Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums

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WikiProject Albums was featured in a WikiProject Report in the Signpost on 11 July 2011.

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Requested move at Talk:An Introduction to .....#Requested move 22 October 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:An Introduction to .....#Requested move 22 October 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Raladic (talk) 00:46, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source eval: NTS Radio

British online radio service established in 2011. Cited in Rolling Stone, NME, Pitchfork, and DJ Mag.

Credentials (these were the only ones I could find, I'm not joking):

Niall McKenna: wrote for publications like the Globe and Mail and Dazed magazine (source: [1])
Lorraine Petel: no prior experience (source: [2])
Amir Abdullah: no prior experience (source: [3])
Kasra Vaseghi: no prior experience (source: [4])
Will Dickson: Wrote for publications like the Independent and the Guardian (source: [5])

I would like to know if this source is reliable. Thanks, — 💽 LunaEclipse 💽 🌹 ⚧ ^{【=◈︿◈=】} 23:50, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know much about NTS, but why would it be a reliable source, or even a useful one? Looks like most of the hosts, or at least the ones listed in the NTS Radio article, are musicians and not journalists. Not to say that musicians aren't SMEs about music, but how often would you need to rely on something one of them says anyway? Perhaps if you provided examples of what you had in mind it would be more clear, but I'm not sure I understand the use case. And you haven't made a convincing case with this list of credentials, nor have you provided any evidence of editorial oversight. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 01:44, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Help reference albums in the WikiProject Unreferenced Articles #NOV24 Backlog Drive

Hi WikiProject Albums, I’d like to invite anyone interested to join the WikiProject Unreferenced Articles #NOV24 Backlog Drive. Many album articles are currently tagged as unreferenced, and this drive is a great chance to help improve them. You can see the list of unreferenced album articles here. The drive runs through November, and any help adding realiable sources is welcome—whether you add one source or tackle several articles. Thanks! Turtlecrown (talk) 13:07, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Additional writers" credits

It's been a while since I've last done any editing for album articles, and upon my return I've noticed a curious trend. In the past few years, editors have been replacing track listings which look like this:

All tracks are written by Alan Smithee, except where noted.

No.	Title	Writer(s)
1.	"The Phony Song"
2.	"I'm Not Even Real"
3.	"Imposter"	Smithee, John Doe
4.	"He Made it All Up"
5.	"Don't Give Me a Made-Up Song Title and Tell Me it's the Beatles"	Smithee, Vic Stench

with ones that look like this:

All tracks are written by Alan Smithee, with additional writers noted.

No.	Title	Writer(s)
1.	"The Phony Song"
2.	"I'm Not Even Real"
3.	"Imposter"	John Doe
4.	"He Made it All Up"
5.	"Don't Give Me a Made-Up Song Title and Tell Me it's a Beatles Hit"	Vic Stench

This seems unnecessarily confusing and misleading at best (I think it's pretty obvious why, but if necessary I can elaborate), so at first I just reverted these "Additional writers" style credits without much ado. But I keep on bumping into them everywhere, which lead me to wonder if just possibly there could have been a consensus to convert track listings to this format en masse. Someone bring me up to date here. Martin IIIa (talk) 02:29, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unaware pf any past discussions on this matter, but I definitely agree that the latter style is worse. Mach61 02:34, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's that confusing myself, but maybe my eyes are sharper than others. While I'm okay with the latter, I wouldn't object to ditching this informal practice. mftp dan ^oops 02:37, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just a matter of having sharp eyes; I don't see how someone could know that "additional writers" means "additional writers on a song" (i.e. co-writers with Alan Smithee) and not "additional writers on the album" (i.e. people other than Alan Smithee who wrote songs single-handedly) unless they already knew what the album writing credits are. Martin IIIa (talk) 04:08, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've used the latter a few times, but primarily in cases where there are far more than two writers per track. Wasteland (Brent Faiyaz album), for example, includes at least four writers on 3/4s of the tracklist, and none with just the one that's being removed, so the former style would be useless to that page. To my eyes, it's a lot more legible than just seeing the one name repeated ad nauseam for every track. And I think your "additional writers on a song" point assumes less of Wikipedia's readers than they deserve; so long as the writing credits are listed adjacent to the appropriate tracks, why shouldn't we expect people to reasonably assume those credits apply only to those tracks? Frankly, I don't see a problem with it. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 04:37, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You've misunderstood what I said. In the latter format, the same phrasing would apply whether John Doe was the co-writer or sole writer of "Imposter", so how is the reader supposed to tell which it is? Also, you don't explain how the tradition style could be "useless". All you do is add the one name to each of the tracks, and there you have it, perfectly useful writing credits. Am I missing something here? All you've accomplished by using the latter style is to make the credits more confusing to readers with no previous knowledge of the subject and place (arguably undue) emphasis on the one name. Martin IIIa (talk) 13:41, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There must be a disconnect, as I don't see anything particularly confusing in either of the scenarios you've presented. Sergecross73 msg me 14:03, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I already said, 'the same phrasing would apply whether John Doe was the co-writer or sole writer of "Imposter", so how is the reader supposed to tell which it is?' If you don't have an answer to that question (and neither you nor QuietHere have provided one), then there you have it. Martin IIIa (talk) 03:08, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The use of the word "all" by Smithee and "additional" in the note could only mean "co-writer" for Doe. Sergecross73 msg me 03:18, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I did explain that it was useless to Wasteland because it wouldn't remove any repetitive credits from that template. I didn't say it was useless generally, and I definitely strongly disagree with that; take Where I'm Meant to Be as an example of a time I've used the former effectively. And I think "except where noted" versus "with additional writers noted" makes a clear difference, as well as whether you see the name repeated in the credits or not. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 22:04, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is more or less my stance. I think there's a time and place for it. Sometimes, it can simplify the look by making it less repetitive. But at the same time, many editors don't really understand that context and try to force the approach into situations that make it look more convoluted instead. Sergecross73 msg me 13:58, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No one has yet pointed out any advantage to the latter format in any scenario beyond saving the editor from having to type out the same name a few times. That's a key point to me. Martin IIIa (talk) 03:10, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see an advantage or disadvantage to either. Sergecross73 msg me 15:07, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alice in Chains (album)

I am working on a translation of this article and hope to have an FA before its 30th anniversary a year from today. I have been relying heavily on the Russian-language article's sources (c. 2020) for the work I have done so far, but I'm trying to get a little feedback on the issue of structure.

Could I feasibly pass a Recording section into different subheadings? The Russian article is a treasure trove of fascinating information, but I would want the comfort of knowing that such a massive project would be acceptable, because I've no memory of seeing a recording section on enwiki so big that it needs that many subheadings, but I imagine without them the section would look far too bloated. (Note: the recording section is far from even being finished, and it's already looking real big in English.) mftp dan ^oops 02:42, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see no problem with breaking up a recording section into subsections so long as there's enough sourced content to call for it. I've even seen a few examples of this in FAs, such as The Dark Side of the Moon. Martin IIIa (talk) 04:14, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good to know. mftp dan ^oops 19:28, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is Indie Vision Music reliable?

Indie Vision Music has long been listed as a source at WP:CM/S, but its reliability is questioned. Please see the RS/N discussion. I'm soliciting input from this project because of past discussions here and I felt editors have some experience at evaluating music journalism sites.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 17:50, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source discussion: Pan African Music

I'd love to be able to use Pan African Music (PAM) as a source for some African artist/album articles. However, their "About us" page says they were founded as part of IDOL, a music distributor/promotor. Clearly there is a conflict-of-interest: for example, Yemi Alade is listed on IDOL's homepage, so all the articles on her at PAM are presumably not unbiased.

Is there any hope of separating the biased from the un-, and using some of PAM's coverage? Or is it all unusable? GanzKnusper (talk) 09:57, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@GanzKnusper For establishing notability and making any statements independent of the subject, I don't think can be done at all with such a source. Because there's no way to tell if the artist is being promoted by IDOL, even if they aren't listed. They could be used for biographical statements about the artist themselves but they would still need independent sources for establishing notability.---3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 10:49, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I suspected. Thanks for the response! GanzKnusper (talk) 11:43, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I'm sorry to disappoint.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 22:46, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No Clean Singing, Teeth of the Divine, Metal Underground, The Metal Onslaught

I've started a discussion at WP:RS/N regarding these sources and if they are reliable. Input at that discussion would be appreciated, please.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 00:34, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Website publishers/site-runners are self-published. Updating Sources page to reflect this.

Per this talk comment, consensus is that if the publisher or site-runner of a website writes for their website, it's difficult to argue that this writing has gone through the same editorial rigor of the other writing, due to the conflict of interest. Thus, they should be presumed to be self-published and not reliable for statements regarding living persons. I'm going to update the sources list here and at WP Christian music to reflect this.-- 3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 20:18, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No idea how prevalent this is, but would a general note/reminder on the page suffice? There's...a lot of sources listed here. I wouldn't want to re-check every single one's setup when one general remark would do... Sergecross73 msg me 20:33, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I'm planning to do. And for some sites I'll note who the site runner is.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 20:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at RSN

A music-related website, Rockpasta.com, is currently being discussed at RSN here. Feel free to comment on the source's reliability there. JeffSpaceman (talk) 00:32, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Chronicles of Chaos (redux)

Back in 2013, I added Chronicles of Chaos to the reliable sources list, per this rationale. I can't find the Reno Gazette-Journal reference to it, the website was probably redesigned in the past 11 years and the article is lost to archives, as I didn't link to it. However, the site is passingly mentioned in Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge, and is discussed by Billboard in a 2009 obituary about the website co-founder Adrian Bromley. That obit notes the site as one of the first dedicated to extreme metal music, and also says that the print magazine Unrestrained! founded in 2002 by Bromley and CoC writer Adam Wasylyk gained widespread recognition in underground metal (not directly relevant, but indicated the impact and reputation of those two individuals. The history of the site is discussed in an academic book, Text Linguistics in Heavy Metal Magazines and Webzines, pp. 187–189. There's also a reference to Decibel Magazine a CoC review by Decibel. There's additional references to interviews in music journalism, academic books, and academic journal articles, but as those are interviews I'm treating those more as references to primary sources. When the site closed in 2015, Daniel Lake of Decibel wrote a piece about the site, noting "Chronicles of Chaos is a piece of metal scene history, and it was often a go-to source of information for which albums would most interest me." Now, Lake says that he wrote for CoC for the four years past, so this write-up is closely affiliated with the site. But, that Lake also writes for Decibel indicates the caliber of the writers for that publication. MetalSucks likewise published a write-up about the site when it closed. It explicitly states "The writers were well informed and well spoken, and the zine evolved into a reliable source of information about interesting albums." I think all of this confirms that the webzine is indeed reliable.-- 3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 15:11, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I don't use it a ton since it's been defunct for almost a decade, but they've been very helpful in sourcing some 90s/2000s rock/metal articles. They produced some really good, detailed, deep dive articles. Sergecross73 msg me 15:35, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]