Talk:Ava Cherry/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Ritchie333 (talk · contribs) 21:54, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'll give this a review.

Initial thoughts

12K is a bit short for a biography, but this is probably okay for a GA and I would guess meets the "broad in coverage" part of the criteria.
The lead picture is not particularly good, but I realise it's the only free one we've got, so it'll have to do.
"O'Leary, Chris (August 25, 2010). "The Astronettes Songs". Pushing Ahead of the Dame" - what makes this blog a reliable source?
This source could be used for detail, if required.

There are no copyvio concerns or anything else that would obviously be a quickfail, so I'll proceed with the full review. I tend to copyedit as I go and raise issues as and when I find them. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 21:54, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Re. O'Leary, he's one of the more significant Bowie writers of the past decade, and significant writings of his -- including most of that blog -- have since been formally press-published. So far as I can tell the Astronettes review isn't in his press-published Bowie writing on the basis of being too niche, but I've used the blog post as a subject-matter expert form of SPS, which I hope is an acceptable use of that caveat. Vaticidalprophet 22:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

As Drmies said on my talk page, the lead does look a bit Bowie-heavy, maybe trim it down to a sentence or two to be more in line with the weight and balance in the body.

Leads are certainly my weak point. I've played around with it a bit and am happy with the balance, though unhappy with the fact it's not exactly deathless prose. (I'm particularly sour on the writing in the last paragraph, which I'm going to keep playing around with for a bit.) Vaticidalprophet 00:11, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The problem you've now got is I don't think the claim "best known for her relationship and collaboration with David Bowie between 1972 and 1975" is verified in the body. It's one of the things she's known for, but not necessarily the best one from all viewpoints. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:40, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Knocked it down to 'known for', which is hopefully appropriately non-specific. (Frankly, I've been thinking about BKFIP lately, so I've been wondering if someone was going to challenge it even outside the GAN process.) With regards to the degree to which she's known for it over other things...I'm fairly confident it's moreso than her solo career, but there's an argument to be made that the degree to which she's more or less known for it than for working with Vandross is outside the scope of what I can verify (i.e. on the demographic level, I'm both much more likely to know the details of Bowie than Vandross and less likely to even know what I should be reading to check the latter). It's very possible/probable there's huge swathes of the population I'm outright unfamiliar with where she's more known for Vandross. All that said, it's kind of hypothetical waffling (and I'm really a bit sorry to subject you to my hypothetical waffling in the first place), you know? What I can verify is a pile of sources that start "Ava Cherry, Bowie's [muse/girlfriend/inspiration], did X", so it does feel like it needs some appropriately-qualified first-sentence mention, and hopefully the current qualification works. Vaticidalprophet 22:58, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Early life

I don't suppose we have a source for the DOB? Don't worry if we haven't.

Birth year is WP:CALC from "21st birthday in 1974", no more precise date. Vaticidalprophet 02:32, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Cherry later moved to New York for her career" - is that the city or the state?

That's the city -- clarified. Vaticidalprophet 02:32, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relationship with David Bowie

"She was captivated by the record, which she played "about a hundred times", and by Bowie's aesthetic sensibility" - what does "aesthetic sensibility" mean here?
For this and the other 'sensibility'-type comment...basically a more formal way of saying 'vibes' or general 'aesthetic'. I hadn't thought of it as being confusing -- is there a better wording? Vaticidalprophet 22:47, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Cherry met Bowie's then-wife Angela Barnett" - Is this right? I thought she was known as "Angela (or Angie) Bowie" during this period.
I've seen Angie-in-this-era called both Bowie and Barnett in sources, and I erred towards the maiden name to avoid confusion. Vaticidalprophet 19:56, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What makes CelebHeights a reliable source?

Reworded to excise the height comment entirely, which had always troubled me -- she doesn't look much taller than him in the pictures. (As you may have picked up, there's a tendency for the otherwise-RSes here to contradict themselves, contradict each other, contradict logic, or just fail to mention entirely things that really seem like they'd be worth mentioning. I feel like there's a lot more to some of these stories than anyone bothered to write down.) Vaticidalprophet 19:56, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"The Astronettes project was quickly shelved" - do we know why?
Quick glance -- no. I'll pick up the books again to see if they mention anything, but couldn't find it when I was looking through for the article's original writing.
"Bowie kept the trio as his backing singers for the Diamond Dogs era" - is that the album, the tour, or both?
Both. Vaticidalprophet 22:47, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"while others admired it for a "new wave before the term existed" sensibility" - what does "sensibility" mean in this instance?
"Bowie was reportedly fascinated with black music and black women throughout this era, partly from Cherry's influence" - isn't this sentence redundant? We've just discussed how much Cherry influenced Bowie to listen to black music.
Alias David Bowie had a lot of discussion specifically about the black women clause that felt repeated enough I wanted to fit it in somewhere. True that I put it in a bit of a clunky way, though. Do you think there's a way to salvage it? Vaticidalprophet 19:57, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ended up striking that line. Vaticidalprophet 10:23, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"The early to mid-1970s was a chaotic period in Bowie's career, marked by sudden fame" - Is "sudden" right? I think by this point, Bowie had been famous for quite a few years, with the Ziggy Stardust Tour under his belt.
Switched that one to 'increasing' -- the sources do talk a bit that he was less known in America before that point. Vaticidalprophet 22:05, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"The relationship was serious" - by Cherry, Bowie or both? It strikes me that Bowie would be less serious if he had multiple partners while she didn't. Also, can this be copyedited so "relationship" doesn't appear twice in close proximity?
'Relationship' repetition is gone. The seriousness thing is complicated -- as mentioned the paragraph before, sources are a bit contradictory on this, but the overall trend seems to be that 1. both parties thought it serious but 2. this had weird caveats. Vaticidalprophet 22:05, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Astronettes and GO

"Bowie arranged Cherry and two other collaborators into a backing group called The Astronettes and recorded an album with them" - isn't this the same album (recorded in 1974) mentioned above?

Indeed it is. I wondered whether to and what to repeat here. My thought is -- about half the views on this page are mobile, sometimes around two-thirds. On a phone, the article looks like this. Someone who expands only the "Career" section, and I'm sure this is plenty of people, won't be able to see the Astronettes content if it's only under Relationship, despite it being a major part of her career. (And yet it's also a major part of the relationship, so excising it the other way around doesn't work either.) I'm more comfortable committing the sin of repetition than the sin of making the article unreadable to most of the audience. Vaticidalprophet 02:39, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"People From Bad Homes was primarily regarded as a curiosity with little value" - by whom exactly?
Fixed this up. Took a while to think of a rewording I liked, but happy with how it looks now. Vaticidalprophet 10:18, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"After the demise of her relationship - relationship with Bowie? Personal, professional, or both?
Clarified. Vaticidalprophet 10:19, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Solo career

What makes Disco Museum a reliable source?
"Ripe!!! was originally intended to be produced by Gil Askey for Curtom Records, but he was uncomfortable with her work with Bowie" - Any particular reason why?

The sources don't seem to give one, which confuses me a little too. I may have missed something. Vaticidalprophet 00:18, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"but was held back by being a disco album released at the height of the anti-disco backlash." - the link given, Disco Demolition Night, occurred before Ripe!!! was released, so this can't be right

I played around a bit with what to pipe in there. We don't actually have an article specifically addressing the disco backlash. Disco itself has of course plenty on it, but 1. is linked just earlier, so didn't feel reader-friendly to link to a subsection of an already given article, and 2. doesn't actually have an obvious subsection for it -- the article itself jumps a bit in the timeline (from "Late 1970s: Controversy and decline in popularity" to "1982-1988: Aftermath") and has some heavy sub-sub-sectioning going on. Piping Disco Demolition Night felt like the best option in that it provided a fairly reader-friendly (immediately accessible as the first section) summary of more-or-less-contemporary views as the background to the event. It's something where I'm interested in hearing your views, though, because it does kind of fall into a gap of "coverage split between multiple articles and subsections". Vaticidalprophet 00:18, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best thing to do is leave the link out, it still makes sense without it. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:05, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Streetcar Named Desire was commercially unsuccessful[9] but spawned two singles, "Streetcar Named Desire"[10] and "Love To Be Touched"" - were the two singles commerically successful? If not, it would be better to say "Streetcar Named Desire was commercially unsuccessful, as were two singles taken off it....."
Reworded. Vaticidalprophet 08:13, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"It was her most successful solo attempt, producing two Top 40 dance hit singles, but fell below label expectations" - presumably, commercial expectations?

Clarified. Vaticidalprophet 00:18, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Backup singer

"Cherry also worked as a backup singer to R&B musician Luther Vandross" - isn't Luther Vandross better known as a singer as well?
You're right, but I didn't want to be repetitive and I felt that 'musician' was appropriately generic. Vaticidalprophet 04:34, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What makes MadameNoire a reliable source, particularly one that criticises Vandross' financial spending and treatment on his backing group?
Been thinking about this one, and the answer I have is "it's an RS for reporting on a matter that more 'respected' RSes don't care about for social/cultural/systemic reasons". If the mainstream media isn't very concerned with the lives of and media of interest to black women, then the publications that do will look different to the mainstream media, but that doesn't make them unreliable. For what it's worth, the writer of this specific piece is also the publication's deputy editor and has had bylines in decent places like ESPN Women. Vaticidalprophet 04:34, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

Okay, I've gone through the whole article now. There are some issues; I think the main one is the lead definitely needs to be less Bowie heavy, and I would argue she might be better known as Luther Vandross' backing singer, at least to some people. Anyway, none of the issues are insurmountable, so I'll put the review on hold now pending improvements. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:38, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Vaticidalprophet: Just wondering where we are with this. There are a couple of issues not addressed; if you don't think they're important enough, just say that, then I can check over everything and see how close we are to passing the review. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 15:02, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, sorry for not addressing everything! Some of the remaining points are things I've been thinking about quite a bit, and don't yet have a response I'm entirely confident with yet. Happy to let you look over the current state of things and deem where you think we are now, and I'll keep looking a bit deeper at some of my current sources to see if there's anything to shore up or anything I've missed. Vaticidalprophet 04:10, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone through everything and made a few more tweaks. At this stage I think the article does now meet the GA criteria, so I'll pass the review - well done. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 13:53, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]