User talk:Swaldi

Re:Walt Wagner

Hello Swaldi. In including these designations, I am not making any value judgments about Wagner's music; I am attempting to accurately describe his stylistic milieu. Wagner has played in a wide range of different musical styles, including music that fairly falls broadly into the categories of "light music", "easy listening", or "lounge music". ("Easy listening" can be more narrowly or more broadly defined, so I didn't contest your removal, as I could replace it with a different term that was more specific.) I don't think that any of these terms are inherently pejorative or are used in a pejorative way in the article such that WP:NPOV would come into play here. I was looking for a neutral, accurate descriptor of one aspect (among many) of Wagner's musical style, and "lounge music" fits. (Mind you, he was playing light music in the Seventies, too.) I'm surprised that Wagner's fans would be so hostile to the designation, especially since it so aptly describes some of his work; I thought the term got rehabilitated during the Nineties. I like a fair bit of what would commonly be called lounge music, but ultimately, my personal preferences are immaterial to the page, as are yours. As for sourcing... it's depressingly common for there to be endless fights over genre designations (especially in infoboxes). This has been a problem on Wikipedia since Neanderthal times. (see WP:GENREWARRIOR.) Usually it happens in relation to more popular acts, but I guess there's no shortage of places where people can't agree on how to describe things. If describing Wagner's style remains contentious, then the resulting solution would likely be to remove all style/genre designations except those which have been attributed to Wagner by professional critics in a reliable source. I've never thought of genre wars as productive uses of editor time, but since I don't own the page, I don't have final control over what it says. At least one source refers to Wagner as a "cocktail-lounge pianist", which more or less substantiates the designation. ([1]) You can reply here or on my talk page; I'll watch both. Chubbles (talk) 04:57, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Honestly, your rationale in your most recent post suggests more strongly that the term should be included. You note that his style is wide-ranging; that indicates that big umbrella terms like "pop" and "classical" tell us very little about him, stylistically. I agree that a more robust description of his musical style is legitimate to include, but that would almost certainly include mention of the fact that he played subtle and understated solo piano covers of popular songs in the lounge of a fine dining establishment. Both stylistically and functionally, you're about as close to "lounge music" as it gets, with that. But Wagner did much more than that, which is why I initially included five descriptors - his career is complex and multifaceted in terms of genre, and I intentionally meant to address that when I first wrote the lede. The Seattle Times article speaks to that by discussing the diversity of his output, but it's nevertheless highlighting this one facet among many. There's no need for this information to be in the lede of the article (making it the first thing you see when you load the page), so I will move it into the body of the text, so that we do not give the genre designations undue weight with respect to how the user evaluates Wagner's musical output. Chubbles (talk) 01:54, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Actually, on second thought...I just tossed all the genre designations. The article explains enough to get a sense of his style without needing to summarize in the lede. Chubbles (talk) 01:58, 19 January 2018 (UTC)