Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Featured Albums Project

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The Featured Albums Project is an attempt to identify the album articles which are closest to being ready for featured states, and working together to help get them to that state. Feel free to add articles on albums which you feel are among the very best on Wikipedia. You may also add notes to explain what should be fixed or added to each article.

Participants: Tuf-Kat

When this project began, there were no featured albums. Since the foundation of the Featured Albums Project in October of 2004, the following albums have become featured:


Contents

[edit] Currently nominated

In approximate order of most ready to least

[edit] Future candidates

Oppose It just doesn't seem very well written at the moment. Don't mean to be harsh, but the language needs a lot of improvement. Immediate observations are:
1.'The album also launching what we know today as the Classic Rock radio format.' The sentence doesn't make sense. Do we know it as the Classic Rock radio format, or do just some Americans? (I've never heard of the term.) Why did this album launch that format and not other bands of the era?
Removed.
2.'is often called' Weasel words, who does the calling?
That's credited in the intro to Rolling Stone, and that is all that is need for the first paragraph. Others are mentioned elsewhere, such as in the section entitled "critical reception" and in the infobox.
Perhaps just quote Rolling Stone if the other critics aren't going to be named there.
There's no nice terse quotable phrase from the review that says it, unfortunately. It's really not necessary for the first paragraph. The goal of the intro is to get the most important facts across, and one of the most important facts is that Sgt. Pepper's is more critically acclaimed than most any other album, with Rolling Stone being given as an example. I don't think there's any need for a quote there -- if someone wants to know the details, there's a link to the review just a few inches down in the infobox.
3.'is sometimes described' These are weasel words.
Removed.
4.'titular song' What's wrong with 'title song'?
I think of a "title song" as applying specifically to the titular song of a movie or musical, not a song with the same title as the album it was released on. In any case, "titular song" is perfectly acceptable English.
Acceptable, but unusual. Titular in that sense is listed in dictionaries as the fourth meaning of the word. May be better to describe it as the "first" song anyway. "First" imparts information, "titular" or "title" are tautologous (anyone can see that a song called "Sgt Pepper" is the same as the album title:) )
The most precise word would be eponymous, I think, but that's a bit obscure for the intro. Reworded a bit: One song, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", appears twice in slightly modified forms at the beginning and end, giving an overall theme to the album.
5.', in slightly modified forms,' Don't need commas around this phrase.
Reworded.
6.'In addition, several songs are cross-faded into one another, or joined by sound effects and unusual transitional elements.' Unclear sentence. What does 'cross-faded' mean? What are 'unusual transitional elements'? Why 'several songs' (I thought it was the whole A side and the whole B side)?
Reworded, may be more clear now. I'm not sure which songs are cross-faded, but I don't think there's any pattern to it. Don't have a copy to check right now.
7.'The duplication of "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was produced to create the illusion that the recording was a concert performance by the resident band of the aforementioned club, which was Paul McCartney's original idea for the record.' Unnecessary complicated sentence. No need for long words like 'duplication' and 'aforementioned'. 'Reprise' would be better than 'duplication', 'by a resident band' would be better than 'by the resident band of the aforementioned club'.
Second part reworded. First part not touched -- though long, duplication is a frequently used and commonly understood word. Reprise is shorter but less commonly used, and I think, less commonly understood. In addition, I believe a song can only be reprised if it is identical both times, though I could be wrong.
Could go with "repeated" (with rephrasing). The song is identified as "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" on the sleeve. And you're wrong, it doesn't have to be identical, it can be a shortened (and slightly modified) version of the original.
Changed to Repeating the first song at the end of the entire album helped establish the illusion that the recording
8.'The Beatles had grown tired of touring and had quit the road in late 1966, burned out after the dramas of the "Bigger than Jesus" controversy (with its resultant deaths threats and record burnings in the United States, due to the widespread disapproval of this message from the Beatles) and the tumultuous tour of the Philippines which saw them virtually frog-marched out of the country at gunpoint.' Very long sentence of little relevance to the album.
Long sentence shorted, but of great relevance. It explains why they retired from touring during recording, and the importance of this is the point of the next paragraph.
9.'an effectively unlimited period'; 'virtually unlimited access' Don't know who used a thesaurus (badly) on this article, but it doesn't have many synonyms for 'unlimited'.
Reworded.
10.Still slightly unsure on this one, but changed enough for me to remove it. 'one of their greatest strengths as a recording unit was drummer Ringo Starr, who was highly creative, stylistically adaptable and extremely reliable, rarely needing more than one take. In fact, in their entire recorded archive, there are fewer than twenty major takes that break down because of a mistake by Ringo.' Do we need a puff piece for Ringo?
Toned down somewhat. I don't see the problem with it. The paragraph says that the Beatles were efficient in the studio, then mentions an author who pointed specifically to Ringo as being especially efficient. This seems appropriate to me, but I have removed the bit about Ringo only failing a take twenty times in their career, as that should be in his article, not here.
11.'By the time they came to record the album, The Beatles' musical interests and abilities...' I didn't realise that 'musical interests and abilities' could record albums.
The entire sentence was By the time they came to record the album, The Beatles' musical interests and abilities had grown enormously from their simple pop beginnings. Its been re-worded slightly, but your interpretation is mistaken -- the verb is clearly "had grown", not "record".
You miss my point. The subject of "came to record" in the opening clause is "musical interests and abilities". :)
I'm afraid I still miss it. In any case, I changed it to By the time The Beatles recorded the album, their musical interests had grown from.... Is this less confusing?
I'll stop here. I'm afraid it's just too poorly written at the moment.
Do you want me to read on now?
If you like, though if no one else votes, there will be no point as the article can't get featured.

jguk 18:39, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Fear Factory - Transgression
    • Albumbox needs art cover, recording date and location, length and likely more reviews
    • Could use more information
    • Needs complete credits

[edit] Unordered queue

[edit] Issue with inactivity of the featured album project

I have noticed that Revolver (The Beatles, 1966 release) has been the featured album project for quite some time now. This would please me if the article had been enhancing — however, this does not appear to be the case. Judging by the number of edits that have been made in the history, it seems as though a collaboration on the article had never really commenced. The current five-hundredth edit was edited on the date of August 22, 2002; had a collaboration been occurring, I am almost certain that the five-hundredth edit would not have taken place three and a half years ago. My proposal is simple: change the standards of the featured album project. The inactivity taking place in the article—also evident by the past fifty edits that were made (the fiftieth being made on September 20, 2005)—has left a dead branch for other album articles that could have been significantly improved within that time period. It disappoints me so. The album project must be changed or even removed from Wikipedia if its inactivity is as great as it currently stands. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 01:54, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposing a change seems quite reasonable to me. Further, albums by bands that do not have a number of editors actively interested in them might be good choices. The Beatles albums may not be ones in which the whole project needs to pay special attention to. Jkelly 02:57, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
By all means, reorganize however you like. I had hoped this would take off, but it never did, so clearly a new proposal is necessary. Tuf-Kat 05:25, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I have also posted this message at the talk page on WikiProject Albums. Now for the infamous awkward part: how do I actually change the featured album in the template that appears on every album article talk page? —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 13:56, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Go to Template:Album and edit away. Tuf-Kat
Am I allowed to add any name to the "current collaboration" section of the box or is there an election that must take place first? —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 21:16, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, in the long run, there ought to be a process of some kind to decide the collaboration, but I don't think there's anything wrong with being bold and picking one arbitrarily to help get things started. Tuf-Kat 23:21, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough. I do hope no one complains about my selection though. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 17:39, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Are you freaking kidding me? A Gwen Stefani album over so many other worthy, classic candidates?!? Use a little NPOV next time. --Cjmarsicano 19:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
I figured someone would complain as much. No, you see, that's actually the problem: too many "classic" albums are receiving the treatment of article enhancement. A mainstream album should at least deserve the opportunity to be upgraded. So come on, let this collaboration run for, let's say, at least two weeks? I think it would be fair. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 20:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, first off, there needs to be references and sources indicated on the article. At the moment, the album is just a bunch of lists and to reach featured article status, the only lists that should be there are the track listing and maybe the musical personnel (which on this album is probably quite extensive). If you really think this album is worthy, I highly suggest writing more PARAGRAPHS about the album - how it was made, the history behind it, whatever impact (other than just sales - that means little here) it had, and so forth. Go to my user page, check a lot of the albums that I've written about on here, so that you can get an idea of what the Gwen album entry needs. --Cjmarsicano 21:09, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
The CotW ought to include anything of general notability, whether it's silly pop or a legendary recording. We ought to include some of each, so I think is entirely reasonable. Tuf-Kat 23:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)