Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Doolittle (album)

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 01:09, 3 April 2007.

[edit] Doolittle (album)

An album by the alternative rock band Pixies. The article recently achieved GA status, and I think it meets the FA criteria. A self-nomination. CloudNine 17:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment - Remove the "initial reception" and "retrospect" subheadings; the change of subject is properly conveyed by the start of each paragraph. Combine the "end-of-year" paragraph with the preceeding paragraphs. There's some prose issues with the article as a whole that I'll get back to soon enough, but then again it's really just some awkward phrasing I can probably fix myself. WesleyDodds 09:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Removed section headers and combined "end-of-year" para. CloudNine 10:14, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: I've only read a little bit so far and I'll come back to the article; but a few questions:

The album itself reached #8 in the United Kingdom, a unheralded chart position for the band. Songs such as "Debaser", "Wave of Mutilation" and "Hey" were highly critically regarded, and Doolittle, along with Surfer Rosa, is seen as the band's best work by critics.

  • Why the hash before the 8?
    • It's similar to other featured album articles, which designate a chart position by a hash before the number. See Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) for typical usage.
Not required in my opinion. No need for impenetrable signs when we have words like "chart" available. qp10qp 20:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
It's to signify 'number'; but it's not crucial anyway, so I've removed them. CloudNine 20:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Fine. qp10qp 01:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I have re-added the pound signs. They are necessary in this context. Remember that the Pixies are an American band and so American English is used in the article. Andrew Levine 17:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • What does "unheralded" mean in this context? In my opinion, some DJs had already heralded the band. Quite a fuss had been made about them in indy circles, for sure.
    • The chart position they achieved in the UK was far above their previous releases - such a placing could not have been and was not predicted, so it was unheralded.
I don't agree. The album was played and trumpeted on the radio in advance. Advance orders were high, including mine. "Unheralded" doesn't mean the same as "highest by far". You herald the record itself, not its chart position. qp10qp 20:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Rephrased to 'unexpected success'. The impression that I get from reading through sources is that the record label and the band thought it would be more popular than Surfer Rosa, but not as popular as it was (in the UK anyway). CloudNine 20:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Fine. qp10qp 01:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I have no references for this, but I distinctly recall Doolittle being attacked by critics as a comedown from Surfer Rosa, which had been praised as a breath of fresh air for its short sharp songs. I can't remember where I read that response, but I would have been reading Melody Maker, NME, The Guardian and The Independent at the time. Note: I now see that you acknowledge this later in the article. I think this possibility is probably covered.qp10qp 01:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Tenses: "were critically regarded"/"is seen". Need to be very careful about tenses because it seems to me that though the Pixies are now canonical, it is forgotten that the three famous albums after Surfer Rosa were increasingly hammered by certain critics at the time, often in the most derogatory terms. This didn't bother the fans, though, who treasured all the albums. NME reader polls often departed from the views of its critics, who tended to be snarky. qp10qp 13:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I'll take a look at that. Thanks for your review! CloudNine 16:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I tried to find some of the reviews online, but they are from pre-internet days and are elusive. As you know, what happens is that most bands are forgotten—including many that were flavour of the month at the time—but those that are remembered become increasingly sanctified. Books, articles, and advertising materials about them quote selectively from reviews until the past is rewritten. I think this is because once a band reaches legendary status with the fans, the critics feel obliged to catch up and talk as if, for example, the Pixies phenomenon was inevitable in retrospect. Anyway, I still haven't read the whole article, and I will probably come back to bug you some more. (No need to answer this unactionable rambling.) qp10qp 20:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Extremely good point. I feel the article isn't very well sourced anyway (in terms of variety of sources), and they could certainly do with getting their hands on some NMEs, MMs etc from the time. Can anyone help? --kingboyk 00:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I've actually spent another session looking, and I have to admit that the balance in the article is probably correct. I did find a contemporary NME review, I think on the Alec Eiffel site, and it was full of praise, though such fan sites aren't going to put up much negative stuff (there's a very negative concert review there, mind). The present article does show that not all reviews were positive: it mentions Time Out, and I realise that I used to read that, which is maybe where I remember the criticism from. I would say that the article could be more precise in distinguishing contemporaneous appraisal from later appraisal. Clearly the album has risen from being fourth in the NME for that year to second of all time now (so even when the album was praised in 1989, it was not effused over in the iconic terms that it is now). Another point to remember about sources is that feature articles and interviews, as today, tend to be sycophantic (or they wouldn't get the co-operation) and reviews more critical. In particular, I don't necessarily think the reference to this page [1] rates as a reliable source, since the website owner admits at the top that he has cobbled it together from various sources and added his own input (that site is good, but clearly its POV is fandom). qp10qp 01:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Removed source. It didn't really say anything that wasn't already cited.
  • Support. This is an excellent encyclopedia article, just the right length for its subject. It strikes a balance between facts and figures, anecdote, and critical appraisal. The prose is of a clean quality and largely avoids the music-journalese of its sources. As a Pixies fan, I'm pleased that we now have such a comprehensive article on this album. Are you up for a Kim Deal article, then, CloudNine? (No shortage of material, one suspects.)
    • Yeah, definitely collecting sources for that one. I'm also looking to improve Surfer Rosa in the near future.
A few small points:
  • 4AD, a small British independent record label, owned the worldwide rights to the Pixies, but had no distribution outside of the United Kingdom; the band had to import its previous records.' Not clear what the last part of that refers to, since we have just been told that they were signed to Elektra, which I thought was an American label (so import to where, if they were signed to labels in both countries?). What was Elektra's relation to the independent 4AD, if any?
    • According to my sources, the band signed to Elektra, but Elektra didn't acquire distribution rights for their next album until two weeks before Doolittle was released. I've clarified the sentences in question.
  • A lack of distinction between Simon Larbalestier and a chap you call Oliver (a check of my copy tells me that Simon Larbalestier was the photographer and Vaughan Oliver ("Vaughan Oliver/v23" is what it says in the booklet, for some reason) the art designer and director.
Doolittle was the first album where Simon Larbalestier, the Pixies' cover artist, had access to the lyrics.
During the recording sessions, Whore was discarded as a potential album title, after album artist Oliver changed the cover artwork idea to a monkey and halo cover.
    • I've clarified that point. Fool the World talks about Larbalestier and how he came up with surrealist material - Oliver isn't mentioned much. However, they both worked on it, so I've modified the first sentence of the section.
  • ...was released to radio stations for rotation. I'm not familiar with that term.
    • Replaced with "inclusion on playlists".
  • After "Monkey Gone to Heaven", 4AD released "Here Comes Your Man", the second and last single to be taken directly from the album, in June 1989...It was not the last single from the album; in 1997, "Debaser" was released as a single to promote the Death to the Pixies compilation. A contradiction there, even if "Debaser" was not released till many years later.
    • The key word here is "directly". However, I'm not too happy with the phrasing myself. Could you take a look at it?
qp10qp 01:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your support! My comments are above. CloudNine 16:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: The Content section mentions twice that "Dead" and "Gouge Away" have Biblical origins. This probably only needs to be said once in the section. Andrew Levine 17:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
The trouble is that the first para is a summary of the section, and the mention of the songs later down covers them in more detail; so, essentially, they must be mentioned twice. (Same with surrealism/"Debaser", and enviromentalism/"Monkey Gone to Heaven"). CloudNine 17:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Object per 1a. At the end of the articles there's a table under "Charts" which violates 1a, and as this is FAC and not FLC it can be turned into prose. LuciferMorgan 04:46, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • You brought this exact issue up in LAMB's candidacy, and the responses (from myself and four other people) indicated that this is not a valid objection. Andrew Levine 06:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I objected per 1a Andrew, which is valid the last time I checked. LuciferMorgan 01:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Essentially Shadow, you mean that you have agreed to do this with Stefani related articles. Wikipedia talk:Record charts means nothing whatsoever, as my objection is based on the FA criteria - take your complaint up with the FA criteria page if you dislike my objection and ask for 1a to be more specific. Until then, I'm fully, 110% entitled to my intepretation of 1a. LuciferMorgan 01:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Of course you're entitled to your opinion. Objecting based on an interpretation of 1(a) that goes against all consensus so far is, however, inappropriate and pointy. ShadowHalo 04:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • If it's against consensus, I don't think I'll act on this objection. I feel listing all the awards it has received would result in awkward prose. CloudNine 12:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Support. Have read half the article so far, but very good as usual, thus far. Q's:
  • "in similar circumstances to "the Purple Tape". - Similar how? Similarly improvised, or similarly fracticious?
  • More that the band were quietly recording new songs in a small studio.
  • "Francis had no preference, although Ivo Watts-Russell, head of the band's label 4AD, was keen on Norton recording the Pixies' next album" - I remember reading somewhere, but can't think where, that hiring Norton was a calculated move away from Albini's sound, and an attempt, at least on 4ADs behalf, to capitalise on the band's huge European popularity at the time. True, or am I just getting old?
  • My Doolittle 33 1/3 reference say this: "Watts-Russell was keen on Norton, and everybody else liked him too, so that was that".
  • "This was a modest sum for a 1980s major label album" - 4AD are not a major label; was it financed by Elektra?
  • 4AD alone financed the record. They signed a distribution deal with Elektra just as the record was about to be released.
  • "The master-tapes were then sent for final post-production later that month" - To which studio? Curious.
  • I can't find anything in my references that indicates a particular studio.
  • "Norton recruited Steve Haigler as mixing engineer, whom he had worked with at Fort Apache Studios" - During which recording? Curious.
  • I think it was as a general mixing engineer, for every band that had record at the studio. I can't find anything that says he worked on a previous Pixies record (i.e. Purple Tape).
  • "this record is him trying to make us, shall I say, commercial, and us trying to remain somewhat grungy" - Maybe incorporate Albini's famous openion on Pixies here.
  • Indeed, the trouble is that Albini made his quote in 1991, so it may jar by darting foward to 1991 and back again.
Very good work to here, however. Ceoil 21:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your review and copyedit. My comments are above. CloudNine 20:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarifications, have finished reading the article, and switched to support. As a small point you could rename the "Further reading" section as "Sources" as both texts are used in the notes. Ceoil 21:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Done, thanks. CloudNine 21:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. I think you've really got the hang of writing Featured Articles. I just took care of some minor punctuation fixes (American subject--->American grammar and all that). Good job. WesleyDodds 10:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Mild support—mostly well written, and it's good to see some depth in the account of the music/style. There are, however, a few things to fix in the prose; a quick spruce up by someone who's unfamiliar with the text would make all the difference. Just as examples:
    • "Francis gave the demo tape and upcoming album the provisional title of Whore, though he later claimed his natural father had originally suggested the name. Francis has clarified that was thinking of the word "in the more traditional sense"—Do you need to insert "this" after "that" to clarify the wording?
      • Clarified wording.
    • "was keen on Norton recording"—loose and, strictly speaking, ungrammatical. What about "was keen that Norton record"?
      • Fixed.
    • "in order to"—Please, just "to".
      • Done. Thanks, good tip.
    • "Carriage House Studios —a residential studio in Stamford, Connecticut— to oversee"—Odd use of one-sided spacing for dashes; try no spacing or both sides. This needs to be fixed throughout.Tony 02:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Not my doing, but I changed the dashes (mostly) to commas.
    • "the band' forthcoming album"?
      • Simple typo. Fixed. A copyedit is ongoing. CloudNine 09:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.