Talk:Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sparklism (talk · contribs) 15:39, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

I'll take this one on - expect my comments in a few days. Thanks! :) — sparklism ^hey! 15:39, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

First look

Okay, I've only just skimmed through. Nice little article, but there's a bit to go at straight away:

• The article could really do with a good copy edit for starters, perhaps someone like Popcornduff may help if you ask him very nicely (or somebody else from WP:GOCE)

  I heard my name! I took a quick look, but I'm already stumped by the first sentence: "Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives is the first studio album by Guillermo Scott Herren under the name Prefuse 73." Does this mean he previously released albums under different names? If not, add a comma. Popcornduff (talk) 09:59, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

  He indeed has. At least under Savath & Savalas, and the Fact article goes more into detail about it. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• There are a number of duplicate links in the article which should be removed per WP:REPEATLINK

  Went through and got rid of some. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• The second sentence in the lead, "Released on Warp in 2001.", is far too short and could be combined with the preceding sentence

Moved this statement. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• "began composing the album sampling hip hop artist such as" → artists

Fixed. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• Link rapping in the lead

Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• "The albums music" → "The album's music", since it's a possessive. Same with "On the albums release"

Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• The phrase "such as" appears four times in the lead alone

Ouch. Okay, mixed them up a bit. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• "helping his friend's band mix their group's record" - 'group's' is not needed here

Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• "Heren made a deal with the studio's owner" - the artist's name is misspelled

Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• The article contains "hip hop" and "hip-hop". Just use the former, for consistency

Changed it all to state "hip hop". Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• It also contains 'Pitchfork' and Pitchfork Media. Again, just use one, and italicize it

It's a website, which I don't believe uses Italics? Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• The external link to the microsite is dead. This one should work: [1]

Ah! Had trouble getting this working. Thanks for making it happen. :) Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• According to that link, track 16 is 'featuring seven 3.6' - is this not included in the album credits?

That's an interesting one, as that song is mostly just an answering machine message that got a little chopped and glitched up. :) It does not say that credit on any album copy I've seen so I'm not sure how we should source that or if we even should. Andrzejbanas (talk) 16:56, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

• No vocalists in the 'Personnel' section?

Technically none are listed. There's a lot of thank yous. Honestly, some album copies don't even have the "featured" credits, but my copy has the featured, so I used that.

• "All track written by Scott Herren" → tracks

Fixed.

• "Retrospective reviews included the a comment from the New York Times" - this doesn't quite make sense

Ahhh you are right. Let me at it...

As I said, this was just a skim through. I'll add more when you've had a chance to review these, and it would be really good if you could get a good copy editor to look at it. I've also made a few tweaks using advisor.js - I hope these are okay. Thanks! :) — sparklism ^hey! 09:11, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks again for doing this and dealing with my horrible written prose. Your doin' it good Sparklism! Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:56, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Second look

Sorry, this has taken me longer than expected...

• Is there a particular reason for calling him Guillermo Scott Herren, when this just redirects?

Yeah, the main article on him probably needs work. His real name is Guillermo Scott Herren. He only found out about his birth name of Guillermo after the release of Vocal Studies and was still going by Scott Herren back then. I think it's best to refer to "Scott Herren" when noted in credits, but Guillermo in the article, which is his current name. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• There are two repeat links in the reception section - I usually find that using the script at User:Ucucha/duplinks helps with these

Believe I've fixed them now. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• Some tracks feature rapping without edited vocals which were performed by hip hop artists such as MF Doom and Aesop Rock. You may as well go the whole hog, and state all three featured rappers here (which removes another 'such as'). Also rapping...which were performed by doesn't quite work. I'd have this as something like "Some tracks feature unedited rapping performed by hip hop artists Mikah 9, MF Doom and Aesop Rock."

Replaced. 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Lead

• In the lead, I'd link edit (or possibly Audio editing, but I prefer the former since this is a redirect)

replaced.

Background

• after spending a period in New York. Any idea what he was doing in NY?
• I'd expand & link the first mention of MPC, like it is in the lead. I think you maybe removed this (and other links) after my comment about WP:REPEATLINKs above. In a nutshell, I like to see the appropriate things linked in the first instance in the body of the article, even if they've already been linked in the lead. So, I'd also link the first body mentions of Doom & Aesop, Schematic Records, IDM, Nas, Ol' Dirty Bastard and Erykah Badu, Miami bass etc

Good idea. Re-added links. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• Herren made a deal with the studio's owner to work for him and handle the hip hop clients, and in return he would buy Herren a MPC this sorta makes it seems like Herren would by himself an MPC. Can it be reworded?

Tried to re-phrase so it sounds more like the owner bought it for him. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• Herren signed to British label Warp, signing him for both... The 'signing him' bit doesn't quite work properly - maybe 'who signed him for both'?

Changed. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• Link samples

Added link Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• maybe link indie to Indie rock - this is where the Sea & Cake page links anyway

Added. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• The hip hop artists do not work directly with Herren - 'did not'

Correct again. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• When working with an MC, Herren kept the vocals intact. this is a bit short- could it be combined with the preceding sentence?

Tried to rephrase this, not sure how much better it is. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Style

• ...between a hip hop instrumental and the hip hop track with a rapper. I'd have this as something like "instrumental hip hop and vocal hip hop", though it's a bit repetitive however you try to say it

Tried to rephrase this. Again, not sure how much better this is. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• In this section, all of the music is "described" by publications. Can the authors of the articles also be used, like some are in the reception section?

I try not to do that so much that it gives prominence to authors who may not be entirely notable. (I.e: Noel Dix is not as well known or notable as Robert Christgau). I mostly did it in the prose which I felt was not high on content (As Herren notes, he felt his album as received strangely and not really focused on many things he was trying to get across. So the reviews are bit repetitive and don't say much sadly.) Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• Pitchfork gets a first mention here, so should be linked.

Done. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• Which album was it that he sampled "Wask" for? This one or a different one?

Clarified. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Release

• Any idea when or where the ATP festival took place?

Yes, it was at Camber Sands, it's in one of the ATP sources. I've removed the Tortoise context as it's making the sentence a big long. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• He opened for Tortoise where? This stuff could be useful to add context

Added some locations. Don't think I should list them all, but gave a good outline of some major cities to give the idea to the audience of where he was performing. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• "Prefuse" → Prefuse 73. No need to abbreviate here

Changed. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Reception

• There are a few authors in need of a mention here; Tedd Kessler of NME, for example

added. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• On reviewing two other albums from Warp → "Reviewing the album in conjunction with..."

Much better. Added. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• year-end Best-Of lists → "year-end lists"

Changed. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• number 10 on their list of the twenty → 10 and 20, ten and 20, or ten and twenty, but never 10 and twenty (I'd prefer the latter). Same goes for "number 7" :)

D'oh! Changed. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• Other publications included the Ottawa Citizen and Tony Ware... could do with a reword. I don't think Tony Ware is a publication, anyway ;)

You can tell how lazy I was getting as we strolled towards the end here. Fixed! Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Summary

Overall, I really like this article but I still think there's a bit of work to do. There are still six occasions of "such as" - my target would be none, but maybe that's just my pet hate (but I'd definitely get rid of the one from the Doom pic - actually maybe that caption should be a lot simpler). It's getting closer though - I'll take another look when you've had the chance to respond to these points. Keep up the good work. Cheers! :) — sparklism ^hey! 16:46, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Article is now such as free! Thanks for going over this again. I've cleaned it up. It should be ready for another go-over I think.:) Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Copy edit comments

OK, I went through this article and did a rough copy edit of the entire thing.

In my opinion, the article is some distance from GA quality because the prose is very confusing and in some cases - sorry, cruel I know - unintelligible. For example: "traditional hip hop song vocal-oriented song with an MC". Read that out loud. What?

I've fixed it where I can, but I may have accidentally altered the meaning in some places because the intended meaning wasn't clear.

There's a bigger problem, which is that there isn't really a narrative here. I've tried to tidy up the Release section, but it just reads like a series of disconnected statements. I'm not sure which time periods each statement is referring to or how they relate to one another.

There are still some things I'm confused about, including:

"In 1999 Herren signed to British label Warp, who signed him for both the Prefuse 73 music and his first album under the Savath & Savalas alias." - I can't make any sense of this. You haven't explained what these different names refer to.

Tried to clear this up. Andrzejbanas (talk) 20:02, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

"The hip hop artists did not work directly with Herren, but sent their audio tracks of themselves rapping which were not manipulated in the same way the sampled hip hop records were." - Do you just mean he left them unedited, ie didn't chop them up like he did the samples?

That is correct. Andrzejbanas (talk) 20:02, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

"Herren began acting as A&R member for the label, which had a reputation for IDM, by introducing it to artists including Anti-Pop Consortium, Battles, and Flying Lotus." Why did he do this? Was he actually formally employed as an A&R guy?

This is from the sources where it says he started acting like an A&R man. I couldn't tell you why he did it other than to get other artists who were previously unsigned or a smaller label signed to Warp. I don't believe it was an official title. Andrzejbanas (talk) 20:02, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

"For his debut album, " Is this the album the article's about? A different album?

Cleaned up I think. Andrzejbanas (talk) 20:02, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Popcornduff (talk) 04:28, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Third look

OK, I've thought long and hard about this. I really value the input that Popcornduff has provided here, but I share some of those concerns. Specifically, his point about the general lack of narrative (the example given of the 'Release' section, though other sections could be tarred with that same brush, albeit to a lesser degree) really strikes a chord with me. As it stands, I don't think this is well-written enough to meet GA status.

The more I read, the more I think that the major factor affecting the lack of narrative could be the lack of coverage that the album has received. This is a pretty underground record, even by Warp's standards, and it seems to me that the lack of sources means that it's pretty difficult to write a Good Article on the subject - Andrzejbanas has done a pretty good job at writing such an informative article, given that.

I'll list my major concerns here, for clarity:

• The article lacks a real narrative feel throughout. This particularly affects the 'release' section, which does feel like a series of disjointed statements
• Similarly, the lead talks a lot about Herren's background, but not much about the album itself - I think this is symptomatic of the general paucity of coverage that affects the whole article
• If you disregard the long quote in the 'background & production' section, there's not a whole lot about the creation of the record - again, I understand that this is probably due to a lack of coverage

So, at the moment I don't think this meets the GA standard. But, maybe if a couple more sources could be found and used to expand the article, then it could still stand a chance - it's a pretty interesting and important record, after all. I don't want this review to drag on forever, though, so I'm going to place it on hold for seven days. If the concerns above can be addressed in that time, that's great, but if not then I cannot honestly say that it meets the GA standard. I know you've already worked hard on this article - good luck! — sparklism ^hey! 13:35, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

It's had a decent amount of coverage and reviews, but as far as albums like this go, Herren himself noted that he felt that reviewers were not really addressing him on certain aspects of the album. I believe Hreen says in the Fact interview that "For much of his early career he was framed as an outsider to hip-hop culture, appropriating rap and transforming it through an electronic lens when in fact it was rap, not electronic music, that he came from. It still makes him a little angry when he casts his mind back to the promotion surrounding his first records. “I couldn’t understand why they were treating me like I was 10. They were ignoring all the cultural references that were to be found throughout that first record.”". In other words, people weren't really asking much about the album. So there is little information. Also, unlike rock bands the album is a one person project predominantly. So we can't talk about other issues with albums production involving producers, lyrics (as we only have the MCs). The only thing I was hoping to find some info on such as how he connected with certain musicians and rappers, but it doesn't seem to exist other than he was sent tapes from rappers at the time.

I'll try and clean up the release section, but I'm not sure what else I may find.

I'll see if I can dig anything up, but it may be tricky. Andrzejbanas (talk) 15:46, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I've got to say: I can see that you guys have been working hard on this, and it's looking much stronger for it. The narrative flow is much improved. I've still got some concerns, but I now think this has a real chance of meeting GA, so I'm happy to keep this on hold a while longer. My current concerns are:

• The lead section is too brief - I think there's a lot in the article not mentioned here that could be used to flesh this out
• The stuff about "Nuno" in the 'background & production' section should belong in the 'Music' section IMHO (though I can sorta see why it's here)

  In the edits, you can see me moving that section around a lot. If there was more references to specific songs in any review or write-up (sadly, there are not many), I'd expand this a bit more. Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

• The song "Nuno" has a title which references it's musical influence and sample source. The song features chopped-up vocals This could all be simplified to '"Nuno" features chopped-up vocals...', since the rest of the sentence talks about where/why it's called that (I also notice that the use of "Wask" as a sample has been omitted - I kinda liked that bit tbh)

I've re-added it. Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

• Herren acknowledged the influence of this albu as he samples Canavarro's album on Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives. Apart from the typo, this sentence is kinda repeating what has already been said, and I'm also not 100% convinced that the source backs up the claim that Herren 'acknowledged the influence...'

Fair enough. I've tried to re-phrase it. Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

• For Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives, Herren created the music using two turntables plugged into his MPC. To create the glitch sounds through the MPC, Herren used mute groups to chop between different sampled material. I think this belongs in the previous paragraph (before the current Nuno stuff), where there is also a sentence that begins "For Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives..." - I think it should be appended/worked into that same sentence somehow
• The casual reader would have no idea what 'mute groups' are, so this should be reworded

I totally understand this, but trying to explain mute groups leads to a barrel more definitions needed. :) I've added some, I hope this makes it readable. Can I assume people know what a fader is? Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

• And change "chop" to "change" or "switch", I think

You are correct. Changed. Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

• but was agreed to signi to Warp doesn't make any sense (!)
• You've linked the second instance of Glitch and not the first

Changed. Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

• Do you think we should link audio tapes?

Well, if someone was really confused, audio tapes would link to a tape recorder. I assume he's referring to Digital Audio Tape, but It's not obvious. So maybe I should let it be for now.

• Link NME

Appears to be linked previously. :) Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

• There's a mix of Pitchfork Media and Pitchfork Media. The WP article for that publication uses italics, so I'd go with that. Also, link the first instance of this, and not the subsequent ones

Could've sworn websites were not supposed to be in Italics. But I'll change them. It's not really a big deal to me. :) Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

• BBC → BBC Music?

Probably not, as BBC Music was only founded in 2014. :) Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

• I've made a few copy edits myself; hope they're OK!

The more I look, the more I like this article. Keep it up!:) — sparklism ^hey! 10:23, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

• • Andrzejbanas, I've given the article a bit of a going over - you'd better check my edits! How do you think it looks now? Thanks :) — sparklism ^hey! 13:05, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Looks fine! good job on cleaning up the mute group thing. I knew it was clunky, but wasnt' sure how to fix it. all edits still pretty state what I was trying to say. Thank you! Andrzejbanas (talk) 20:51, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Good - I like it too. You've done a good job in turning this around, and I think this now meets the criteria. I'm passing this at last - well done! (And thanks to Popcornduff, whose input here was invaluable). Keep up the good work! :) — sparklism ^hey! 08:04, 25 April 2016 (UTC)