Wikipedia talk:Notability (music)

"WT:MUSIC" redirects here. For the WikiProject discussion page, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Aguilera Tour

New deletion discussion - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Aguilera Tour >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 18:51, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Eurovision

Could Eurovision participation be an indication of notability? Ricciardo Best (talk) 14:18, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

As long as the notability doesn't rely exclusively on the subject's participation in Eurovision. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 00:09, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Application of NMUSIC vs NCORP for recording labels and recording studios

There is a current discussion on this at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)#Categorization_of_notability_requisite_for_record_labels,_recording_studios,_art_collectives_and_like Graywalls (talk) 13:00, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

21st century update?

I'm happy to reorient this comment if there is, but, is there any discussion that anyone is aware of on how to modernize the music notability guidelines for current practices? These guidelines may still be applicable, particularly in retrospect, but the way that music is promoted, distributed, and consumed in the year 2023 (online/social media, downloads, and streaming respectively) is completely different than it was 20 years ago. -- t_kiehne (talk) 20:03, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I guess there is potentially some value to finding a way to better capture popularity that comes through streaming media, but we'd want there to be independent verification of that popularity; corporate-released figures (like YouTube plays, Spotify streams, etc.) are unreliable. Billboard has been building streaming into its chart figures, and I think the de facto practice with music articles on Wikipedia is more or less to defer to national chart institutions, since they are (usually) independent and already have broad acceptance as notability indicators. Chubbles (talk) 01:17, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The three areas where I think there have been substantial changes since the guidelines were originally written are:

1. Even though it may appear in a longstanding reliable source like Rolling Stone or Billboard, many of the release announcements for songs and albums are provided and uploaded by the record label or management companies themselves, so it's not necessarily an independent source, and could be considered self-published.

2. Receiving a gold certification these days is the norm for a charting record, rather than the exception, so I'm not sure it's a great indication of notability any more.

3. Most songs, even obscure album tracks, have been used somewhere, sometime in the backing music of TV show episodes, so perhaps criterion 7 should clarify that the song needs to be a major part of the show, to the point that a reliable source has discussed it.

As a side issue, we have discussed before about integrating the "Songs" section into the "Recordings" section, given that most of it essentially duplicated the criteria for albums, and this might be a good opportunity to address that. Richard3120 (talk) 13:09, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

As I dig a little deeper, yes, it seems that the RIAA has done some integration of streaming into their certification metrics, but I haven't yet found any evidence that they consider downloads in any way. We can probably get into the weeds about industry manipulation of charts and analogous effects in streaming algorithms – e.g. can we draw any real distinction between payola to radio stations and algorithms that tend to the mean? – but that's not quite where I intended this to go.

Probably more significant is how the criteria for published works is explicitly biased against online media. For example, many established independent publications have long since stopped printing and have gone online, and newer publications don't even bother with print. Taken literally, WP:BAND #1 would reject these sources outright, and, indeed, I have had to debate whether a source is a "blog" or not solely based on the fact that they are online only.

I fully acknowledge that there have to be standards for reliability, but I feel like the criteria are – to put it non-charitably – written from the standpoint of industry capture. It is now possible (and is actually happening) that independent artists are bypassing labels and the industry by taking advantage of more direct channels and it is entirely possible for such artists to gain notability even if the criteria here don't reflect that. It's entirely possible we are trying to unify two domains: artists/entities supported by and participating in major media industry (which is, let's face it, a machine for generating its own notability) and everyone else. -- t_kiehne (talk) 21:45, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I know what you mean... how artists can become major YouTube and TikTok stars with millions of followers, but as most sources about them are also on those channels, we view them as unreliable sources and non-notable. Richard3120 (talk) 22:29, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, for many years on Wiki, editors pooh-poohed direct indicators of popularity of that ilk and often ridiculed people who argued that they pointed toward anything of substance. I often found that those numbers suggested it was worthwhile digging for chart and media attention and was able to substantiate WP:MUSIC on those grounds instead. I've always been open to the possibility of additional criteria that capture new media strategies for achieving stardom, but ultimately the main issue is going to be meeting WP:V. Chubbles (talk) 04:41, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I concur with all of this. The issue for me is that blogs are two-a-penny nowadays. Everyone can set a blog up and I don't think guidance for notability is always clear. Like someone's pointed out, in the streaming environment lots of singles hit a certification somewhere in the world. I'd like to get to a point where:

1. Songs are only notable if they have been written about as a body of work in their own right, if they're mentioned in the context of an album review they are probably not notable.
2. Thanks to the wide expansion of charts, just because something has charted, doesn't mean its notable on its own. In addition to charting, there should be information about the song as a body of work.
3. Clarification that per WP:SONGTRIVIA and WP:COVERSONG, just because a song was used in an episode of "Grey's Anatomy", "Glee" or another media form, doesn't mean the song is notable or that fact is worth of inclusion in an encyclopedic article, unless that specific use of the song received independent coverage such.

>> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 12:01, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. Richard3120 (talk) 12:03, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

For the (no pun intended) record, the RIAA has considered downloads for quite some time now. The formula is simpler than that of streaming: generally speaking, one download equals one sales unit. Gnomingstuff (talk) 15:47, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Content dispute

There is a content dispute about whether individual concerts should be added to stadium articles in advance of the concert date. Your input is welcome at Talk:SoFi Stadium#user @Magnolia677 removing concerts. --Magnolia677 (talk) 10:14, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Compositions: no criteria set for musical compositions

Currently there are no criteria set for compositions. I'm mainly thinking about classical compositions, but any kind of composition that has been published should have a set of criteria to determine whether it is notable enough for inclusion.

Some criteria I propose to determine a compositions to be included are:

• Has been performed by a prominent performer (soloist, orchestra, conductor)
• Has been recorded and released on a prominent major or indie record label
• Has been written by a prominent composer
• Has been arranged, variated or edited by a prominent composer
• Has been published by a major music publisher
• Has been covered sufficient in musical literature

I hope this can be picked up and discussed further.