Talk:Emo/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 10:05, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:05, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

• You have quite a few dead links. Fixing them is not required for GA, but you may want to do so anyway; this link lists them. There are also quite a few badly constructed citations; you have "BBC - Error 404" as a link title (footnote 166), and also "Archived copy" (footnote 211). As I say, you don't have to fix these for GA, but it would be a kindness to the reader.
• There are eleven illustrative music samples. I can understand that an article about a genre might require more than one or two samples to give the reader an understanding of the text, but I think this is well beyond what we can justify as fair use. Can you get it down to three, or at most four?  Done

  I see you've cut this to five, which is much better. The first two have captions indicating what it is about the genre that they illustrate. The other three don't -- they just indicate that the songs were successful. What is it about these samples that is necessary to the reader's understanding? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:13, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

• Also not an issue for GA, but just in case you want to fix it, you're inconsistent about using locations in your citations -- for example Blush (2001) gives the location as New York; Bryant (2014) gives no location.
• What makes the following reliable sources? I'm not saying they're not, just that it's not apparent immediately.
  • blog.siriusxm.com -- blogs are not reliable sources for most things.
  • treblezine.com -- appears to be unpaid, per their about page, so it's hard to call it a professional site
  • files.nyu.edu/cch223/public/usa/albums/faith_subjecttochange.html -- you have this in archive.org but I can't get to any sort of about page. It looks like it's part of a set of personal pages, rather than a professional website of some kind.
  • iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring02/Laferrera/early.htm
  • mychannel957.com/awesome-mixtape-mashes-up-modern-pop-with-classic-emo-video/

    This was changed to mix957gr.com/awesome-mixtape-mashes-up-modern-pop-with-classic-emo-video/ -- same question about reliability for this site.

  • yellowisthenewpink.com
  • alterthepress.com
  • femalefirst.co.uk
  • pupfresh.com -- seems to be a blog
  • thursday.net, which doesn't appear to support the material it is cited for in any case
  • mic.com
  • rocknuts.net
  • popdust.com
  • hiphopdx.com
  • soundcloud.com
  • theringer.com
  • malaysiandigest.com
  • thedailyswarm.com

I'm going to pause the review till we're agreed on sources, since it could lead to substantial changes in the text if we had to remove some of these. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:47, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I looked at the sources. Some I confirmed reliable to myself long ago. A lot of them i removed because i never remembered confirming them reliable. Statik N (talk) 18:16, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I've struck the ones that have been removed. For the others, can you say why they are reliable sources for this article? I don't see enough evidence at the moment. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:13, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Statik N, are you planning to continue working on this article? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:20, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

http://mix957gr.com/awesome-mixtape-mashes-up-modern-pop-with-classic-emo-video/ this is a reliable source actually. it's a radio station called WLHT-FM. Malaysian Digest is a Malaysia news website. they're credible. ringer.com is also reliable. hiphopdx is a magazine. Rocknuts.net seem reliable. besides, they do have .net in their name. i even examined their site to see how reliable they are and they seem pretty credible. The daily swarm is definitely reliable to me. they have staff and they have interviews. Statik N (talk) 19:54, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the sources a bit more closely:

• WLHT-FM is going to be a reliable source for some purposes, I agree. Here you're using it to cite Blink-182, not otherwise known as an emo band, recorded "Adam's Song" in 1999. The source page is a dj commenting on a mix-tape, and it describes "Adam's Song" as emo. It doesn't seem to support "not otherwise known as an emo band". The paragraph it's in lists some early successful emo releases, but to include "Adam's Song" in a paragraph like that you'd need a source that said something to that effect. This source doesn't do that, and it's little more than a blog post; it really could only be used to support "Adam's Song is emo", and it's not a great source even for that.
• Malaysian Digest seems to be online only, and there's nothing about editorial policy on the website. The page cited appears to be a myspace post, which doesn't inspire confidence. It's used to source a list of bands that emo kids listen to, but this is not a site that has a reputation for being authoritative about music, and I don't think it's a good source for this sort of information.
• Rocknuts doesn't show any indication that it has editorial control, and it's not listed in the WP:ALBUMS list of reliable sources. Unless you can find evidence that this is a reliable site for information about music I don't think it qualifies. (You can post a note at WT:ALBUMS if you'd like to get more opinions on the reliability of the site; there are some knowledgeable people there.)
• The Ringer is a Vox affiliate, on further digging, so it passes muster. I've struck this from the list above.
• HipHopDX is also not listed by WP:ALBUMS, and the post you link to is more of a question posed to the readership than an article that could be used as a source.
• The Daily Swarm: I can't find any page on the site that would tell me if this is a site with editorial control, paid staff, and reliable information, or just a handful of friends putting together a website.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:59, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I replaced the source for Adam's Song with a billboard article, which is a better source. also, i removed mentioning that blink-182 aren't emo. i decided the sentence only needs to mention that "Adam's Song" is an emo song. The Malaysian Digest is actually an online newspaper in Malaysia. I also replaced thedailyswarm with a better source. Rocknuts has a newsletter and headquarters. They also have a DMCA policy (https://rocknuts.net/dmca-policy/). Here are other links showing how Rocknuts are reliable. https://rocknuts.net/write-for-us/ (they pay those who write for them and they hire people) Statik N (talk) 02:44, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I've struck three of the points above. The Malaysian Digest seems to me to be the wrong kind of source for what you're using it for; I think it needs to go. The link showing Rocknuts pays is helpful; thanks. I'm still not sure about it; I'm going to post at WT:ALBUMS to ask for opinions. I'll continue with the review below while waiting for a response there. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:11, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I replaced Malasyian Digest with other sources. Statik N (talk) 18:49, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I've struck that point. The only response at WT:ALBUMS about Rocknuts agreed that it was unreliable, so I'm afraid I still think you should remove it.

Sorry this has been moving slowly, but I've dealt with the other article I was reviewing, and I should have more time for this now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:55, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Reading through; I'll comment as I go. If you don't like any of my copyedits, just revert; if I feel strongly about any of them I'll comment here.

• The first section starts with "Although". I can see why, but I think it would be better to start with a more definite start -- a reader who doesn't know anything about emo needs to know a little more before we should be qualifying our statements.
• This section gives several quotes, but doesn't really provide a clear definition, or even a statement that there is no clear definition.
• I also think there are too many quotes. We're supposed to summarize the sources, not just quote them to the reader.
• The images on the right bunch up a bit on my screen, which is fairly wide. Can we drop one of those first three band pictures?
• The sources I commented on above mostly looked unreliable to me regardless of what they were being used for, but a source that's reliable for some things isn't necessarily reliable for everything. You quote Sean Cureton to support the statement that Pet Sounds paved the way for emo; this is a pretty strong statement, especially given that it leads the history section. I think you need a general source for this; something like an encyclopedia of music, or a survey article published in a top quality source. As it happens I'm not sure why I didn't question audienceseverywhere.net first time around; it appears to be a group of likeminded people who write reviews, not a professional site.
• Emo was an outgrowth of the early-1980s hardcore punk scene in Washington, D.C. as a reaction to the scene's violence and an extension of the politics espoused by Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat, who returned the music's focus from the community to the individual. There's a lot packed in here, and some of it needs more explanation. What violence? And what were these politics? And what does it mean to say MacKaye returned the music's focus to the individual? Why is this relevant?
• breaking free of hardcore punk's self-imposed boundaries: what boundaries? Do you mean the musical conventions of hardcore punk? Those could be seen as boundaries; but why self-imposed? I see from the mention of "rigid constraints" in the next paragraph that that's probably the case, but a reader who knows little of emo or punk needs a bit more.
• I'd trim the second half of the Azerrad quote -- after "bitterly detested" it adds nothing to the article.
• Does McKaye give enough information to trace which issue of Thrasher the relevant article appeared in? If so it would be good to track that down. All the 1985 issues are online and readable at www.thrashermagazine.com, so it should be findable. I don't think you have to find it for GA, but it would be good to have it.
• I'd cut the OED references. It seems clear that those citations post-date the actual usage, so it doesn't really tell us anything to know what the OED has.
• Why do we have a sentence about Fugazi that essentially just says they're not relevant to the article?
• to marry hardcore punk with the emotions of growing older.: I don't know what this means.
• The paragraph starting "Several new bands reinvented emo" also mentions redefining emo, but it doesn't say what this reinvention or redefinition consisted of.
• The quote from Greenwald about Sunny Day Real Estate and Jawbreaker is opaque -- it says nothing about the music, except that the two bands were completely unalike. What is this intended to convey?
• Did you look at Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture, by Trevor Kelley & Leslie Simon? I can't tell how useful it would be from the Amazon reviews but it seems like it might be a useful resource. There's also Anthology of Emo edited by Tom Mullen (see here).
• the aesthetics of emo also expanded into the mainstream and altered its perception: what do you mean by "altered its perception"?
• What's the value of the quote from Greenwald that starts "If one definition..."? It seems like it's just saying those two bands were the main influence on later bands in the genre, but that's already been said in the previous paragraph. The following paragraph says it again: Andy Greenwald called Jawbreaker "the Rosetta Stone of contemporary emo"; what does this add? And the next paragraph says it yet again: awbreaker influenced later successful emo and pop-punk bands. At least the discussion of Schwarzenbach does explain how Jawbreaker's music was emo and what made it successful, but this is all a bit disorganized.
• Unlike Jawbreaker, its members were accomplished musicians with good equipment, musical ambitions, intricate songwriting and a sweeping sound: needs a bit of rephrasing; we can't say someone was "a musician with intricate songwriting" or "a musician with a sweeping sound"; the former only applies to the songwriter, and would have to be rephrased anyway; the latter applies to the band, not the musicians.
• Why is it noteworthy that "Seven" was played on MTV?
• Known as Weezer and the Blue Album: not sure what this means. Is the album known as Weezer and the Blue Album? If so, shouldn't the whole phrase be in italics?
• the word "emo" began to lose its vagueness and refer to romantic, emotionally-overbearing music: surely "overbearing" is the wrong word here? I'm not sure what is meant, but "overbearing" means "arrogant".
• What's the value of the sentences about Sunny Day Real Estate's breakup at the end of the 1991-1994 section? How does this tell us about emo?
• Sunny Day Real Estate's sound challenged other bands: what does this mean?
• You mention Policy of 3 and Hoover as examples of bands that retained the earlier emo sound despite the "reinvention" of emo. This sentence is uncited, which is an issue, but if you cite it I have a question. Are they still considered emo bands? Were they considered emo then? If so it's a good example of the variation in definitions of emo; if not it indicates the definition changed, leaving them behind.
• The list of midwest bands starting with "Chicago's Cap'n Jazz" is a solid mass of blue links, which makes it hard to read; it took me a second to realize that the fourth band on the list was called "Mineral", not "Austin, Texas' Mineral". I think it would be easier to read if you eliminated the towns, which aren't really necessary to make your point, and also eliminated the links to the states, which aren't that helpful. If someone wants to know where in Colorado Christie Front Drive are from they can click through to the band article.
• Many of the bands had a distinct vocal style and guitar melodies, which was later called midwest emo: this says there was a style, but doesn't say what that style was. Can we be specific? If this refers to the style described by Greenwald's quote in the previous sentence, let's say so.
• After the success of their multi-platinum debut, Pinkerton moved from the multi-platinum debut's sound to a darker, more-abrasive sound: can we avoid the repetition here?
• The mention of bands incorporating post-rock and noise rock into emo doesn't seem to fit with anything else in the section. Was this still considered emo?
• Jimmy Eat World's...music was largely obscured by the popularity of ska punk: this seems a strange claim. Why would ska punk, rather than any other genre, be the reason why one particular emo band failed to be more successful?
• Its diversity of bands and musical styles indicated that emo was more of a shared aesthetic than a genre, and the series helped define the term in the underground-music community. This seems concise and insightful. Currently the article starts "Emo is a rock music genre"; if there's support in the sources for this statement, it would be good to move some version of this into the lead. It's a strong statement, though, so it would have to be supported by more than just Greenwald.
• Why do we have the long blockquote from Greenwald that starts "As the '90s wore to a close..."? I don't see anything here that couldn't be effectively said in our own words. The same goes for the "In a world..." quote further down.
• Can we get more context for the Deep Elm compilation series? Was it influential or important? Why are we mentioning it?
• Suggesting trimming or eliminating the quote from Greenwald about Clarity and rephrasing some or all of it. Given the album's relative commercial failure, and the fact that this is a 2003 comment on a 1999 album, I think we need more support from other sources before we can quote a single source with such high praise. You do give the date of the quote, which is necessary to put this in context for the reader, but I'm concerned it's undue weight as it stands.
• I'm doubtful that the 1997-2002 section is as thorough as it should be. I'd summarize the section's current structure as a comment on going mainstream and the reaction to that; Deep Elm's compilations; Jimmy Eat World; Drive-Thru's roster; Vagrant's roster. Is this really what a history of this five-year period should say?
• The quote from Greenwald in the 2002-2010 section essentially says that his take on emo conflicts with what "magazine readers in the summer of '02" would have read. Fair enough, but if that means there's another take on emo in 2002 in reliable sources, we need to cover it in this article, and not just via Greenwald's quote.
• Take a look at this section of the article on heavy metal; it's a featured article. The paragraphs are more than just listings of bands and their successes in the genre; we get background, reasons, and context. "First important band", "By 1980, NWOBHM had broken into the mainstream", "first generation of metal bands was ceding the limelight", "a metal scene began to develop in Southern California", "visually distinguished by", "characteristically emphasized", "metal artists benefited from...MTV", "One of the seminal events" -- these are all general statements about the genre. I'm concerned that the emo article does much less of this, and spends more time just enumerating successful bands. The information from Greenwald helps with this problem a good deal, but it doesn't go far enough, and it's only one source; plus it doesn't cover the last fifteen years. As I said, you do have this sort of context -- e.g. "A darker, more aggressive style of emo was also becoming popular"; but look at the paragraph before that -- what does it give the reader other than a list of bands and albums?

Statik N: I'm going to pause the review here. There's a lot of good material here and I can see a lot of work has been done on the article, but I don't think it meets the comprehensiveness criterion yet. I am inclined to fail it at the moment but will wait for your comments. FYI, I've ordered a copy of Greenwald and will take a look through when it gets here to get a sense of whether it could be used to plug some of the holes, but it won't help with anything after 2003, of course. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:58, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Mike Christie: Thanks for the feedback. I actually am able to preview the Greenwald book on the internet apparently. I'm able to do that with some books. I added more to the mainstream section by the way. Statik N (talk) 02:37, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Are you ready for me to go through the list of points I raised above and see which ones are addressed? I can see you've done a lot of work but I was waiting in case you weren't finished. And can you comment on the point I raised just above, about the lack of a general approach? Do you have sources that let you tell a general narrative about the genre -- sources that are give the perspective of a historial survey, not just coverage of individual bands or albums? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:37, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

What do you think of the article now? It might need a few more improvements. Statik N (talk) 18:45, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Random uninvolved editor note - some of the prose isn’t the best, devolving into excessive/repetitive chart listings. It doesn’t read well, and there’s certainly room for trimming. (Is it really necessary to note occurrences like Taking Back Sunday charting around the #180 mark, for example.) Sergecross73 msg me 02:12, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, Sergecross73. Statik N, I just finished the other GA I've been working on and I hope to take another look at this tomorrow. Can you tell me if you think everything in the list above has been addressed? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:51, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

I think I did everything on the list. I still need to make sure if there are any errors I need to fix. I'll try thinking of some improvements for the article. Thanks. Statik N (talk) 01:25, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Second arbitrary break

You made a lot of changes, and it's a long list above, so rather than go through the list I decided look through the article as it currently stands. I also decided to spotcheck a few citations: just looking at the Greenwald quotes (format is footnote/page, so 15/30 means footnote 15, referring to page 12 of Greenwald):

• 15/12: doesn't say that Minor Threat influenced early emo bands.
• 17/9-11: doesn't support scene in Washington, D.C. as something different from the violent part of the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene: those pages describe Minor Threat but don't say they're different in that way. The same cite is used to support the caption for the "Remainder" sample, but it doesn't give any of the information in the caption.
• 27/15: cites The Washington, D.C. emo scene lasted only a few years, and by 1986, most of emo's major bands (including Rites of Spring, Embrace, Gray Matter and Beefeater) had broken up, but Greenwald doesn't say most of this -- he doesn't give dates for the bands breaking up, and he doesn't say this was the emo scene; he says it was the roots of emo. He doesn't comment on whether this is the end of an era in emo; he's talking specifically about Rites of Spring.
• 28/15-17: cited for However, its ideas and aesthetics spread quickly across the country through a network of homemade zines, vinyl records and hearsay; the last seven words of this are taken directly from the source, so that would have to be paraphrased. My main concern here, though, is that the source doesn't support "quickly", nor does it say that the "ideas and aesthetics" are what spread -- Greenwald says "The spread of 'emocore'", so he's referring to the music.

This is four real problems with just the first six cites to Greenwald. This is enough to fail the article, and I'm going to go ahead and fail it, but not just for this reason. Here's what I think needs to be done to get the article to the next level.

• More encyclopedic sources. I mentioned a couple of possible sources above; I don't know how useful they'd be but for a really broad article like this you need to be in command of as much of the material as possible. This is the number one problem with the article, and the most important reason I am failing it.
• Sources outside the music press. Try getting hold of some of the articles that come up in Google Scholar when you search for "emo culture hardcore" for example; searching for "emo picciotto" and "emo mackaye" brings up more, and there are no doubt scores more to find. This sort of source is harder to work with because many of these papers will be too specific, but you may find some general material.
• Accurate representation of the sources. I think the errors I identified above are just slight carelessness, but being precise about exactly what a source can be used for is Wikipedia's main quality control mechanism. Often I find that making myself stop to think about exactly what a source really says leads me to understand the material better; the worst thing to do is to try to find a source that supports what you already want to say. (Not that I'm saying you're doing that; I'm just pontificating.)
• The media files don't make it clear why they're included, in at least three cases. The question you have to answer is: "What will a reader fail to understand about emo if they don't listen to this clip?"
• The writing could be improved -- it doesn't have to be FA quality, but sentences like Emo, which began as a post-hardcore subgenre, was part of the 1980s hardcore punk scene in Washington, D.C. as something different from the violent part of the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene are clunky, and there are other examples.
• The problem I mentioned earlier is still present -- yes, chart listings and band dates and album releases are important, but they are elements of a story; they're not the narrative itself. Take a look at the heavy metal music article I linked to above, and you'll see there's a difference between how bands and songs are mentioned there, and how they're mentioned in this article.

That's enough; I don't want to labour the point. There's a lot of good material here, but the article is not there yet. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:54, 16 August 2018 (UTC)