Talk:Bedtime Stories (Madonna album)/GA1

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Aoba47 (talk · contribs) 01:20, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@IndianBio: Since this is one of my favorite albums, I will definitely review this. Aoba47 (talk) 01:20, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you :) —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 02:05, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Lead and infobox

Image in infobox needs an alt.
For the second sentence, replace “deciding to move into more mainstream sound” with “in order to move into a more mainstream sound” and remove the comma before the phrase. Your original word was somewhat awkward and was not directly linked to Madonna (could be read ambiguously as pertaining to the producers).
Just refer to Erotica and Sex by their titles or you could rephrase to “the album Erotica and the book Sex in 1992”. Saying something like the Sex book could imply that “the” is part of the title and it just reads slightly awkward to me.
Is Bjork considered part of the British club musical scene or a part of dub? The way you phrase the sentence makes it seem like she is and I am not sure if that is entirely accurate. (It may be true, but I want to make sure the intended meaning is coming across in this sentence.)
- @Aoba47: Did not understand your question.
Put “it” in front of the phrase “was nominated for Best Pop Album”
All of the comments above are more detailed-oriented as this section is already very strong. A majority of my comments will be addressing smaller areas as overall the article is already on the level of a GA.

Background

The image needs an alt.
Change “contained” to “containing”
Clarify the meaning of “controversial statements”. What are you referring to? Be specific for a reader who may not be familiar with the incident.
The following sentence sounds somewhat like original research to me: (Hence she decided to re-invent her image, to connect with her fans and repair the damage that her provocative personality had caused to her career.) I would use a quote or a review of the song “I’ll Remember” or a source about this time period to really support this conscious change in image as being directed by a desire to connect with fans and repair her image. This may all be in the Feldman source you cite, but I just want to double-check.
The following sentence (When asked about the record, Madonna said she wanted people to concentrate on the musical aspects of it, and would like the songs to speak for themselves, because she was not interested in giving many interviews and being on the cover of magazines.) runs a little bit long and reads awkwardly as you conveying a lot of ideas. I would recommend breaking this up into two sentences.

Development

Clarify “the producer” in the first paragraph as being Babyface (say “Recalling the latter’s development, Babyface…). Just to make the meaning very clear.
Not sure if the “however” in the first sentence of the second paragraph is necessary.
Remove “in such a way” as it is an awkward and unnecessary transition.
Really great and informative section. Again, I am impressed with the work put into this page.

Music and lyrics

I would put the image as “upright”
Add a comma after “in the song”
Add a comma after “towards the end”
Add a comma after “towards the middle of the song”
Remove comma before Meshell Ndegeocello. I am not sure who is singing the lyrics "Tell me what you want/ Tell what you need" so make that a little clearer as it read ambiguously.
Is “confronts chauvinism head on” a quote from the source? If it is, then put it in quotes. If not, then reword it as it sounds like it is written from the point of view of a fan.
Great section overall, just minor grammatical errors and areas for improvement with language.

Artwork

Image requires an alt.
Just say “from The Philippines Star” as your wording implies that she no longer works there. If this is true, then preserve your original wording.
The bit about Christina Aguilera is interesting, but seems too distracting and does not flow with the rest of the section. The overall section is discussing the image at the time so jumping to a more contemporary comparison seems out of place and unnecessary. This would be more appropriate if you discussed the album’s impact on other artists in the “Legacy” section. I would remove this, but this is really up to you. If you decide to keep it where it is, it is fine, but I just wanted to draw your attention to it.

Promotion

Image needs an alt. and should be presented “upright”
Just say “To promote the album’s release”. The “in order” part is redundant and unnecessary.
Remove “even” in front of “invited Bjork” as it is not an incredible feat for Madonna to ask the songwriter to appear in a performance.
The quote in final sentence of the second paragraph needs closing quotation marks.
Spring and Fall are not capitalized.
Say “Madonna and her manager…” for clarity
Rephrase the third sentence of the second paragraph under “Single” to the following for better sentence construction: (If the single reached the top 40, Madonna would at the time have become the third woman…) Keep the rest the same; the beginning needed to be changed as songs appear on charts on singers.
Specify the “several countries” in the last sentence of this section.

Critical reception

Was Erotica “ethereal sounding” or did you mean for that to refer to Bedtime Stories?
For the AllMusic sentence, remove “and a positive review” as the star ranking is enough. Same thing applies for the Rolling Stones sentence.
For the Billboard sentence, say “while giving the album a positive review”
”On 2015” should be “In 2015”
Fix the spelling of strength in Bangor Daily News quote
For the Milwaukee Journal quote, say “provided a mixed review for the album”

Commercial performance

The image does not go with the section. The section is about the album’s commercial performance and an image of her performance of “Human Nature” on a later tour does not illustrate that. Remove the image.
Otherwise, very strong section!

Legacy

Identify Mary von Aue as being a journalist from Vice
Make sure the punctuation is outside the quotation marks unless you are citing a full sentence. This is more of a note for the entire article.

References

Fix the title problem with Reference 85
References 48 and 91 are dead. Archive them to fix them.
- They are working perfectly for me.
  - I apologize for my mistake, the links work perfectly for me too. The links may have appeared broken to me because my internet was pretty spotty during the time of review. Aoba47 (talk) 18:02, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would highly recommend archiving all your links. This is not necessary for the GAN, but it is best to do to avoid broken/dead links in the future.

Final comments

@IndianBio: @11JORN: This is a very strong article and it is very close to the level of a GA. Once all my comments are addressed, this should be a quick and easy pass. If you have any questions or comments about my review, feel free to message me about it. This article is very good and I enjoyed reading it a lot so I hope I did not come across as too harsh. Aoba47 (talk) 02:20, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from one issue, I think all the issues have been addressed. Thanks for the review Alex ^talk 03:32, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@11JORN: Awesome work! I really enjoyed reading and reviewing this article as I enjoyed learning more about the album. A definite ✓ Pass. Aoba47 (talk) 18:02, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail: