus, there is a thing referred to that way. There are even all sorts of descriptions of what it sounds like, and you can still catch references to new acts sounding "like an Athens band." "Athens" got to be like "grunge" would become: a descriptor that critics were addicted to but that no one on the ground was quite in agreement with. (E.g. it's supposed to be the "jangly guitar" and the heavy use of surf-style reverb, but that had to do with economics: Fender Squier guitars were cheap, and they had reproduced the 1960's Fender guitar pickup, so we sounded like The Ventures. Fender DeLuxe amps, Vox amps, and Orange amps were cheap. We jangled because we hadn't the money to fuzz, and we used to say that effects pedals didn't make you a better player.) </oldfogeynostalgia> Geogre 15:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

• • • I have removed most of the "scenes" in the article, and have requested a clarification from the user that uploaded the chesnutt pic. Thanks Tuf-Kat 07:35, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

• Comment - I see the current version doesn't include a bolded "Music of Athens, Georgia" near the start of the lead. If nothing else, that's going to make for trouble trying to produce a front-page blurb if this article gets featured. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:19, 13 December 2005 (UTC)