Talk:Enema of the State/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: WesleyDodds (talk · contribs) 01:24, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello there, I'll be reviewing this article. Let it be known that although I have contributed to in-progress GANs that I have had no prior involvement in before and have experience contributing to Featured Article Candidates and Featured Article Review, this is my first solo GAN review.

Let's go through the basics first:

Well-written - Some grammatical errors. Right in the second paragraph, the word "The" is capitalized in a spot where it shouldn't be. Please give the prose another once-over. Also, try not to use "the band" so much: also use "group", "trio", "ensemble", or the band name itself to add variety and avoid repetitiveness. Reduce colloquialisms ("MCA gave the band their first serious recording budget") as much as possible. Also, in American English "the band" is singular, so you would say "MCA gave the band its first . . ." Commas go outside quotation marks, not inside. Aside from those nits the prose is looking very good for a GA nominee.

Verifiable - Some dead links (Blender.com), as well as refs considered unreliable by Wiki (acclaimedmusic.net). This link gave me just a page with the band's picture on it and some script. Avoid citing primary sources like the liner notes as much as possible--my personal rule of thumb is that if a third-party source doesn't remark on a fact, it's most likely not worth noting in an article. There's a sentence in the second paragraph of Recording and Production that has three cites to back it up--can you restructure the sentences to clarify what reference is referencing which facts? The sentence "The band chose 'never to work with anyone else again,' and Finn would produce their next three releases." is cited to a book that came out in 2001, surely before even Take Off Your Pants and Jacket came out? Avoid citing reviews for factual information (a common mistake becoming more and more pervasive with GA album articles), as they are opinion pieces citable only for the opinions expressed. Compare the musical sections of In Utero, Loveless, and Is This It and the sort of references they use to this one (note that as those are all Featured Articles, this article does not have to be as thorough as those ones). You don't need to explain every song in-depth; what's more important is providing a broad overview of the album as a whole. As such, move the summary at the end of the "Composition and Lyrics" section to the top of that section. One of the few original research bits I see is the sentence "The title is a humorous pun on the term enemy of the state" in the lead. I'm sure that's likely, but no sources cited in the article say as much. The bit about the Red Cross cap is uncited. Find a ref for it or remove it. Many of the chart positions are not cited either in the prose or in the charts table, which is troubling. The sentence "Many commentators stated that the band's polished pop sound only remotely resembled punk music. Although the video for "All the Small Things" was filmed as a mockery of boy bands and teen pop, fame did not discriminate on origin: soon, the band was as famous as those they spoofed." doesn't quite correlate with what's said in the NYT article being cited.

Broadness - All major points covered. Good job. The Singles section is about the only area where you go into unnecessary detail. As all those singles have their own articles, make the best use you can of Wikipedia:Summary style. Note how much detail In Utero affords its singles.

Neutrality - Some wording could be trimmed to make it more neutral. "Iconic", "Highly successful", "massive commercial success", "unabashed success", "In perhaps the ultimate insult", etc. stick out. Let the facts speak for themselves. For example, rephrase "Released in the summer of 1999, Enema of the State proved to be a massive commercial success. It has sold over 15 million copies worldwide, making it the trio's highest selling album" to say Released in the summer of 1999, Enema of the State has sold over 15 million copies worldwide, making it the trio's highest selling album". The same point is conveyed in a more neutral fashion. Follow suit in the rest of the article.

Stability - No sign of edit-warring

Illustrations - Non-free cover image has a sufficient rationale. Use of soundclips should be strengthened--the captions must tell use something about the sound of the actual music. See In Utero (album) for an example. I'd also cut it down to one soundclip for the time being.

Other comments:

As you may have noticed in the album FAs I linked here, the review template box is not mandatory. I personally refrain from using it as I feel it can grossly distort and misrepresent actual critical consensus, and doesn't really tell readers anything worthwhile aside from scores with varying metrics that are on occasion assigned by editors and not the authors (Rolling Stone is notorious for this). But as it's an optional feature, I'll leave it up to you whether or not you wish to retain it. Keeping or removing it will not count against you either here at GAN or down the line at Featured Article Candidates.
On a related note, the tracklist template is not mandatory. However, unlike the review template, the guidelines say such tracklist template should only be used for complicated tracklists. Convert it to a simple list, and remove the hidden text menus.
Standardize your reference formatting. I see vary date formats (1998-09-17 vs. October 12, 2012) and varying amounts of info for the same type of review (for example, magazine refs lists a page number, while other magazine articles don't; page numbers aren't required for magazine articles if you opt not to include them, by the way). Ref. 79 is just a bare URL with no formatting whatsoever, and Ref 50 only has a title and no other information.
"summer of 1999" is unclear, as seasons are different in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Make more specific using the sources you cite, if possible.
"Composition" is a misnomer for an album article--the word refers to song structure. Better titles would be "Content" or simply "Music".

I'm putting the article on hold for seven days. If you have any questions or need a little extra time, get in touch with me and I'll respond as soon as possible. WesleyDodds (talk) 02:27, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately I'm going to have to fail this article. The article's been on hold for seven days and editing by the nominator has trailed off, yet outstanding issues with citations (chiefly the retained use of Acclaimed Music and the uncited facts about the album title, the Red Cross cap, and the chart positions) and too much detail in spots remain. This article honestly isn't too far off from meeting the GA criteria, so please review my comments and when you address the remaining issues I have raised, then by all means renominate the article at GAN. I wish you the best of luck. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:19, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]