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GA Review

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Reviewer: Blz 2049 (talk · contribs) 07:40, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article review progress box
Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV ()
3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant ()
Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

@PianoUpMyNose: I had almost finished an extensive (like... very extensive 😭) review of your article when, suddenly, my computer crashed. Excruciation. Agony. Woe.

In general, the article is very close to GA status imo. My main quibbly beefs are related to:

  • "3a: Broadness" (no "background" section? no "release" section? is the "artwork" section all it could be? [I have more substantive critiques and helpful suggestions on these topics, I promise, but it'll take me a sec to replicate them]), and
  • "1a: Prose" (these were nitpicks, but deeply respectful nitpicks. Most of the writing is solid.)

What I really want to say at the outset is this: I was already familiar with the album (shamelessly flashing my hipster cred here 😎), so I appreciate that you've done a lot—like, a lot a lot, especially in terms of describing the music itself—within the constraints of the limited available reliable source material. Paix is a noteworthy (albeit obscure) record, and I really highly commend the job you've done highlighting this non-English-language record off the beaten path. Especially considering this is your first major article, based on what I can tell? This is really awesome work. So although I have critiques related to "comprehensiveness", I trust they're gonna be extremely resolvable within the bounds of currently available sources.

I'll have more to say later. I saw your message on my talk page, and it's very cool to hear you're already waiting on delivery of one of the offline print sources I found (idk if you consider yourself a big Francophile at this point but, hoo boy—owning a book like that, ya oughta maybe should consider becoming one!) That said: I don't intend to hold up the review for one second awaiting your receipt of that book's untold mystery detailz. I expect whatever's there to be mined will just be cool and fun to read once it's already at GA level; whatever's in that book is "the extra mile". I know you saw I added a few sources that are paywalled (The Wire, Record Collector), but lemme know if you can access those on your own, otherwise I'll figure out a way to get them to you. Gimme a day, I'll have a more complete review for you (... if only I'd clicked "Publish page" about 45 minute ago, alas...) —blz 2049 ➠ ❏ 07:40, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very pleased to get a reviewer that already knows this album and is passionate enough to give it such an extensive review. As far as a background section goes, during all of my research I found almost no information on the actual making of the album. Pretty much every article focuses solely on the album’s musical and lyrical content and doesn't go into its history at all. At best they talk about Ribeiro's childhood and upbringing, but I don't think that would be appropriate for this particular page. I did find one French website that seems to give a little background, but overall I didn’t think there was enough information out there to dedicate a complete section to it (at least not with my experience). Even interviews with Ribeiro herself yield very little insight. And as for a release section, as far as I know this album went completely under the radar and fell into obscurity. Some websites can’t even agree on what year it was released (1972 is the most likely date, but some say 73 or 74). Hopefully the book will clear up some of the mystery surrounding this album. Lastly, an interesting fact I found is that the photographer who took the photo on the front cover of Paix also designed the covers for the French releases of Jimi Hendrix's albums. If I recall correctly, I couldn't find a great source for that detail, but I'm sure that one exists. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to give such a great review, and I look forward to reading your suggestions. PianoUpMyNose (talk) 13:30, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Lead
  • Footnotes in the lead are fine; they're not my personal preference in general, unless they're necessary for quotations, statistics, or highly counterintuitive statements, but it's long been an accepted practice. My concern tho is that the lead should be summary style, and as such, it shouldn't contain facts or claims not found elsewhere within the main article body. Some of the lead is only mentioned in the lead, especially w/r/t the "cult following" and scarcity stuff; however, this can be rolled into a "Release" section, perhaps expanded if possible.
  • "It has been described as Ribeiro's most experimental work" – Not sure that the source (Pitchfork) backs this up. Their quote was: "It stands as Ribeiro's masterpiece because it comes the closest to containing her multitudes, housing her most beautiful composition (the love song 'Jusqu'à Ce Que La force de T'aimer Me Manque') and her most wildly experimental." By the end of that paragraph, the writer is talking about "Un jour... la mort". I think the claim here is that "Un jour... la mort" is her most experimental composition, not necessarily that the album as a whole is her "most experimental work" per se.
    • I changed it to "It has been described as containing Ribeiro's most experimental work" as the exact quote from the source is "it comes the closest to containing her multitudes, housing her most beautiful composition and her most wildly experimental." PianoUpMyNose (talk) 03:39, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Music
  • "'Jusqu'à ce que la force de t'aimer me manque' is a love song that exhibits elements of dream pop ..." Not to get too pedantic, but dream pop didn't exist yet. That doesn't mean the comparison is bad or wrong, but musicians can't "exhibit" typical traits of a style/genre/term that did not exist yet. "Anticipates" would be a better word here, and if anything it gives Ribeiro + Alpes fuller credit for their stylistic prescience.
  • The topic/theme of (attempted) suicide seems pertinent and unavoidable when it comes to "Un jour... la mort". It's discussed in other sources but is discussed in good detail here: doi:10.1353/tfr.2021.0022 (there's a PDF floating around but I can't track it down; lemme know if you'd like me to paste the relevant portion).
Artwork
  • This section dramatically undersells the impact of the striking bright-red gatefold art, with the Henry Miller quote "How much longer can we postpone the inevitable?" ("Combien de temps encore pourrons-nous ajourner l'inévitable?") (from The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud), which is all quite shocking and polemical. The Wire reissue review describes it in its opening.
    • This is a good detail to include as I had basically no sources that talked about the gatefold at all. Unfortunately, I'm not subscribed to The Wire, so maybe you could paste the relevant information here? PianoUpMyNose (talk) 03:41, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Philips issued the album (and perhaps some other records of hers) with a sticker reading "Les textes de ces chansons n'engagent que leur auteur", which Ribeiro bemoans in this interview.
  • Info about the typeface, even.
  • I'm also intrigued by the connection to photographer Jean-Pierre Leloir; let me know if you find anything. Ultra-long shot, but there is a book out there about Leloir's 1950s–1970s photography, with text by Gilles Verlant: Leloir, Jean-Pierre; Verlant, Gilles (2012). Portraits de la chanson française [Portraits of French Song]. Paris: Fetjaine. ISBN 978-2-35425-274-8.. However I have no clue to what extent, if any, it addresses his work with Ribeiro, much less Paix in particular, but thought I'd flag that for ya anyway.
Release (maybe "Background and release")
  • As far as what I would hope for from a "Background" section, it can be rolled into a release section. Basically it would be nice to have some context/description of what Alpes had been up to immediately prior to Paix, to ground the contrast/change presented by Paix. This brief blurb at Bibliothèque publique d'information [fr] does a reasonably good job covering the ground I have in mind.
  • As far as what I would hope for from a "Release" section: basically, concrete discographical information, but not much is necessary. The fact that it was her third album since signing to Philips, etc. Coverage of the noteworthy reissues over the years.
  • Sefronia (cited across French Wikipedia) provides some context for the first CD issues by the label Mantra.
  • In an interview with Vice, Ribeiro talks about the 2015 and 2018 reissues; evidently she was not happy about the 2018 ones.
  • According to this source, Paix sold 50,000 copies—quite a bit more than the 10,000 copies reportedly sold by Nº2 (source: Aston, Martin (August 2010). "Deux Deluxe". Mojo (201): 118.).
Other additional sources

In addition to what I added to "Further reading" (especially check out that Gonzaï article):

  • Most notably, I found a 1973 review (!!!) by French critic Alain Lemaire, which I've added to "Further reading". The review text is hidden below.
  • In March 1973, the magazine published the results of its year-end readers' poll for 1972, which places Ribeiro as 1972's tenth-best chanteuse (from any nation in any language; the list is topped by Tina Turner).
  • In April 1973, a review of the Belgian rock press notes that a magazine titled Beurk had named Paix as their album of the month. An obscure point, but intriguing.
  • Also fun, but probably not worth putting in the article: in the May '73 issue of Pop 2000, there's a letter to the editor by someone named "Jacky", who professes interest in recent music by Genesis, Johnny Winter, Jimi Hendrix, Amon Düül II, and Can. Regarding Paix, Jacky's letter said, simply, "le dernier LP est dément" ("the last LP is insane"). That's quite a hip & swingin' endorsement, imo, especially coming from a listener who presumably was familiar with Tago Mago!
  • The same video is embedded in the Guardian article (via YouTube) in a black-and-white, lo-fi, seemingly unofficial upload. This version is in color, hi-def, and hosted at an officially licensed source. Here's another black-and-white but official version, with a transcript (!!) and some historical context on Pop deux and Ribeiro. The vid provides an astonishing glimpse at Ribeiro and the motorized percuphone in action. The footage is phenomenal; you might consider adding this to the article using the template at minimum. The full Pop deux episode (in b&w) is available at the Internet Archive.
  • A review in a Japanese guide to French rock, from Japanese magazine Marquee (see Japanese Wikipedia), within a longer chapter devoted to Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes. The review helpfully makes connections to the anti-war protests related to Vietnam and the May 68 movement (and its legacy). There may be more useful info within the whole chapter, but you'll have to check the book's text file yourself.
  • More remote:
  • By far the most tantalizing offline source imo would be back issues of the French magazine Rock & Folk. Searching around, it's clear that Ribeiro got extensive coverage in the 70s, and you can find which issues she was featured/profiled in. More recently, according to some digging, Paix is evidently discussed in Rock & Folk No. 616 (December 2018, p. 86) and Rock & Folk hors-série no. 40 (December 2021).
  • Ribeiro is profiled in the chapter "People Have the Power" from the book Girls Rock by Sophie Rosemont.
  • La france underground: Free jazz et pop rock, 1965–1979, le temps des utopies by Serge Loupien, ISBN 978-2-7436-4416-1, may have something.
  • Agitation frite: témoignages de l'underground français by Philippe Robert, ISBN 979-10-94601-12-9, reproduces the cover of Paix across an entire page; based on the content I would be surprised if it didn't talk about Ribeiro extensively.
  • Very remote, but an index of the defunct French music magazine Chorus indicates that they published a number of pieces on Ribeiro and provides the issue numbers. No clue what would be there tho, nor whether any of it would be about Paix, nor whether Chorus can be accessed anywhere but a library in France. Merde.
  • The book Les funambules de la ritournelle by Patrice Delbourg devotes a chapter to Ribeiro.
  • Pretty sure, but unable to confirm, that the album was reviewed in Uncut, February 2019.

This looks like a lot, but a lot of it (especially the source list) is "optional" or just there to be thorough. Really most of what I think the article needs to hit GA level is a background/release section, some expansion of "Artwork", some incorporation of additional info from other sources to the extent practicable, and some miscellaneous tidying. —blz 2049 ➠ ❏ 05:52, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • @PianoUpMyNose: Just leaving a note here to clarify that I'm passing the article based on your expansions and improvements over the past month. Great job on this one! Based on the quality and good taste shown by this article, I'm really excited to see more Wikipedia projects from you in the future. —blz 2049 ➠ ❏ 20:57, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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