Talk:PH7 (Peter Hammill album)

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[edit] Reviews and ratings

Great that someone is taking care of the PH albums. However I think Wikipedia is not the post ratings of albums. They are very personal opinions. Why not 4 stars or 2?

If you have a look at http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD.asp?cd_id=2286 you see this album gets nearly 4 stars out of 17 ratings.

I would completely abandon the stars.--Peter Eisenburger 15:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't like it either, but it is a required feature of album infoboxes - see WP:ALBUM#Professional reviews. To be honest, I'm less happy with your inclusion of reviews from the Prog Archives website. Putting aside the fact that I personally don't regard PH as a progressive rock musician (although I realise this is a contentious POV), I'm not sure that particular website is of sufficient quality to merit its reviews being linked to. WP:ALBUM#Professional reviews specifies that only professional reviews should be linked - no strict definition is given, but I'm pretty sure that Prog Archives isn't professional. Other views welcome. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 16:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Pretty much every 'All Music Guide' review I've read has been rubbish - blandly written, full of factual inaccuracies, completely out of touch with how the albumn relates to other music. --feline1 17:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• Prog Archives has some poor and many well written reviews. In the sum of the reviews you'll get quite a good impression of an album. I assist the opinion of Feline1 regarding All Music Guide. For instance the review about "The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage" http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:geb1z8hajyvn is really bad.

• Another good resource for English written reviews is Amazon.co.uk.

• What is "professional"? If you regard the reviews of the music press as "professional" (I don't), AMG would not fit in this category. It's a private site and most of the reviews are written by volunteers. Sure it has not earned to be the only review link for a Peter Hammill album. You see that was the fact that drove me in with Progarchives.

• Overall I see Wikipedia pages get cluttered altogether with infoboxes, categories, a.s.o--Peter Eisenburger 17:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I took the discussion there: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums--Peter Eisenburger 18:08, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Severe doubts stay about the monopoly AMG has at Wikipedia's, about the quality of many reviews, and overall about ratings of albums at Wikipedia. However I spent a little time at AMG and it might be a better source for Wikipedia than Progarchives because there is control by staff while at Progarchives anybody can publish their reviews. It's okay for me keeping the Progarchives link at the main PH page.

I'll substitute the progarchives link with articles from professional music magazines where I can. I hope Melody Maker and Sounds articles are welcome though they are only scans.

BTW categorizing Peter Hammill was not my point. (Prog archives has PH in the "Art Rock" genre also.) I introduce every second review of Peter Hammill's albums with the words "This isn't progressive rock music." It is not possible to subsume it in any category. I mostly say "songs by a contemporary artist". Anyway the person Peter Hammill is a main character of progressive rock music. --Peter Eisenburger 14:32, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree your approach 100%. The links to scans from old music papers are a good idea and very welcome, although the Melody Maker one is actually an interview not a review. I'll do some more as time permits (I know the couchnoise site). --Richardrj ^{talk email} 14:46, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I am glad you agree. I couldn't resist placing two more sources on the "Silent Corner" page. Julian Cope's site is renowned and the vintageprog is one of the most visited of the genre. Not an own page for every album but the reviews are well written IMO. What do you think? --Peter Eisenburger 15:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)