Talk:Afro/cosmic music

Title OK?

Is the title "Afro/Cosmic music" OK? I didn't think it was fair to choose a name that favors only Loda or Baldelli, and there didn't seem to be a better term. If anyone has a better suggestion, though, be my guest. —mjb 21:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

More references needed

Greetings, Afro/Cosmic enthusiasts. I've started this article based on a handful of interviews on Web sites, as found in some quick Google searches. We need more journalistic references, though, in order to ensure the article's longevity.

Please help improve the article any way you can. You don't have to try to make it be the most comprehensive collection of information about the scene ever assembled; it just needs to paraphrase, summarize, and point to all of that information as documented elsewhere, as per Wikipedia policies. So be sure to provide references for any info that can possibly be debated. The more places where we can point to for confirmation, the better.

If you're new to Wikipedia, create an account before you edit and make sure you're logged in, then take a look at the verifiability policy and the 'no original research' policy, which basically means you can't provide firsthand information or anything that can't be read about elsewhere. For your writing style, avoid hyperbole and "peacock terms", which means words like "legendary" and "influential" are taboo; just write like a skeptical journalist, as if you're writing for a respectable publication that librarians will want to archive.

Ask any questions here. Thanks! —mjb 21:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Not Encyclopediac Enough

You need to pull this together more or get rid of the article. It's a hard thing to write about, we need around 20 more years before we can accurately place this in a historical context.

Musically, I know what you're talking about but that's probably because I am an enthusiast as well. Someone needs to go into far greater depth with regards to this. Above all, REMOVE the reference to "non-mainstream" dance music which is total BS (Baldelli played Bob Marley, Phil Collins, Simple Minds, etc.. there was no line between mainstream and non-mainstream for him.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.207.20 (talk) 05:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

All fringe music genre and pop culture articles face the same problems; they can only go as deep as their sources, and their sources tend to be pretty shallow. Although I, too, would like more detail, so far, I haven't found much more info about Afro/Cosmic that's worth quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing, aside from what's in there already.

But what's in this article is likely enough for most researchers (think high school students & undergrads). They get a sense of what the scene is/was about, where the terms came from and where they were used, who the key players are/were, and they've got 13 sources to check out for confirmation and further info. Most of the sources contain direct quotes from Baldelli or Loda, and one (Last Night A DJ Saved My Life), maybe two (the COSMIC: The Original 1979–1984 book/liner notes) are relatively academic.

The brevity of these articles doesn't mean they're not encyclopedic; there are plenty of other stubs and terse articles about emerging pop culture phenomenons on Wikipedia that aren't at risk of deletion. As long as they're legitimate topics with a smidge of notability (and aren't copyvios or libel), then they're unlikely to be removed. Problems with wordsmithing, style, policy adherence, and sources will be addressed through editing and discussion.

Anyway, I've gone ahead and removed the "non-mainstream" reference for now. What I was trying to express was that Afro/Cosmic, as defined by its original creators, generally eschewed the commercial hits of disco and Italo disco, despite being intertwined with the development of those genres. Baldelli's quote in the Wang interview supports that. But I see what you mean; there are counterexamples in Baldelli's own statements.

Please let me know what specifically rubs you the wrong way about the other content, and thanks for the feedback so far! —mjb (talk) 07:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Terms used in Pitchfork article

P4K, I disagree with your edit today: the Leone article opens with Space disco!...or cosmic house, or the way out, eclectic sounds of DJs who don't mind throwing in the odd Can track or jazz-funk remix in the middle of their set. That seems to be a pretty clear attempt to label the DJs' overall sound as "space disco" and "cosmic house". Your edit summary says you think it means they just incorporated those genres into their sets. Can you explain? —mjb (talk) 03:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

He's definitely labeling the music that Lindstrom or Idjut Boys make as "space disco" or "cosmic house." However, he never uses those terms to refer to the music created by Baldelli et al, so I don't think that's what he's talking about. You can't assume that he's talking about the same genre just because the names are similar. The only paragraph where he actually mentions the Italian scene is this one:

"Still, there are some clear musical touchstones for space disco. Listening to songs like Lindstrøm's "I Feel Space" or anything by Dutch electro artist Freak Electrique, it's hard to deny a similarity to early and mid-1980s Italo Disco. Italo was an Italian take (naturally) on electro and synth-pop, using many of the same electronic sounds and drum machine patterns, but usually a lot more over the top. That is, where Kraftwerk and Moroder were sleek, Italo was bursting, often featuring wailing, vocoderized harmony vocals (see Mr. Flagio's "Take a Chance") and futuristic synth melodies (Kano's "Cosmic Voyager") that might have been as at home in a B-sci-fi flick as in a dance club, and has been popularized this decade in DJ mixes by Morgan Geist (Unclassics) and Dutch producer I-F (Mixed Up in the Hague, Vol. 1). Conversely, Italy's concurrent Cosmic scene involved a group of DJs (most notably Daniele Baldelli, famed DJ at the club Cosmic in Northern Italy) who, while not supportive of Italo-disco, were making waves playing hyper-varied sets of electro, funk, Brazilian music and jazz fusion-- again demonstrating a remarkable tendency to play anything so long as it moved the floor. Similarly, today's space disco practitioners (particularly producers like Chicken Lips' Andy Meecham and Prins Thomas, who even named one of his tracks after Ash Ra Tempel's leader Manual Göttsching) have mined krautrock, psychedelia, and prog for breaks and sound banks."

Since he says that both Italo and the Cosmic scene are "touchstones for space disco," and cites a lot of other influences as well, it seems pretty clear that he doesn't consider 2000s space disco just a straightforward revival of Afro-Cosmic.P4k (talk) 03:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, OK, I see what you mean now. I think this underscores the need to lay out all the terms, though, and say who used them, where, and when, in reference to which scene (or incarnation of the same scene). I think the terms and Pitchfork reference should go back in, but with more accurate context. I would need more sources about the current scene, though, because my search for sources so far has focused on just Google-able, English-language refs to Baldelli, Loda, et al. —mjb (talk) 04:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

That seems fair...my point is just that the "space disco" Leone is talking about doesn't have that much to do with Cosmic (although I guess some people disagree with me[1][2]). You might want to take a look at this ILM thread where Leone talks about this (ctrl-f for "so yes, it's confusing").P4k (talk) 20:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal

It was just pointed out to me today that someone already created a Cosmic Disco article 4 months before I created this one. The articles are about the same topic, so obviously a merge is in order, and I've just tagged both articles with merge templates.

The content shouldn't be too hard to merge. My main question is where should the article live? That is, what should its title be?

Because the topic is referred to in print as both "Afro" and "Cosmic" and combinations thereof, I feel my article's title ("Afro/Cosmic music") is the better option. I don't want to favor Baldelli's term ("Cosmic" or "Cosmic Disco") when music journalists are using Loda's ("Afro") as well; and in general I want to present the myriad of terms as neutrally as possible. The article has to be called something, though, and "The Scene With Many Names" doesn't seem like a good candidate. I couldn't think of anything better than "Afro/Cosmic". —mjb (talk) 03:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I think "Afro/Cosmic" is a good title.P4k (talk) 03:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I think "Afro/Cosmic music" is an OKAY title. The problem that I have is that in the social circles I've been in and especially in the dj record stores here on the west coast USA, I see "Cosmic Disco" more often the label or term used. Just because it seems unfairly favoring Baldelli doesn't mean that in fact it IS the more common term in the language. Perhaps Wikipedia isn't supposed to care about common usage and can make articles about things using secondary or less-common terms (that is what "afro/cosmic music" would strike me as. If that is the case, then the main article could logically be "afro/cosmic music", but if it is supposed to gravitate toward the most common name, I got the impression that "cosmic disco" was more common, which is why I made the original article. In any case, I think that they should be merged, yeah. I don't have a lot of stake in any of this, but I happen to work at a library and the common cataloging practice is to build subject reference by the likely (common) phrase people might use. For instance, Kleenex is a copyright term for a brand of personal tissue paper, but people use the word kleenex to refer to just any kind of tissue because kleenex brand lapsed on protecting their copyright, or were so ubiquitous at some point that their brand became the term used to represent all generic forms of the same product. This is similar to the way many people say "rollerblades" when they mean generic (any kind of) in-line skates. So what I'm getting at is that the fair/unfairness of the name favoring someone (Baldelli) shouldn't matter if, in fact, the phrase is truly the most commonly used. There's the rub: to measure which is most commonly used "cosmic disco" or "afro/cosmic music" and direct the lesser popular to the more popular one, right? And it could be regional, I'd totally admit that myself...

Or is all this mergin-direction-stuff just a 'wikitionary' kind of concern only? Djbrokenwindow (talk) 02:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Cosmic/anti-Baldelli edits

Recently there has been a spate of anti-Baldelli, anti-'Cosmic', pro-Loda, pro-'Afro' edits by a Telecom Italia user (or group of users) at these IPs:

• 82.58.50.246 (on Cosmic Disco and it:Musica afro)
• 79.7.93.239 (on Cosmic Disco)
• 82.56.31.48 (on Afro/Cosmic music)
• 79.0.100.163 (on Cosmic Disco and Afro/Cosmic music)

The edits do contain some plausible information, but they are written as if they are angry rebuttals on a message board, so they can't be allowed to stand. Also, a significant amount of sourced material was deleted, including specific references to published sources of info about the topics. As per Wikipedia policies, any information must be backed up by published, reliable sources sooner or later, and removing existing sources is not allowable.

If there are inaccuracies or misleading information or other problems in the Wikipedia articles, but you don't have magazine, magazine, or academic journal articles you can point to in order to support your point of view, then don't make your edits directly to the articles on Wikipedia. Instead, please discuss the issues on the articles' talk pages:

• Talk:Afro/Cosmic music (here, below)
• Talk:Cosmic Disco
• it:Discussione:Musica afro

Then maybe we can figure out a way to proceed with consensus and in a way that is fair to all.

The theme of the edits seems to be that Afro and Cosmic are distinct, and shouldn't be lumped together (even though they sometimes are, in the press). So let's discuss here the ways in which they are distinct and the ways in which they are similar, and how we can write about them neutrally. Also the anonymous editor(s) seems to mistrust all of Baldelli's claims. So let's discuss here exactly which statements are in doubt and what we can do to reconcile them, keeping in mind we have to acknowledge what has been said publicly by everyone about both "Afro" and "Cosmic" and their personal styles of mixing, even if it is false or misleading. To address issues of neutrality, we must carefully choose our words to say "this has been said, and this other conflicting thing has been said" (by these certain people in these certain publications), which is not the same thing as simply saying "this is true" or "this is false" without external support. This manner of writing is a higher standard that Wikipedia articles must be held to. Anything less will undermine the stability and credibility of the articles.

Lastly, although you are free to do what you want, I personally ask that you please don't edit anonymously. Create an account and edit your own user page to tell us who you are. You should have nothing to hide if you are a serious disciple of this music, and it can increase your credibility as an editor. You can read about me on my page, User:Mjb, for example, and send me a private message if you want more info. —mjb (talk) 21:41, 18 February 2009 (UTC)