Talk:The Gregory Brothers

Proposed Merge of Auto-Tune the News into Gregory Brothers

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was merge into Gregory Brothers. -- —Notyourbroom (talk) 21:10, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

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I believe that Auto-Tune the News (formerly a redirect) ought to be merged into Gregory Brothers because it's currently still a pet project of the group, not to mention the one they are most notable for on a national level. At present, I think it's best to keep all related material on the group's primary article, with the proviso that the material can be split back out if future events warrant that decision. —Notyourbroom (talk) 03:31, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Due to the presently-rough quality of the Auto-Tune the News article (it being a stub-class uncategorized orphan), I'll put the merge into effect within the next 48 hours if no dissenting voices arise. —Notyourbroom (talk) 12:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

• Support merge per your reasoning. Otumba (talk) 14:50, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support In practical terms, it's hard to find substantive commentary on the group that doesn't focus on the series. For the purposes of an encyclopedia based on sources, the two topics are the same topic. Agreed, future events may change this dynamic. Melchoir (talk) 20:49, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
• Based on the facts that (1) Auto-Tune the News is a very short and flawed article created by a single editor and (2) both third-party commentors voted to merge the pages, I'm closing this as Merge. I hope this doesn't seem too hasty, but again, I'd be in favor of splitting Auto-Tune the News into its own article if there's a need to do so in the future... I just don't think it's time yet, and the other commentors agree. —Notyourbroom (talk) 21:10, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

As an addendum to that finalized discussion: Bed Intruder Song was established as its own article due to its notability beyond the scope of the Auto-Tune the News series. I think the time might be approaching at which we can split out Auto-Tune the News into its own article, especially now that The Gregory Brothers have a few independent viral hits outside of that series (like the Double Rainbow song). —Bill Price (nyb) 15:11, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Track listing of Meet the Gregory Brothers!

Weirdly enough, the track names aren't consistent between sources.

Amie Street:

1. Cry
2. Butter on My Roll
3. West Coast Time
4. It's a Wonder
5. Do You Think

iTunes:

1. Cry Cry Cry
2. Butter On My Roll
3. West Coast Time
4. A Wonder
5. Do You Think

1, 2, and 4 are different... —Notyourbroom (talk) 21:29, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Update: Here's an email from Evan.

Hey Bill -

The most correct track listing would be what is listed on the back cover of the EP, which is

1. Cry Cry Cry
2. Butter on My Roll
3. West Coast Time
4. A Wonder
5. Do You Think?

I am dismayed that we didn't catch that on Amie Street before, so I just emailed them to correct it. Right now, iTunes is slightly more correct but not 100% (esp the missing '?')...soon Amie Street should be 100%.

I changed the article accordingly. —Notyourbroom (talk) 15:47, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: Article name

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was move to The Gregory Brothers. —Notyourbroom (talk) 21:35, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

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Does anyone think that The Gregory Brothers might be a better article name than just Gregory Brothers? I'm not sure how this issue is usually resolved, but in the one case I checked, it's The Beatles rather than Beatles, for example. —Notyourbroom (talk) 01:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

In the sources I used, when the phrase "the Gregory Brothers" appears in the middle of a sentence with Brothers capitalized, "the" isn't capitalized. That suggests to me that "the" isn't part of this group's name. I haven't checked the other sources. Melchoir (talk) 02:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Update: I checked here, and based on that material, I think it's best to include the "The" at the beginning. In the iTunes store and on Amie Street, the group is known as "The Gregory Brothers", and all of their track metadata also follows that naming convention. So I'll look into getting the article moved. —Notyourbroom (talk) 23:08, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

New Politico article

'Auto-Tune' the latest, greatest spoof

It's a decent-sized piece which would be good to seed the founding of a "critical reception" section for ATTN, such as "Pete Snyder, the CEO and president of New Media Strategies, says “Auto-Tune the News” offers a peek into the future of political satire." —Notyourbroom (talk) 21:39, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Television air dates

I didn't like having dates mixed for television vs. youtube, so I split the two on the episodes chart. I don't have information for air dates for other clips, though. —Notyourbroom (talk) 15:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The others aren't going to be on TV. Just the Secratery Chung one because it was a special for MTV. - ^[User]Jamie JCA_[Talk] 22:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Others have been aired on TV, e.g. on The Rachel Maddow Show. —Notyourbroom (talk) 00:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Add reference to 2011 Academy Award credits for "Unintentional Musical" clips? Made auto-tuned versions of Deathly Hallows, Toy Story 3, The Social Network and Twilight clips. (See http://tv.gawker.com/#!5771930/what-in-auto+tuned-hell-just-happened-at-the-oscars, http://twitpic.com/44lk5q) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.79.68.50 (talk) 13:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Collapsing guest artists into the Episodes table?

Instead of listing guest artists separately, we could make "Guest artists" a column of the table. Then, for each episode, we could list the guest artist(s) in bullet points along with a brief description of their role in or contribution to that episode. —Notyourbroom (talk) 21:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Restructuring section hierarchy for Gregory Brothers videos

Given that the article is about the Gregory Brothers and not just about Auto-Tune the News, perhaps it would make sense to restructure the article so that "Auto-Tune the News" would be a subheading of something like "Auto-Tuned videos", a heading which would naturally suggest an expansion in discussion of their other one-offs and series (like "Time Travel in Song"). Related point follows. —Notyourbroom (talk) 21:36, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Inclusion of "special episodes" in the ATTN episode list

Considering that the Gregory Brothers have expanded their autotuned offerings in several different directions, I'm increasingly convinced that the "special" episodes listed in the ATTN episode list don't really belong there anymore. In other words, those two videos ("Obama Flashback" and "Secretary Chung and President Obama Auto-Tune Health Care") are thematically related to ATTN, but they're not intended to be taken as part of the ATTN series. Perhaps they should be moved to their own table or else removed entirely.—Notyourbroom (talk) 21:36, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this, which is why I think that the "Bed Intruder Song" and other similar songs/videos should NOT be listed as 12b, 12c, 12d, etc. in the Autotune the News table. The ATTN series is distinctly numbered, and there are only 12 of them at the moment.

Actually, it's getting harder to categorize and keep track of the group's work as they've been even more prolific lately (I get the feeling they've quit their day jobs) and have started yet another Youtube channel. A new table for "non-canonical" autotuned works definitely seems warranted at this point, imo. Zeng8r (talk) 17:23, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Disagree that the sub-episodes don't count. Here is the official list of Auto-Tune the News episodes according to the Gregory Brothers. To resplice and recompile a different "purer" episode listing would be original research. Whatever listing we do must be verifiable by a cited source, and I see no reason to endorse any episode listing other than the official one. That's why I eliminated the "special" episodes earlier that hadn't been given official inclusion into the series. —Bill Price (nyb) 18:25, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Huh. On their primary "schmoyoho" main Youtube channel page, only the official ATtN episodes (the videos that end with the "everything sounds better..." theme) are numbered. Also interesting that you're apparently arguing with yourself from last January... :)

In any case, I'm thinking that items added to the new "thegregorybrothers" channel (linked above) should probably be considered for inclusion in this article as well, depending on what they upload. Zeng8r (talk) 18:45, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's confusing you. I'm not disagreeing with myself at all. Originally, certain auto-tuned videos not explicitly a part of the ATTN series had been lumped into the main episode listing. I decided it warranted to exclude, e.g., "Obama Flashback", a video not present in the episode listing I linked to above, and I decided it warranted to include, e.g., "Bed Intruder Song", a video that is present in the episode listing I linked to above. I have been absolutely 100% consistent with my position from January that only videos "intended to be taken as part of the ATTN series" should be included in the episode table. Honestly, I don't see where there's room for debate: there is an official episode listing now curated by the Gregory Brothers, so as far as I'm concerned, it constitutes both the first and last word when it comes to deciding what is a "real" ATTN video. Following any other metric would be WP:OR, as I said already. —Bill Price (nyb) 18:52, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Um, nobody's confused. I'd never seen the listing you linked above which listed the intermediate videos as 12b, 12c, etc. I'd only seen the list on the right side of their main youtube channel page, which enumerates the 12 main ATTN episodes but attaches no number to the others, just states their title. Since there's reason to list all videos in the ATTN table with numbers/letters, then by all means keep it that way. There's no need to link wikipolicy all willy-nilly. Zeng8r (talk) 19:11, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Reversion of several edits

I've never reverted so many edits in one sweep, so here's an explanation. (1) I know that the "other notable videos" section is just a placemarker for now, but I feel that it's needed to properly balance the structure of the article. The simple truth is that ATTN is not the only notable result of the Gregory Brothers' video-making efforts, and people have in the past tried to shoe-horn them into the normal ATTN section. (2) The song is officially titled "BED INTRUDER SONG!!!", not "Bed Intruder Song". Changing the section name from one to the other is simply incorrect. Also, the use of italics is inappropriate for song titles; albums, not songs, are italicized. (3) Changing "wife" to "spouse" is unnecessary. Why use the gender-neutral word "spouse" when discussing specific individuals? (4) View count cannot be changed individually because they all must preserve the same date-of-access as established in the column head. Mixing and matching and updating individual cells whenever the fancy strikes someone quickly violates WP:VERIFY by scrambling old data with fresh data. —Bill Price (nyb) 20:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

As someone not editing the article, I noticed this message and have to comment. I think you are right on your third and fourth points, but "Bed Intruder Song" should be preferred because of MOS:ALLCAPS, which says not to write in all capitals. Other articles/reliable sources such as NPR use "Bed Intruder" capitalization. Furthermore, in the interests of readability and lack of sensationalism ("!!!"), and if you like by WP:IAR, it makes more sense to prefer only initial capitals for the song titles. -Phoenixrod (talk) 20:42, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

On reading that section, I agree with your interpretation of MOS:ALLCAPS and yield the point. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. —Bill Price (nyb) 20:56, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I've changed the name in most places. My instinct is not to change it in the episode listing since all of the data in that section is directly pasted from YouTube. —Bill Price (nyb) 21:02, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

"Other notable videos" placeholders

There are currently three placeholders for "other notable videos". I'm not feeling inspired to fill them out, but logically, it would make sense to have those sections. If consensus holds that we delete the placeholders and worry about it weeks or months in the future, I'd be fine with that, but I was hoping to prompt other editors to get involved in writing some prose. About 70–80% of the article is my own prose, but I'm trying not to "own" it... There just aren't many substantial third-party contributions. —Bill Price (nyb) 20:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Schmoyoho

So, where did that name come from? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.245.48.206 (talk) 07:06, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Issues with giving view counts

One of the most common types of errors I'm seeing in this and related articles is the tendency for IP editors to swing by and change view counts in a clearly mistaken way. The most recent example in this article is this edit. I've gotten into the habit of putting big WARNING comments in-line next to "set in stone" numbers like that one, but it feels really garish and authoritarian for me to do so. Another type of error is for someone to update just one view count in the episode listing table without changing the "date accessed" date and updating all other view counts as well- an error which causes the mixing of new and old data and breaks the article's verifiability. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to mitigate issues like these in high-traffic articles that attract a lot of flawed edits? Should we just remove most of the mentions of view counts? —Bill Price (nyb) 15:38, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I have linked to this discussion from the Bed Intruder Song talk page. —Bill Price (nyb) 01:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Update

I removed specific view count information from the lists of videos. —Bill Price (nyb) 21:39, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Requesting help maintaining this article

I was the initial major contributor to this article and have been guiding the development of it ever since, but I have not been able to spend much time on Wikipedia lately. I noticed that many of the recent edits done in my absence were flawed, either in form or content, and ought to have been reverted or fixed. Wingdude88 handled several of the problematic edits, but many others were left unchallenged. Would anyone watching this article be willing to step up and scrutinize edits more carefully? I can no longer give this task the time or energy it needs. Cheers. —Bill Price (nyb) 21:50, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the mention. I do what I can, but I myself can't be dedicated to watching this page's edits at the moment. Anyone? I know there's a lot of educated ATTN fans out there! :-) -The Wing Dude, Musical Extraordinaire (talk) 02:06, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed split

I am proposing that we split out a proper Auto-Tune the News article. Back in 2009, I merged Auto-Tune the News into The Gregory Brothers with this rationale: "I believe that Auto-Tune the News (formerly a redirect) ought to be merged into Gregory Brothers because it's currently still a pet project of the group, not to mention the one they are most notable for on a national level. At present, I think it's best to keep all related material on the group's primary article, with the proviso that the material can be split back out if future events warrant that decision." I now think that the group has established a notability independent of the series—they have the separate "Songify This" series, made the Academy Awards video, etc. It's worth it to spin off a proper article focusing on Auto-Tune the News so that the main The Gregory Brothers article can be trimmed down and rebalanced to reflect all of their work. —Bill Price (nyb) 22:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I dunno. There hasn't been a new ATTN video in five months so the series may be on hiatus or they've lost interest in news-themed videos in favor of their "Songify this" series. At any rate, due to its inactivity, it is unlikely to gain more coverage than already exists. Axem Titanium (talk) 23:06, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Article should clearly be split. It's standard practice for Wikipedia to maintain separate articles for artists and the works they produce. Any why in the world would the bed rapist song merit a separate article while the auto-tune the news series does not?76.209.52.237 (talk) 17:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Neutral simply because although this series has garnered much popularity, they've been relatively inactive and phasing from memory. I am, however, leaning towards Support. Red Card For You (talk) 14:37, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Support because the section is so big it takes up a large proportion of the article and is notable enough to have its own page in its own right. --andy4789 ★ · (talk? contribs?) 19:08, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Because I don't think ATTN has had much RS coverage in its own right. It is usually in the context of articles etc which are about the GeeBees and mention ATTN in that context. In terms of current length, much as I love the videos, some of the current content could be cut per WP:PRIMARY. Bed Intruder is a slightly different case because it entered the Billboard 100 and has won an award, meaning it passes WP:NSONGS, so I don't see that as inconsistent. --FormerIP (talk) 13:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, based on my previous comments and per FormerIP's reasoning. Axem Titanium (talk) 01:37, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

"unofficial app" dispute

Hola2amigos (talk · contribs)—a user who has made no other edits on Wikipedia—added an in-line external link to a 3rd-party iPhone application. Because it's a 3rd-party application, there is no reason to give it any mention in the band's own article; it's even less notable than a fanpage would be. I reverted the first addition as a "good faith" edit, but Hola2amigos's persistence in re-adding it—especially given the fact that he or she is using a single-purpose account—is pushing me to the conclusion that there is a possible conflict of interest going on. I'd like to get 3rd-party input here. —Bill Price (nyb) 03:32, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to keep reverting. 3RR doesn't apply for obvious vandalism. Axem Titanium (talk) 06:49, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this falls under the umbrella of "obvious vandalism". On the other hand, I do think it's obvious that the material doesn't belong in the article. I'm just wary of being too brusque when this could plausibly be viewed as a content dispute. It's heartening to me to see a 3rd-party editor agreeing that this is, at best, a snowball case, and that regardless of the rationale used, the spammy content ought to be excluded. —Bill Price (nyb) 14:08, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you don't feel comfortable bumping up against 3RR, you've got at least one other editor who agrees and will continue reverting it. Axem Titanium (talk) 15:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

E-mail message

In order to comply with WP:OUTING, I will not post the message, but I received an email from Hola2amigos (talk · contribs) today asking me whether I am a member of the Gregory Brothers. The editor (perhaps inadvertently) identified themself by name as the seller of the iPhone app, which makes it explicitly clear that we are dealing with a conflict of interest. —Bill Price (nyb) 01:25, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Timeline

• 6 May 2011
  • "Schmoyoho Unofficial" is released on the Apple App Store
• 7 May 2011
  • Hola2amigos (talk · contribs) adds prose and an external link pointing to the application
  • Notyourbroom (talk · contribs) reverts the edit as "good faith", but "Non-notable; unofficial". Does not give a warning.
• 8 May 2011
  • Hola2amigos re-adds the material.
  • Notyourbroom reverts and warns Hola2amigos about posting external links.
  • Notyourbroom brings concerns to the talk page.
  • Hola2amigos re-adds the material, minus the external link.
• 9 May 2011
  • Axem Titanium (talk · contribs) supports Notyourbroom on the talk page and reverts the promotional material as vandalism.
  • Hola2amigos re-adds the material.
  • Initial posting of timeline by —Bill Price (nyb) 23:54, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Notyourbroom warns Hola2amigos and removes the promotional material.
• 10 May 2011
  • Notyourbroom receives an email message from Hola2amigos (talk · contribs). It is signed with the same name which appears as the "Seller" of the iPhone app in question.

American Idol

No mention of Michael Gregory being on American Idol?? 177.32.49.132 (talk) 00:09, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Most of this article dates from 2009-2010. —Bill Price (nyb) 02:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Mistake edit

I know it's a little silly to make a talkpage post, but still, this edit of mine was a mistake. I thought I was reverting the bot. I caught the mistake later when I noticed the bot reverting someone again, and fixed it properly this time. —Bill Price (nyb) 00:42, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Streamy awards

Cover Schmoyoho in relation with past Streamy awards in this article. (by the way :D - how come Gregory brothers didn't cover Ashli & Cindy videos yet - that stuff has 'Songify!' written all over it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzv5T_cakTw&list=UUEwRcuKL7RN4d66D7Cvbb9A and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q2mm-lVPII&list=UUEwRcuKL7RN4d66D7Cvbb9A ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.101.140.164 (talk) 18:30, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Weird Al Presents: 'America is Doomed, the Musical'

Evan Gregory, Andrew Gregory, Michael Gregory, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and Atul Singh are credited as producers on the video "Weird Al Presents: 'America is Doomed, the Musical'", Weird Al Yankovic’s take on the weird debate.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000007370133/presidential-debate-weird-al.html

Xardox (talk) 11:48, 1 October 2020 (UTC)