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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:Ian Rose 10:13, 8 February 2013‎ [1].

Homework (Daft Punk album)

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Homework (Daft Punk album) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): — ΛΧΣ21 03:39, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Homework is the debut studio album released by French electronic music duo Daft Punk in January 20, 1997. Considered a blend of house, techno, acid, funk and occasionally hip-hop, its success brought worldwide attention to French progressive house music and incited interest in French touch music, as several touch artists gained influence from Homework's style. According to The Village Voice, the album revived house music and broke free from the "Eurodance formula". — ΛΧΣ21 03:39, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comments – just taking a brief look; no plans on opposing or supporting right now.

Comments from Cassianto

Not all bad, but certainly not there in terms of featured content. I note that a peer review was not conducted before FAC and would recommend this before coming here in future. A lot of what I have noted could have been avoided with a good peer review. There maybe a lot here, so you may wish to pull its FAC and initiate a peer review before resubmission. Then again, you may not. Either way, here is my review:

Lead *"Considered a blend of house, techno, acid, funk and occasionally hip hop, its success brought worldwide attention to French progressive house music and incited interest in French touch music, as several touch artists gained influence from Homework's style." --> seems a bit long and could do with being broken up to prevent breathlessness ;)

  • "Critically and commercially acclaimed, <---BY WHO---> Homework was considered to be one of the best electronic albums of the decade, as well as "the foundation" of the "French touch" movement, although Darren Gawle from Drop-D Magazine called its content as"amateurish".
  • You keep saying "Commercially successful and critically acclaimed, but it might be good to see evidence of this with a show of album sales, chart position etc.
Recording history

*"Daft Punk returned to the studio in May 1995 to record "Da Funk", and the same year, it was released alongside "Rollin' & Scratchin'" as singles under the Soma label." --> "Daft Punk returned to the studio in May 1995 to record "Da Funk" which was released later that year alongside "Rollin' & Scratchin'" under the Soma label."

  • "The ensuing popularity of Daft Punk's singles led to a bidding war among record labels, which resulted in the duo signing to Virgin Records in 1996." --> We see no evidence of the "ensuing popularity" up until this point. If the singles which are mentioned in the first paragraph were successful, then you will need to say so and provide a ref.
  • Their departure was noted by Richard Brown of Soma, who stated that "We were obviously sad to lose them to Virgin but they had the chance to go big, which they wanted, and it's not very often that a band has that chance after two singles. We're happy for them." -- Sounds like an admission to me rather than a stated comment.
  • "Bangalter later stated that the B-side "was never intended to be on the album, and in fact, 'Da Funk' as a single has sold more units than Homework, so more people own it anyways than they would if it had been on the album. It is basically used to make the single a double-feature." Does he say "anyways"? If so, use a [sic] to show the mistake is intentional.
  • WP:OVERLINK to Paris. I'm sure most would know where Paris is.
  • OVERLINK to Mastering as it directs to the same article as "mastered" in the previous paragraph.
  • Could you briefly describe who Slam are? I have no idea who they are and I had to click off the article to find this information out. Not good when you want to retain the reader. Perhaps say; " In 1993 Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo presented a demo of their own electronic music to DJ Stuart Macmillan at a rave in EuroDisney."
  • "Virgin re-released "Da Funk" with the B-side "Musique" in 1996, before releasing Homework." - When, the same year? A year later?
  • "The album was mixed and recorded in their own studio, Daft House in Paris, France." Do we need to be told Paris is in France?
Structure

*"Homework is considered to be a blend of house, techno, acid, funk and occasionally hip hop." -- by who?

  • "The following track, "WDPK 83.7 FM" is considered a tribute to FM radio in the United States." -- by who?
  • Why the link to the French government? This is self explanatory isn't it?
  • "It is immediately followed by "Da Funk", which is considered to carry elements of funk and acid music." -- by who? If no one, then consider rewording to: "It is immediately followed by "Da Funk", which carries elements of funk and acid music." Either it does or it doesn't.
  • "The song "Fresh" is stated to be breezy and light, and the duo consider its structure to be comical." -- who "stated" this? Where is this "stated"?
  • "Michel Gondry likewise compared the track's bassline to that of "Good Times" by Chic." -- Likewise? Like who?
  • ""Around the World" and "Da Funk" have been named among the best songs of their time." -- by who?
  • WP:OVERLINK to Soma Recordings. Also, the correct name should be given to avoid confusion; in this instance "Soma Quality Recordings". If not, be consistent with which name you use, and only link once.
  • "Daftendirekt" is an excerpt of a live performance recorded at the first I Love Techno Party in Ghent." Not many people will know where Ghent is so you could mention it is in Belgium.
  • "The song sampled a previous track, 'Musique.'" - Too stubby. Could you either elaborate on this, or merge it into a fuller sentence?
  • "to communicate its message of dumb fun." - who said this because your using inverts?
  • Who is Michel Gondry? -- again, I'm clicking the link to find out.
Singles

*"Homework featured singles..." -- why the past tense?

  • number-one single -- no hyphen
  • WP:OVERLINK to United Kingdom and France. Everyday English words that are expected to be understood in the general context, should not be linked
  • OVERLINK to "Da Funk"
  • "Revolution 909" should be linked on its first mention
Commercial performance
  • "Upon its release in 1997, overwhelming sales of Homework caused distributors to accelerate production and satisfy demand." -- Did the distributors accelerate production to satisfy demand, or was this a separate goal, in which case the "and" would be correct.
  • "The album appeared in 35 countries throughout the world and sold over two million copies in a few months after it release." -- this kind of information should really be mentioned in the lede.
  • "The album peaked at number 150 on the Billboard 200.[40] Homework first charted on the Australian Albums Chart on April 27, 1997, appearing a total eight weeks and peaking at number 37." -- and this.
  • In fact, most of the rest of this section could do with a mention within the lede.
  • "The fourth single was "Burnin'", released on September 1997" - on or in?
  • "The fifth and final single released from Homework was "Revolution 909", on February 1998." - In the interests of copy editing, I think we could get away with saying "The final single released from Homework was "Revolution 909", on February 1998."
  • Check the last paragraph; it is usual to finish with a citation. Can one be found?
  • "Homework first charted on the Australian Albums Chart on April 27, 1997, appearing a total eight weeks and peaking at number 37." -- doesn't read right. May I suggest ending it with"...appearing over an eight week period and peaking at number 37."
  • Homework was certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry, for more than 100,000 copies sold. -- reads better by saying Homework was certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry, for selling over 100,000 copies.
  • " In 1999, it was certified Gold in France for 100,000 copies sold." -- again here.
Critical response

*And it proved to many club-goers that there was more to dance music than pills and keyboard presets." -- why are you starting the sentence with a conjunction? Does the period exist in the original quote?

Track listing
  • WP:OVERLINK to Thomas Bangalter & Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and the tracks.
  • Homework's success brought worldwide attention to French progressive house music and incited interest in French touch music, as several touch artists gained influence from its style. -- Could you give an example?
  • Be careful in over quoting
Personnel
  • Again here. Also, I find that this information would be better suited in prose form within the first sections of the article.

To sum up, far, far off from being featured content in my opinion, but not impossible to make so. There is a gross amount of overlinking, prose is a bit dodgy in places, quite a lot of missing authors of "considered it to be" and "is considred" etc and a need to swap a few "stated" for other descriptive words, such as "claimed", "confirmed", "said", "wrote", "described" etc. No rush for fixes, but if these comments are going to take too much time, then I would reconsider FAC until a peer review has been completed. If you choose to do this, I will happily move all this to there and take part. -- CassiantoTalk 21:52, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hey. Thanks for your lenghty and detailed comments. I have fixed all but one, the "ensuing popularity" one. If you have more comments, I'd be glad to fix them ASAP. Regards. — ΛΧΣ21 22:44, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wow! Please excuse my preemptive and quite frankly defeatist attitude. Most would have run a mile at the length of this review and emerged over the hills at peer review; kudos for your resilience and double quick responses. I will check over again and report back at the next opportunity. -- CassiantoTalk 22:57, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

*Still getting links appear on the second or third mention. I have done a couple but you will need to go through and secure the rest.

  • Check for single linking to "The New Wave"
  • Check for the correct amount of inverted commas when speaking of the single "Burnin'". Also check that this is not linked on the second usage. -- CassiantoTalk 07:26, 23 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • All done. My only two gripes now are the lede, which now appears a little too short and could be extended to three paragraphs,and the rather redundent "Personnel" section. This would benefit from being incorporated into the main text, possibly within the "structure" section (with a mention in the extended lede).
    • I am very lazy to expand the lead. I consider that it crafts the information very well, and I don't like odd-numbered leads :) Anyways, I will see what I can do. If it needs expansion, so be it :)

::*Yes, it does touch upon much of the information, but there is no mention of who the "duo" is (maybe introduce them by name within the lede somewhere near the top). If you could add at least this, I would be happy enough to strike this comment.

    • I don't find the personnel section redundant. I mean, this section is standard in album articles, AFAIK. I know that, as the duo is the only notable workers of the album, it may look as redundant, but I consider the opposite. I will leave it there for now :)
  • I disagree. I don't really review music or album articles, so I'm not sure of the correct layout. I feel it is poorly situated and aesthetically uneasy on the eye. I would prefer an earlier mention within the "Structure" section. I would be interested in what others think.

*I'm no good with graphs and tables etc and have had to seek help with my two FL's. I do find the ugly white space under the smaller table an eyesore. I don't suppose there is anything we can do about that though. Check the tables against WP:ACCESS and you can't go to wrong in my opinion.

*Support - per resolved comments above and the confirmation Penguin has given in relation to the tables. -- CassiantoTalk 09:59, 27 December 2012 (UTC) Still no resolution to the "Personnel" section which could be the straw that broke the camels back. Also, it is clear that there are still a number of prose issues, some of which slipped past me during my initial review above. I'm not opposing right now, but I feel I can't support either at the moment, pending improvement and the deletion of the pointless Personnel section. I will be staying Neutral for the time being and revisit it a week or two. -- CassiantoTalk 16:44, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - The article is now tip-top thanks to Mark's cute copyediting skills. As far as I can see all issues raised have now been fixed and I am happy to supports its promotion. -- CassiantoTalk 09:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning towards oppose – still needs a bit more work w.r.t. prose, sources and media. Read halfway into the article:

  • The prose is still a little fluffy. For example: "The duo commented that they had produced the series of tracks without an initial plan [plans] to release an album."
  • More: "However, after working on several projects that were intended to be separate singles over five months, the duo considered the material to be good enough to make [for] an album."
  • Unclear: "...Homework appeared in 35 countries throughout the world..." – I understand what you're saying, but "appeared in x countries" is not clear.
  • When identifying a greater quantity than the given figure, "more than" is nicer than "over".
  • More redundancy: "...and was considered to be the foundation of the French touch movement."
  • Unclear and a bit muddy: "The album features singles that had significant impact in the French house and global dance music scenes." (I have reread this and understood it now)
  • Compound adjectives like "number one" here need to be hyphenated: "These include the US Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play number one singles 'Da Funk' and 'Around the World', the latter of which reached number 68 on the Billboard Hot 100."
  • Unpleasant fused participle: "...which resulted in the duo signing to Virgin Records in 1996."
  • Still redundancy, no need for "own": "The album was mixed and recorded in their own studio..."
  • More: "the duo remain the owners of their master recordings through the Daft Trax label." – "remain the owners of" → "still own".
  • "a series of" is often too wordy, like here: "At first, Daft Punk produced a series of tracks without a plan to release an album."
  • "[more listenable]" seems unnecessary.
  • Better in active voice than passive: "'Daftendirekt' was sampled by Janet Jackson on her song "So Much Betta", which was included in her tenth studio album, Discipline in 2008." – so something like "Janet Jackson sampled 'Daftendirekt' on her song "So Much Betta", which was included in her tenth studio album, Discipline in 2008."
  • What makes WhoSampled and Sputnikmusic high quality reliable sources?
  • Why did you use the audio samples? They're non-free and need specific well explained captions and rationales for use. Audio samples are used to illustrate the sound of a song.

This is a very well done contribution, but needs some work before it can be crisp and considered as one of Wikipedia's best. I'm willing to go further down the article once I'm happy with the upper half. Cheers. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 15:59, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I finally convinced Mark Arsten to give it a copyedit. WhoSampled is not much reliable, I thought I have removed it. Sputnikmusic is a high quality music site, very reliable. Each review undergoes editorial oversight and is written by a proffesional set of staff writers. I see no issue there. I will expand the captions and raionales of the samples. Thanks. — ΛΧΣ21 18:26, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. Sputnikmusic is generally not a high quality source since it is a mixture of user contributors and staff reviewers. Your review in particular is by an emeritus, so I guess that would be like a former staff reviewer. Not sure. I'll look into it a bit more. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 19:17, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. Care must be taken when using Sputnikmusic. Captions have been expanded and WhoSampled is removed. I will take care of the rationales later. — ΛΧΣ21 19:46, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. Mark Arsten has finished copyediting the article. I think that this solved any prose issues left. — ΛΧΣ21 03:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The prose has improved, but all my points have not been addressed yet. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 19:17, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Now they have, I guess. — ΛΧΣ21 16:52, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have revisited and struck through whichever points have been addressed. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 17:12, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed the rest I guess. Some of the ones you didn't srtuck were already solved by Mark when he copyedited (I am unable to find them) — ΛΧΣ21 17:18, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Have revisited again. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 19:19, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. Got the ones left. I think that the FURs are well done. I don't know how to expand them further. — ΛΧΣ21 19:39, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This and this have generic rationales and do not explain how that audio sample in particular is useful to the article. Discuss the songs in question. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 22:07, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm. Let me see that I can do. I didn't see this comment before. — ΛΧΣ21 03:12, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I have expanded the rationales. Take a look at them and tell e if they are okay. — ΛΧΣ21 03:21, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that looks a lot better! Just one more issue above re. "remain the owners of". —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 03:35, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed! :) Regards. — ΛΧΣ21 03:39, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My comments have been addressed and I've withdrawn my oppose. If I have time, I'll look at the article again sometime later. Best, —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 19:30, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment media (done GermanJoe (talk) 15:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC))[reply]

Comments from SandyGeorgia

[edit]

Not yet:

  1. Inconsistent citation format, authors have some first name last name, others last name, first name. Some pages are p. with a space, others are p. without a space before the page number.
    I think I took care of this. Will check again soon.
    I fixed multiple stragglers: [2] why is the book source listed under "Notes"? It isn't a Note-- it's either Bibliography, or Sources, or something else. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:38, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I will do another scan tomorrow night, as I won't be available all day I guess. I changed the header to Bibliography. Regards. — ΛΧΣ21 05:27, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Reliability check needed ... for example, http://www.westnet.com/
    Will check again.
    I don't know about Westnet, but Bob Gajarsky seems to be a recognized journalist and this makes this information, written by him, reliable enough for FA status. — ΛΧΣ21 00:47, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, digging a bit furhter, WestNet is only hosting the issues of Comsumable Online (old archive from 1997 using Archive.org), "the oldest music reviews publication on the Internet, consists of reviews, interviews, tour information and other music related information." The magazine closed on August 1, 2000, and then all issues went to WestNet, which was the web service provider of the magazine.[3] Bob Gajarsky was the editor in chief and founder of the magazine.[4] The primary source says that the magazine was referred to by NetGuide as the "no-frills alternative music authority" (here is the issue, although not preview is available). I managed to find this, this and this by now. I guess this is enough to prove it is reliable. — ΛΧΣ21 01:03, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    (Without knowing all of that, it looked like a copyright violation, which we shouldn't link to). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:38, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Logical quotation (MOS:LQ_ review needed, samples: He contended that it proved "there was more to dance music than pills and keyboard presets." and ... into the record in a way that was "a groundbreaking achievement."
    Will take care of this this weekend. I am way too busy in weekdays.
    LQ check still needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:38, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I already did this. — ΛΧΣ21 17:46, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  4. WP:ITALICS review needed, I saw for example Slant Magazine and Stylus Magazine ... are those available in hard print or are they websites? If they are available in hard print, they should be italicized ... pls review throughout.
    Indeed, they are not published on paper. Will fix ASAP.
    If they are not published on paper, they don't need italics. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:38, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I have done this too. — ΛΧΣ21 17:46, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Redundant prose? " ... Ian Mathers of Stylus Magazine, in his review of the album, noted that ... please review throughout.
    Hmm I got a very good copyeditor so I don't know what to do. I will read and remove all redundancies I get.
    Now the sentence has a grammatical error:
  6. I don't know what some of this means:
    It also sparked interest in French touch music, and several touch artists gained influence from its style. According to The Village Voice, the album revived house music and broke free from the Eurodance formula.
    "Gained influence"? the album broke free from the Eurodance formula? Please review throughout to make sure the prose is understandable to someone who isn't familiar with the topic.
    Well, I am not familiar with the topic as a whole and I got the meaning of it. I will take a look again. Thanks. — ΛΧΣ21 03:41, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I hadn't read Sandy's comments before looking at the lead but exactly the same phase stood out for me. I've never heard the expression "gained influence from" before -- I assume you mean "gained inspiration from" or, preferably, "took inspiration from" or simply "were influenced by". BTW, I'm happy generally with "broke free from the Eurodance formula" but I think standard English would be "broke free of", not "broke free from". Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:17, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Wow, I forgot that it was also written on the lead. I have fixed the phrase by now. Thanks. — ΛΧΣ21 15:36, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:37, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I'm going to give this a look over sometime soon. At first glance, I'd reduce the dependence on liner notes (a primary source) as much as possible. Find suitable secondary sources to back up the same information (or at least the important portions worth keeping). WesleyDodds (talk) 04:19, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Upon a brief glance, I see Discogs still used as a ref in the article, twice. And though this doesn't necessarily mean such coverage exisst, but looking through the footnotes I notice many of the more noteworthy music publications are absent. Are you sure there's nothing to be found about the album from articles published by Rolling Stone, Spin, NME, Melody Maker, The Wire, Q, and Uncut, just to name a few? A quick search using Google Books turned up useful magazine articles from CMJ and Billboard (the latter of which crucially provides a SoundScan sales figure for the record). WesleyDodds (talk) 10:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, well, I havent checked for new info for a long time. I will try to check tonight to add anything I could have missed. — ΛΧΣ21 19:00, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, taking a look at those links you added, they only were useful for commercial data. I didn't find anything worthy to be added that wasn't already explained on the article. When I expanded the reception section, I tried to be as comprehensive as possible, so I don't think I have missed anything. Anyways, I will do a check just in case. Regards. — ΛΧΣ21 04:10, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wesley, this nom has been open quite some time and at this stage we appear to have consensus to promote, so if you want to review further I'd ask that you do so posthaste... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:08, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments – After a quick look, I found Ref 42 to be dead [5]. Also, in the lead you specify that the album appeared on 35 national charts, however there are only 14 in the charts section. Are other country chart positions unavailable? I also noted that in the critical performance section, you include only five reviews in the table. Why is Rolling Stone or The Village Voice not included in the table? — DivaKnockouts (talk) 20:58, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed the reference now. Replaced "35 national charts" with "14 national charts" after checking the source (it said distributed in 35 countries, which is not the same as appeared on 35 national charts). About the magazines, I have no idea why they aren't showing because they are on the table :/ I have fixed the issue and now they appear. I can't add The Village Voice because they offered no score. Regards. — ΛΧΣ21 21:41, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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