Talk:Wagnerian rock

Evanescence

Note: Evanescence has never been formally classed as Wagnerian Rock; the top matches on Google for "Evanescence wagnerian rock" are 2 Bebo accounts, followed by an advertisement for a band and then wikipedia itself. Kypzethdurron 13:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

But Evanescence is some kind of Rock Opera, right? — EliasAlucard|Talk 23:32 18 Sept, 2007 (UTC)

This is not a real musical genre. Should redirect to Steinman.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.112.252.81 (talk) 05:32, 23 September 2007 (UTC) 

Wagnerian rock is not a kind of "rock opera"

Wagnerian rock might be a subgenre of popera, but it isn't a subgenre of rock opera. The term "rock opera" does not mean rock music with operatic elements or performed in an operatic style. It refers to a collection of rock songs that tell a dramatic story, with The Who's Tommy being the classic example. Any style of rock music can be used when composing a rock opera. One certainly could have a rock opera that was entirely in the Wagnerian rock style, just as one could have a punk rock opera (e.g. Green Day's American Idiot), but Wagnerian rock is no more a subgenre of rock opera than punk rock is. A stand-alone song in the Wagnerian rock style has nothing to do with "rock opera" at all. CKarnstein (talk) 18:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

With only a few exceptions, all of Jim Steinman's songs are inspired by J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan." That makes Steinman's flavor of Wagnerian rock an ongoing story. The song "Bat Out of Hell" would stand alone about as well as "Pinball Wizard", one way or the other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.7.61.27 (talk) 17:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

That's a pretty loose definition of "ongoing story" you're using, but even if true it doesn't make any difference. The term "rock opera" refers to the structure of a collection of songs, while "Wagnerian rock" refers to the musical style. It doesn't make any sense to say that Wagnerian rock is a subgenre of rock opera, because the two terms are referring to completely different qualities. And if you're going to define "Wagnerian rock" as "songs by Jim Steinman", it's not a musical (sub)genre at all -- it's just one songwriter's personal style. The article does, however, name several other supposed Wagnerian rock artists. Some of these artists have recorded concept albums, but for the most part their work consists of songs that are not part of any larger dramatic work. CKarnstein (talk) 20:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Meatloaf, Phil Spector, and Liabach? How can they possibly belong to the same genre? And where does Wagner fit in? There may be some common aspects to their work, but their is a lot more that separates them. You don't create a genre by taking one artist then desperately other artists that vaguely fit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Declan (talk • contribs) 18:05, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

LAIBACH IS NOT ROCK MUSIC!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.63.231.145 (talk) 23:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Tagged for deletion

This is an original-research essay that gives no citation, let alone an authoritative one, that the subject matter is an established subgenre among critics, musicologists or anyone else. "A genre created by Jim Steinman"? Please. This article is rock-fan writing, it is not encyclopedic, and for the sake of retaining the Music Genre project's credibility, this needs to be removed. It's ridiculous. --24.215.162.198 (talk) 16:46, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Even as a fan of Jim Steinman, I don't think Wagnerian Rock is a genre. It is just a term that Steinman used to describe his music. That's why I added here a section about the ambiguous use of the word Wagnerian in rock writing. Probably not a good idea, getting rather irrelevant comments about if Laibach is rock or not. A better idea would have been an article about the word Wagnerian. There could be a section about rock music in that article and the article about Wagnerian rock could be made a part of it.Roope (talk) 14:30, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

This would certainly be a candidate for AfD as it stands and I cannot find sources that suggest this is anything more than an occasional adverb. I do have a slight concern that Wargnerian might be a very broad category. There is already a sub-section in Richard Wagner that refers to Stienmann's use of the term. Perhaps this should redirect to there and anything with valid sources could be added. This could then become a redirect to that sub-section.--SabreBD (talk) 15:10, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm no fan of the current state of the article. However, a Google Books search for "wagnerian rock" turns up the following:

• Billboard, Vol. 89, No. 49, Page 23, Nielsen Business Media, Inc., 10 Dec 1977

• The Penguin encyclopedia of popular music, Donald Clarke, Viking, 1989

• Time Magazine, Volume 138, Issues 18-26, Time Inc., 1991

• Rock & roll: an unruly history, Robert Palmer, Harmony Books, 1995

• Gramophone, Volume 75, General Gramophone Publications Ltd., 1998

• Hammer of the Gods, Stephen Davis, Berkley Pub Group, 2001

• Sound design & science fiction, William Brian Whittington, University of Texas Press, 2007

• Everybody Must Get Stoned, R. U. Sirius, Kensington Publishing Corporation, 2009

Sources without hyperlinks will need checking. AJRG (talk) 15:16, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Sources

This article may contain references to other bands apart from Steinman being described as Wagnerian rock, but none of these seems to meet the standards of WP:RS. With the exception of one paper source to which I do not have access, they are blogs, subscription only archives or dead-links. Normally I would delete these, but given that my "bold" attempt to make this article a redirect to Steinman's page was reverted (which is fair enough as saying something is bold is an invitation to revert if objected to) I thought I bring the point here and ask if editors can contribute alternative reliable sources. Given that most of the statements about Steinman are also unsourced or poorly sourced if we remove them all we do not have a lot left.--SabreBD (talk) 09:14, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Redirect

After years of waiting for this article to show any signifigance beyond a term Steinman invented for his own music and his own publicity, and since no has bothered to improve the article since Sabrebd had his redirect reversed on shaky grounds I have myself been bold and once again redirected this stub. 74.4.197.155 (talk) 06:55, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Further looking at the sources such as [1] the term Wagnerian Rock is not used. They simply use Wagnerian as an adjective [2] so people are really just creating a dictionary definition here and not referring at all to the term invented by Steinman. 74.4.197.155 (talk) 07:03, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Given that, and that no more sources have been added in some years, I think the redirect is fine.--SabreBD (talk) 07:22, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Notability issues

I have some serious concerns regarding the notability of this article. Frankly the sources provided are scarce, and it almost looks to be a dictionary term to me. I see that it was tagged for deletion four years ago, and frankly, the issues discussed there have not really been addressed. A comparison of the article from four years ago versus currently shows no significant improvement/expansion of the article's content. I do think Froglich had a point when they said that this is better than the redirect to Jim Steinman's page, since it doesn't even mention the term at all. IMO, I think it would better if this article were merged with that page, but I'm fine with any other suggestions. Does anyone else have a good idea of how to deal with this? Johnny338 (talk) 02:09, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

<Joker>"Serious? Why so serious?"</Joker> This article has been sitting here quietly doing its job informing readers who link-click "Wagnerian Rock" in other articles (when, as mentioned in the resurrection comment, the Steinman page doesn't). It may be an obscure term -- but that's exactly what encyclopedias are for. IMO it's less obscure than Jim Steinman is, however; and in general I don't think it's a good idea to redirect coined terms to their creators if it looks like said term will outlast them.--Froglich (talk) 04:46, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not saying we should go back to the redirect. As you pointed out, that would be dumb since Steinman's page doesn't even mention the term. And I agree that this article would be helpful of informing people about Wagnerian rock, but the reason why I have some concerns is that it was tagged for deletion for years, then was deleted, resurrected, deleted again, and resurrected again over concerns that there were few sources available. As I pointed out above, the article has changed little since then, and I'm concerned that the question of notability is still up in the air. I suppose I'd accept keeping this article, but it is in poor shape and doesn't look as if it has much potential for improvement. A redirect wouldn't be very helpful, I concur, because the term isn't mentioned at all. Creating a section on Steinman's page about this term may be useful, although it has been applied to artists outside of his work. It would appear we have three options: keep it as is, redirect it once again, or merge the content to Steinman's page. I'm fine if everyone else decides to keep it, but I'm just concerned about the current state of the article, that's all. Johnny338 (talk) 15:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I pretty much share that position. There is probably just enough here for notability, but it is impossible to greatly improve the article. Also the definition does not make sense: Steinmen's music is neither Phil Spector type rock and roll or much like Wagner. it is actually just rather overblown rock music.--SabreBD (talk) 16:39, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. The definition is confusing. Unfortunately, I only have access to the source on Rammstein, so I can't check the other sources to verify what they say, but they don't seem to be helping that much. They seem to instead muddy up the definition and make it confusing. Of course, it probably wouldn't be wise to remove them, because this article needs all the sources it can get. It is definitely a dilemma. I've brought this to the attention of a few other users. Maybe they can bring some thoughts to this discussion to see what (if anything) can be done about this article and its definition. Johnny338 (talk) 18:01, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

"it is impossible to greatly improve the article..." -- How do you figure that? Google the term and go reference-hunting.--Froglich (talk) 20:03, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I did.--SabreBD (talk) 20:26, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I've tightened the article up and fixed the grammar issues (at some point, somebody didn't know the difference between commas and semi-colons, etc). With five references and the term used (if sparingly at present) in the "Genre" infoboxes of various artists, I'm inclined to boldly remove the notability tag, but will let it sit for awhile for other comments.--Froglich (talk) 04:53, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Removed tag after no further comment.--Froglich (talk) 16:27, 27 June 2014 (UTC)