Talk:It's Grim Up North

GA reassessment

I'm reviewing this article for GA sweeps. After reading through it, I do not believe it meets current GA criteria for the following reasons:

• The rationale for the music vid image and the sound clips aren't very good, and I would argue they are not needed in the article at all.
• The composition and locations sections are unreferenced.
• No list of personnel (the album wikiproject can give more detail on that requirement)
• Many of the sentences in Context need to be sourced but aren't.

Due to where the article is now and where it should be, I think it would take longer than a week to properly handle it, and as such I am delisting it now as a GA. When all this is fixed up, it can be renominated at GAN. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 06:07, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the taking the time to review.

• The video image to me is priceless as it conveys the scene of the video - grey, drab, drizzle - better than any prose ever could. I have retained the image and have improved the caption and the fair use rationale
• The quality of the audio clips comes down to personal opinion; I have removed from the article (and deleted) the second sample, and retained the first as it gives the reader (or listener in this case) a flavour of the piece which just cannot be matched by prose. I have updated the fair use rationale.
• Composition is mostly a description of what the song sounds like. It seems like you're damned if you do and damned if you don't with regards to describing the composition; I had another GA rejected in part for not doing so! I've been recently informed by a well-known FA reviewer that citations are not needed at all for a description of the song itself, even for an FA, but that {{Cite AV media}} could be used if desired. That's what I've done for the lyrics and in the "Composition" section, once for each track covered.
• The unreferenced statements in the section now named "Theme" were mostly about the video, to which the same arguments apply and which are now referenced in the same fashion
  • Statements that "The original issue featuring Pete Wylie was on grey vinyl", "punctuated The KLF's string of upbeat house hits" are now referenced.
  • We can see that "the same colour was retained for the sleeve of the 1991 release" as it is pictured
• Personnel: The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (not sure what this has to do with the Albums WikiProject though; this is an article about a single). I've added it, but its value is debatable as all songs were written, performed and produced by Cauty and Drummond, with no further delineation, and this info was already extant in the infobox.
• The locations listed are... the locations mentioned in the song, in order. I've cited the song and added a reference to a map plotting the towns and cities mentioned. "Scarborough is the furthest north of the towns mentioned, and the furthest south is Nantwich." was possibly original research; I have removed it.

Further changes I was not asked to make but have done anyway:

• I've introduced a Background section
• I've moved some sections. I'm quite happy for anyone to go ahead and reorder the sections if they think I didn't get it quite right.
• Copyedit

--kingboyk (talk) 02:50, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I have submitted for a re-review. Reviewer if you need my attention, please ping me. --kingboyk (talk) 02:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

One thing I forgot to do, which have now done as I know that reviewers prefer longer leads these days, was to expand the lead. --kingboyk (talk) 13:54, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:It's Grim Up North/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: MarioSoulTruthFan (talk · contribs) 15:06, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Infobox

• Recorded → Trancentral (unsourced)
• Needs alt

Lead

• It's Grim Up North" is a song by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs). The song was originally released as a limited edition "Club Mix" in December 1990 with Pete Wylie on vocals. → It's Grim Up North" is a song by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs), originally made available as a limited edition "Club Mix" in December 1990 with Pete Wylie on vocals.
• These recordings were the first releases by Drummond and his creative partner Jimmy Cauty under the JAMs moniker since the 1988 compilation album Shag Times, and the last under that name; → "These recordings were the first releases by Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, under the JAMs moniker, since the 1988 compilation album Shag Times, and the last under that name."
• No. 10 → number 10
• The lyrics to → The lyrics of
• The video for "It's Grim Up North" was filmed in black and white, and shows The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu performing in the pouring rain. → no music video section of the article
• "It's Grim Up North" was planned to be a prominent track on the JAM's album The Black Room, but the album was never completed. → merge with the latter pararaph

Background

• artist/musician Jimmy Cauty → use only one
• Music-industry figure Bill Drummond → his wiki states "artist, musician, writer, and record producer", the source claims he was a manager
• In 1988 they had their first UK number one hit single - Doctorin' the Tardis - as The Timelords,[2][3] after which they transitioned into The KLF → this is fine, but you need to go more in depth why these various changes of name? Are always the same artists involved?
• by the KLF which would → by the KLF. It would

Theme

• This section can't exist
• First paragraph move it to the background
• "A recurring theme of "It's Grim Up North" was drab greyness, representing the dreary, overcast skies of the "grim" North." → compostion
• The original issue featuring Pete Wylie was on grey vinyl,[4][11] and the same colour was retained for the sleeve of the 1991 release (pictured above)." → background
• "The video for "It's Grim Up North" was filmed in black and white, and shows The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu performing in the pouring rain. King Boy D (Drummond) voices the words into the microphone of a backpack field radio worn by a woman at his side wearing military uniform and a tin hat labelled "KLF". Rockman Rock (Cauty) is shown playing bass guitar. Cars and trucks rush by, leaving a trail of spray because evidently The JAMs are performing on one lane of a road; they are lit by the headlights of several nearby stationary vehicles. As the performance draws to a close, and the strains of Jerusalem can be heard, the slogan "The North will rise again" appears on screen." → new section called musiv video, move it along with the picture of the video, you took this decribtion from the sleeve notes?
• The sleevenotes further elaborated on The JAMs' inspiration: "Through the downpour and diesel roar, Rockman and Kingboy D can feel a regular dull thud. Whether this is the eternal echo of a Victorian steam driven revolution or the turbo kick of a distant Northern rave is irrelevant. Thus inspired, The JAMS climb into the back of their truck and work. → composotion

Composition

• Audio sample needs to be reduced and comply with WP:SAMPLE, since it is the radio edit.
• So two entire pagraphs are based on a CD single? Provide reliable sources on this.

Release

• You have one unreliable source that needs to be replaced as it is unreliable

Critical reception

• Merge the secondand third paragraph into the first
• Mention Richie Blackmore
• Mention Dorian Lynskey
• The Guardian said that → The Guardian affirmed that
• The last paragraph do in the cronological order
• Top 100 Songs Of All Time → mention the writer in the 2005 edition

Locations

• What is this? Choose a couple of these locations with a source and try to talk more about each one of them, why are they mentioned, why are they important?
• A quarter of this should be in the compostion section since its part of the lyrics.

Formats and track listings

• The KFL site is a blog by a fan, that can't be included, so replace date and find reliable sources.
• What are these formats and tracklistings? Take a look at the article I put below. Do something like that, add the dates of release in the title

Personnel (1991 commercial release)

• Change the title to Personnel
• This is not how you present the Personnel; take a look here
• Use {{spaced ndash}} so there is the right space between credits and personnel.

References

• Source number 3 needs accessdate
• Source number 4 is not reliable, needs to go.
• What is "passi." on reference 12? Part of the publisher
• Don't SHOUT on the title's of the sources

Overall

• There is a copyright violation
• You need a chart section saying it peaked at number 10 and add said peak in the reception section, needs to be retitled from "critical reception" → reception
• This is probably the worst shape article I ever reviewed in my life. Nevertheless, I'm willing to give you a chance to improve it. Let me know once you are done. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 19:57, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

@MarioSoulTruthFan: Thanks for the review. I'll address a few of the issues you raised (those I disagree with or seek clarification on) and then we can wrap this up:

• Theme section: "This section can't exist". Why not?

• "The sleevenotes further elaborated on The JAMs' inspiration: "Through the downpour and diesel roar, Rockman and Kingboy D can feel a regular dull thud. Whether this is the eternal echo of a Victorian steam driven revolution or the turbo kick of a distant Northern rave is irrelevant. Thus inspired, The JAMS climb into the back of their truck and work. → composotion" (emphasis added). The theme of the song is also mirrored in the colour of the original vinyl release (grey) and in the the video (black and white, pouring rain, the "grim" north). I note your point about having a Music Video section instead but why can't this be covered in a Theme section instead? (Is there a policy or widely followed guideline?)

Hopefully this will help, see the FA articles below, they will give you a better idea of the guidelines. [1]. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Like a Rolling Stone has a "Themes" section; Monkey Gone to Heaven has an unusual structure; Mothers of the Disappeared and others have a "Composition and theme" section [I gave up at "M"]. I will, however, consider merging the Themes section into Composition and Music Video if I can deal with the other issues. --kingboyk (talk) 16:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• "artist/musician Jimmy Cauty → use only one" - Why? He was a teenage artist (with some commercial success) who became a musician and is now an artist again.

At this point of career, when this was released he was what? Many singers do other stuff (actor, dancers) they don't have their songs articles with everything of the sort. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• "Music-industry figure Bill Drummond → his wiki states "artist, musician, writer, and record producer", the source claims he was a manager" - We should use only one vocation for Cauty and but not Drummond? Drummond only became notable as an artist and writer after the KLF; I considered "musician and record producer" to be within the scope of "Music-industry figure" broadly construed but, sure, we can expand on that if necessary. Or is your point simply about the provided source only backing up the assertion that he was a manager? If it's the latter, yes, can surely fix have fixed:

My point was, pic a line, once more who was him (what he was doing) at this point in his career or what he is known best for. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• I've added 2 references for the guys' pre-JAMs/KLF careers; the second addition from The Guardian is a particularly good summary which makes it clear that the pre-KLF/JAMs Drummond was a music industry figure with his finger in many pies, and that Cauty was an artist (who, the writer says, made a "fortune" with his posters) and a musician

There you go (music-industry and artist). MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Difficult one for Cauty. His poster was very well known at the time, so he was an artist, but I doubt many people would have known the name of the artist; he was also a professional musician by the time he met Drummond (and that is indeed how they met; Drummond as an A&R manager and Cauty a member of one of the bands on the label Drummond worked for). His most recent project before the JAMs/KLF was music. If we have to settle for one occupation at the time he met Drummond, I suppose it would have to be musician but it's a judgement call which is why prefer musician/artist.--kingboyk (talk) 16:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• passim is used in books and academic papers to mean that the source is used liberally in the paragraph. However, it's use never caught on in Wikipedia so I'll get rid of that. Thanks for spotting it. [done]
• The KLF Discography is indeed hosted by a fan site (a site which I would not otherwise reference), but the discography was compiled by a KLF expert starting in 1998 and updated along the way. It's been extant for over 20 years and I've never seen its reliability questioned before. That said, it looks like it's on shaky ground per WP:RSSELF unless the author has (separately) been published by reliable, independent publications [plural; a quick search suggests he hasn't but I will dig deeper when I have time]. I can probably in time find alternate sources for most of the information and possibly all of it; if I could achieve the latter then of course the issue becomes moot. Record Collector magazine (indisputably reliable) published a comprehensive discography and biography of the KLF/JAMs but alas that was in 1991 prior to the commercial release of the single, so doesn't help other than with regards to the original Club Mix. I have on my bookshelf a "Rare Record Guide" from the same publisher which can possibly replace Lazlo's discography in places; there's also a relatively recently published book by a contributor to that magazine, published by a reputable publisher, called Turn Up the Strobe: The KLF, the JAMS, the Timelords - a History to look into; that's on top of old music mags and online sources.

The site states in its about us page "What you can find on this website is a collection of facts and half-truths, lies and myths" . Books, published magazines would be fine as long as they are reliable.MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

We don't need to worry too much about the silly message at klf.de as the discography was originally self-published on the author's own website and I believe the author may still host an older copy and/or I can retrieve it from archive.org, if I am able to establish that he meets WP:RSSELF (looking doubtful but can try). Otherwise, yep, I'll have to find other sources; not a problem for most of the citations but could be difficult for others, largely because this song and single is pre-web. --kingboyk (talk) 16:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• "This is not how you present the Personnel; take a look here" - Link to policy please. The presentation here is broadly in line with the presentation of the Personnel section at Something_(Beatles_song)#Personnel which is a Featured Article. The layout at Rehab_(Rihanna_song)#Credits_and_personnel doesn't work here (i.e. information would be lost), because Cauty and Drummond were credited as the KLF ("production") and as the JAMs ("performance").

First I didn't said "copy" second it doesn't look nothing like the page you provided. There is no space and dash, the source cication doesn't look the one in that page. and the credits don't as well. Sure here the policy is fro mthe same page above, you can go in more dpeth herethe album article style guide. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• "Change the title to Personnel" (from "Personnel (1991 commercial release)"). No, because the personnel on the 1990 Club Mix were different (notably the vocalist), and it was a white label only release of which only a few hundred promo copies were pressed (technically grey label). That release is not the main focus of this article for obvious reasons, and as a white label it has no credits. The section is accurately named.

Still it is not the title, state it on the source. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• "In 1988 they had their first UK number one hit single - Doctorin' the Tardis - as The Timelords,[2][3] after which they transitioned into The KLF → this is fine, but you need to go more in depth why these various changes of name? Are always the same artists involved?" I don't see why the first would be relevant or necessary in an article about a single, and can just as easily see another reviewer complain about excessive detail (the short story is, The Timelords name was used to release an embarrassingly - by their own admission - lowest-common-denominator single, and the KLF name marked their transition into dance music; "Why?" is a question the KLF rarely answered, but some sources do touch on the name changes). As for the second point, they transitioned into the KLF and they had their first number one hit as the Timelords seems pretty clear to me that's it the same people operating under different names (and the KLF and the JAMs are identified as Cauty and Drummond in the Personnel section) but, sure, that can be made clearer if need be. The KLF produced this JAMs record, if I recall correctly the JAMs produced a KLF record, and the duo returned in 2017 as the JAMs and released a novel; the Guardian article cited above summarises the situation concisely by calling these names "alter egos" :). I could flesh this info out a bit using references from The KLF and/or the Higgs book mentioned below, but I'm not yet fully convinced it is necessary... Again, if you look at the background section of Something_(Beatles_song) there's no information whatsoever on who the Beatles were or how George Harrison came to be a member, and Paul McCartney is mentioned without introduction.
• List of locations: "What is this? Choose a couple of these locations with a source and try to talk more about each one of them, why are they mentioned, why are they important?". It's a list of all the locations mentioned in the song. None is more than important than another; they're all places in the North of England and that's it. The song hasn't been dissected by Dylanologists who pontificate on the significance of the inclusion of Chester and the exclusion of Liverpool (The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds by John Higgs goes into great detail about the JAMs name and themes but mentions the song only in passing; maybe Turn Up the Strobe, which I have yet to acquire, will cover it).

Just say they change their name because of embarresmnt and transition to the dance music. I don't know what others said to you, I'm not them and that's not excessive detail. Various people, including mysef, are not familiar with the KFL. Make it clearer that's what I meant. Too help you out, think like this "I kow zero about this subject, what information would be, and this is a key word relevant to get gain some knowledge". Everyone knows who the beattles are, to cite someone "The Beatles were bigger than Jesus" - John Lennon of the Beatles, on top of that is a brief summary. I don't kow, just say they mentioned variuous cities from North of England and the reason behind it. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

• "This is probably the worst shape article I ever reviewed in my life". Glad you liked it! ;) Seriously though, I do appreciate your time and effort in reviewing it; your time has not been wasted as I've learnt that fixing the complaints from an ancient GA delisting is not enough to secure GA nowadays, and you've given me some helpful pointers on areas which need work.

I didn't, not in this shape. The delisting just pointed out some stuff, it's a delisting not a review. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Probably needless to say, but there is too much to attend to in the time available, and I therefore withdraw the nomination and you can mark it as failed. Answers to any questions posed would be helpful, if you have time. --kingboyk (talk) 13:43, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I do have the time, and I'm willing to wait. Nevertheles, if you don't want to adress the issues I can fail it, just think about it twice and let me know. I only put it on hold for one simple reason, if you don't learn now how to do, when you will? MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@MarioSoulTruthFan: OK, thanks; the replies are helpful and it looks a little less daunting now I understand better your concerns. Let me have a look at this again (your review and the replies) at the weekend, time permitting, and see if it is salvageable within the time frame and whether or not I am comfortable to make all the changes you ask for. The difficult part will be replacing citations which rely only on the KLF Discography. No doubt the material is out there but I'm not sure if I have it all in my possession. My initial response was not a case of unwillingness to learn or take on feedback; besides not agreeing with all of the objections it was simply a matter of whether I could get this done in time (or at all) as the list of objections was quite lengthy (I'm still real-world working despite the current crisis, as I work from home). So, let's you do as you suggest and leave it on hold and I'll give you a ping if I have a new version for you to look at. I really might struggle with a reference for "Formats and track listings" if I can't use Lazlo's discography but I'll see what I can do. Thanks again for your time. --kingboyk (talk) 16:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@Kingboyk: You welcome. Ok, I will wait for the weeknd to know if you can or can't address the issues. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 17:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@Kingboyk: Any news regarding this article? MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 17:32, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

@Kingboyk: Tell me yif you are able to address the issues, I will give an extra seven days for some news regarding this. If I don't get a response I will fail it. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 20:40, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Oldham, Lancs (Lancaster),

The reference to Lancs as an abbreviation for Lancaster, in the list of places, is probably erroneous.

Obviously Lancs is much more commonly used as an abbreviation of Lancashire not Lancaster, but more importantly, it's position in the list after Oldham is relevant.

Whilst Oldham is now part of Greater Manchester, its residents (especially the older generation) associate themselves with being Lancastrian not Mancuian. In my youth, "Oldham, Lancs (or Lancashire)" was a petty defiance towards the 1974 boundary changes. Even in the 90s, Oldham Athletic football fans would sing "we're not part of Manchester" and "Oh Lancashire, is wonderful". 147.161.166.192 (talk) 09:09, 10 July 2023 (UTC)