Talk:Bad Hair Day/GA1
GA Review[edit]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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Reviewer: LazyBastardGuy (talk · contribs) 00:37, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm such a big fan of "Weird Al", I always find it a pleasure to read his articles on Wikipedia. What better way than to review it to see if it's GA? Gimme a few, I'll be right back...
First things first, the easy stuff.
- Files, images & sound:
- Album cover. I would suggest getting it from a better source. I don't think some dude's weblog counts as a viable source in this regard.
- Amish family riding a buggy. Everything looks okay here.
- Coolio. Looks fine.
- "Amish Paradise" sample. Not too long, and adequately illustrates its point.
- Article stability: Seems peaceful.
- Sourcing:
- Cite #18 has an error message.
- Uh oh... I see this article uses Exclaim!. I once tried to use a source like this only to be informed that website was blacklisted. Was this always the case, or has the ban been lifted?
- Seems mostly to rely on officially-endorsed Yankovic sources, but not by much in comparison to the rest. Website citations appear to be written like book citations, though, as the name of the site (which I think should go in the "publisher" field) is treated as "work". I could be wrong about this one, but I think that's not right.
- I took 'publisher' to mean the company that published the website. Both field are available for a web citation, so I thought it was OK. For instance Ref. 7: The Onion publishes The A.V. Club. While The A.V. Club is the source being cited, I added The Onion since it is the site's publisher.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 18:29, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Now, for the harder stuff - the body of the article.
- Lead
- Album's actual release date should be listed here, not just 1996.
- Here's my take on the first couple paragraphs, rather than pointing them out phrase-by-phrase:
"...It was Yankovic's third studio album to be self-produced. The album produced an array of hit comedy singles; lead single "Amish Paradise" (which lampoons both Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" and the Amish lifestyle} charted at number 53 on the Billboard Hot 100, while "Gump", which parodies "Lump" by the Presidents of the United States of America and the movie Forrest Gump, charted at 102. The musical styles on the album are built around parodies and pastiches of pop and rock music of the mid-1990s, largely targeting alternative rock and hip-hop alike. The album also includes style parodies, imitations of specific artists like They Might Be Giants and Elvis Costello."Amish Paradise" caused a minor controversy after rapper Coolio expressed distaste at having his song spoofed by Yankovic, although the two later made amends."
- "...with many critics praising "Amish Paradise"." I think we need to say "..."Amish Paradise" in particular", because having looked at the Reception section those who said they liked it also expressed that they liked other things on the album too, this was just their favorite so far as I could tell.
- Don't need to reiterate how "Amish Paradise" charted. Any reference to "Amish Paradise" becoming one of his signature songs should probably go in the first paragraph (when amended closer to what I wrote above).
- "...sold 1,317,000 copies in the US in 1996 alone. It is the highest sales tally..." --> "...sold 1,317,000 copies in the US in 1996 alone, the highest sales tally..."
- "Bad Hair Day was Yankovic's sixth Gold record, and went on to be certified Platinum for sales of over one million copies in the United States. The album also went Platinum in Canada." It went Gold where? According to which certification company? And if possible could you date these certifications?
- Production
- Comma in the first sentence after "Recorders" is unnecessary.
- "First leg" is informal. Could probably take out "leg" and not replace it with anything.
- "Yankovic produced the sessions himself" would look nicer joined to the last sentence with a comma and rewritten as, "...which he produced himself" (referring to the BHD sessions as a whole).
- "Backing Yankovic", as with the UHF article, should be "Recording with Yankovic".
- Second instance of "produced" (meaning what songs were made) would look nicer with "resulted in".
- "The fourth session "The Alternative Polka" medley," the fourth session what?
- "The song was written to be a style parody of the type of music that was produced in Seattle, most notably grunge." Seems clunky.
- Reading "brutally murdered" made me laugh. Brilliant. But "At the 3:10", sounds like you meant to say "At the 3:10 mark."
- Comma surplus after "backwards message".
- I don't care if you end a sentence with a preposition or not, but "The next song that was worked on" kinda bugs me. Maybe, "The next song produced" or something.
- "While Yankovic's record label..." --> "Although Yankovic's record label..."
- "...tour in 1999. It combines elements..." --> "...tour in 1999, combining elements..."
- Pointing-out that the "Extra Gory version" had different lyrics in concert is one thing, but pointing-out that it was later re-released on a greatest hits is a bit excessive as far as the detail goes, especially since right after that we go into, "Also recorded that day..." so my suggestion would be to take it out entirely.
- "...a scratch guitar track was recorded. When the song was being mixed, however..." --> "...a scratch guitar track was recorded; when the song was being mixed, the track was removed."
- Steve Jay proved the low voices in the song what?
- "Spoof" - I don't know the policy on this word. If it's considered too informal, I would suggest "play" instead.
- "...who brought a real drill and a human tooth. The two then took turns drilling at the object to ensure the authenticity." Really pulled-out the thesaurus for this one, eh? ;) Might I suggest:
- "...who brought a real drill and a human tooth; the two took turns drilling the tooth to create a genuine sound effect."
- "There's" - woah, way too informal.
- "Due to the fact that" - because (why say in five syllables what you can say in two?)
- "...by Presidents of the United States of America." I think it should say "the Presidents".
- Minor nitpick: Is it necessary to recount the plot to Forrest Gump here? I could go either way on this one.
- "Gump was eventually released as the second single..." "Second single" makes it clear it didn't come first. You don't need "eventually".
- "Yankovic was attracted towards Coolio..." This sounds... odd.
- "He noted:" no colon, needs a comma instead
- "Awhile" sounds informal. Try "a time" instead (just as vague, less casual).
- Again, "spoof" may be too informal as well. "Lampoon" sounds more academically-accepted.
- The hyphens need spaces before and after them. The words look crowded without those spaces.
- "The song is a loving ode..." could probably join this with the previous sentence getting rid of "The song is" and just replace that chunk with a comma.
- Anytime the album title is mentioned it must be italicized.
- "Weezer's front man" --> "Weezer frontman"
- How does one "physically" cut part of a song out of a recording? Even if this means he had to take a razor to the master tape, this is an unnecessary adverb unless the method of removal is 1) described in detail by the source and 2) is significant for how it was carried-out.
- "Thanked" --> "given credit"
- "Entitled" --> "called"
- Just to sound-off for a moment here: The word "however" is used so often on WP in cases like this it drives me crazy every time I see it. I suggest rewriting that entire bit to read: "Despite not being able to parody "Come Out and Play", Yankovic would later be granted permission to parody their 1998 hit "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" as "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi" on his 1999 album Running with Scissors."
- "The Beatles's" --> The Beatles'
- I'm not sure we should say it was a 90s hit for the Beatles. Maybe say, "The Beatles' Anthology hit".
- "...if he could have permission to write and record a parody for..." It's already established what Yankovic was trying to do. I suggest, "...if he could have permission to do so...".
- "turned the decision over to" this sounds slightly informal. Just a nitpick, I could live if this wasn't fixed.
- "She denied permission, however, because..." --> "...over to Yoko Ono, who denied permission because..."
- "make it about" --> "write it about"
- "The Rembrandts, much like U2..." --> "The Rembrandts had also approved of Yankovic's parody request, but the problem lay with the producers of Friends..."
- Didn't Alapalooza get released a few years before Bad Hair Day? How could the tour for that album have happened after this one?
- Even then, I'm not sure specifying which tours the rejected parodies were performed on is all that important.
- Controversy
- "The album's lead-off parody..." --> "The album's lead single..."
- Who did Yankovic ask about the parody if he didn't ask Coolio himself? Whose record label said he could go ahead and do it?
- "surprised as anyone" --> "very surprised"
- "featured" - "feature"
- Release
- "Boosted" sounds informal.
- "helped the initial release" needs a with after "helped".
- "performed at over 130 stops" --> "performed over 130 concerts" (although this sounds rather sensational; if you can get a precise figure and remove the "over" that would be great)
- "...as a "a sophomoric attempt..."" a few too many a's in there.
- "...on the album are Yankovic's originals." Awkward switch of verb tense here - past or present would work fine in my book, but try to keep it consistent throughout this section.
- Did Mr. Considine refer to Yankovic or his music? Awkward switch of subject here.
- I don't know how we handle quoted statements, but in general I think minor fixes such as italicizing things that weren't italicized in the original publication of the quote is okay. So Bad Hair Day needs italicized in the Allmusic review.
- I think it should read like this: Rolling Stone Record Guide (even if only Rolling Stone is italicized). Also, is there anything else the publication said in regards to the album?
- "...released on March..." and also, is it still his best-selling to date or was it just at the time?
- I've never seen an album article that says which position on the chart was the last for the album to occupy.
- There's a weird story to that; Billboard used to have this thing called "The Visualizer" which allowed you to track an album/single's charting history. However, this device got removed sometime ago, so that line was just a vestigial remain. I've removed it.--Gen. Quon (Talk) 22:02, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
- "...certified gold, and then on June 11..."
- "By July 1997, the album sold 1.7 million copies." Present past tense should be avoided when discussing something that isn't all that recent.
- "...Canadian Albums chart and was later certified Platinum for sales of over..."
Whew! That was definitely much harder than the UHF review. Still rewarding all the same. I know how eager you'll be to fix this up, so I'll just put it on hold and not tell you for how long.
- Thanks for reviewing this one! I think I responded to all our your concerns. How does it look now?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 22:02, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
- I went ahead and made a few changes myself, either things I missed the first two times around (and didn't want to bother you about since it would just be easier for me to fix) or stuff I had new ideas for upon seeing them again. By the way, with regard to Rolling Stone Record Guide, I believe what I meant to say there is (even if only Rolling Stone is wikilinked), but you seemed to get what I was saying. So now, I am quite satisfied, and your hard work has paid-off. It's a definite pass.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.