Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Your Girl/archive1

Your Girl

Featured article candidates/Your Girl/archive1

Nominator(s): Heartfox (talk) 19:04, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is a short article about a somewhat obscure 2005 song by Mariah Carey. I believe it meets the criteria. Pinging Sammi Brie who kindly reviewed it for GA, if they wish to comment. Thanks to all, Heartfox (talk) 19:04, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Gog the Mild

Recusing to review.

Any reason why "extended play" is not linked?
Linked
"It incorporates the same acoustic guitar ..." I don't get this, the same guitar as what?
Changed to "It incorporates the acoustic guitar from 'A Life with You'"

Ah! Light bulb! You mean "It incorporates the acoustic guitar music as in 'A Life with You'". Er, yes?

"it is a derivative of the Motown sound." I am not sure that is grammatical. Maybe 'it is a derived from the Motown sound' or similar?
Changed to "derived from the Motown sound"
"for her Las Vegas concert residency". Minor point: why "for"? 'at' or 'as part of' may flow better.
Changed to "at"

A nice little article. But my big gripe is:

The mentions of belting in both the lead and the article jar. "She uses belting as part of her vocal performance." The sentences just sit there, like factoids in a bullet list, unconnected to the sentences before and after. What is belting? Why does Carey use it? What do the critics think of her using it? How well or badly does Carey use it, or is considered to use it? What, if anything, does it add to the composition? There must be something you can say about it.
Tried to make more clear by connecting her use of belting with the direct nature of the song. Added a note describing belting.

Gog the Mild (talk) 19:51, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments, Heartfox (talk) 17:21, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just when I was about to sign off on this I realised that you now arguably have more information on belting in the lead than in the main article. And why put the description of belting into a footnote? This means that a reader can only understand the part of the sentence after the semi colon if they have diverted via the footnote. And even then you haven't explicitly stated the link (as you do in the lead). Gog the Mild (talk) 17:32, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think I got it: "The lyrics are about Carey confidently addressing a prospective lover. She uses belting, a "brassy, full-throated sound" common in musical theatre, to project this in her singing." Heartfox (talk) 17:40, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds great. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:04, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

"She wrote the track with Marc Shemer, who also produced it with her, as Scram Jones" => She wrote the track with Marc Shemer, who also produced it with her under the name Scram Jones" (current wording could be taken to imply that Scram Jones was a joint pseudonym for both of them)
Agreed
I can't actually see a source in the article to confirm that Shemer and Jones are the same person
I added a newspaper article that says "Marc Shemer, a k a Scram Jones, is a hip-hop artist/rapper and DJ from New Rochelle, N.Y. ..."
That's it, I think! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:55, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@ChrisTheDude: Thanks! Heartfox (talk) 19:03, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:30, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

UC

I enjoyed reading this one: in places, it feels a little thin, as if being excessively parsimonious about which pieces of information it passes on to the reader. I particularly felt this in the "Reception" section. More specific nit-picks below:

In reviews, music critics compared Carey's vocals to their state in the 1990s.: It feels as if we're burying the important thing here: it seems from the body text that they generally thought the comparison was unfavourable, though admittedly there's not a whole lot of data points to go on down there.
Changed sentence to "Some critics viewed "Your Girl" as one of the best tracks on The Emancipation of Mimi and others criticized her vocals."
She uses belting as part of her vocal performance, which aligns with her upfront delivery: I admit to complete ignorance on the musical side here, but I have no idea how these two clauses would follow from each other (or, honestly, what "upfront delivery" is).
Changed to "The lyrics of "Your Girl" are about Carey confidently approaching a potential lover. She uses belting as part of her vocal performance to evoke this sentiment in her singing."
Critics described the music as containing disco, gospel, jazz, pop, and soul influences: do we need to hedge this behind the critics -- can we just say "the music is influenced by..."?
Changed to "The music contains"
Some viewed "Your Girl" as one of the best tracks on The Emancipation of Mimi. : as further up, this seems like a slightly misleading thing to put in the lead as the only real judgement on the song's quality, since it seems that some viewed it as pretty ropey.
Changed sentence to "Some critics viewed "Your Girl" as one of the best tracks on The Emancipation of Mimi and others criticized her vocals."
She performed the song live: suggest She has performed..., which implies that she might perform it again, as opposed to the current phrasing, which implies that she won't.
Changed to "she has performed"
For its follow-up, The Emancipation of Mimi (2005), she intended to displace overwrought ballads with more simplistic and authentic compositions: what does displace mean here? Are we talking about her changing her own musical style, or pushing others' ballads out of the market? Minor NPOV concerns on "overwrought", which is a loaded (negative) description, and "simplistic", which means "dumbed-down": I think "simple" was intended?
Changed to "she intended to move on from singing elaborate ballads and instead create more simple and authentic compositions"
I am inherently pretty wary of these kind of retrospective statements from creative people as to their intentions: they're inherently unverifiable, since we can never know what someone was thinking, and there are clear vested interests at play (with a few noble and notable exceptions, no artist is going to say "I wrote it like that because I thought it would sell more records and make me a whole load of money".) It's wiser, I think, to couch them as reported statements: for example, "in a 2020 interview, Carey said that she had intended...", which is absolutely verifiable. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:47, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Prefaced by starting the sentence with "According to her,"
- A small thing, but advise "simpler": as written, it's unclear whether more modifies simple or compositions. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 18:44, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@UndercoverClassicist: Thanks, done. Heartfox (talk) 19:17, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Retrospectively, Entertainment Weekly writer Michael Slezak attributed its lack of radio airplay to the number of other worthy tracks on The Emancipation of Mimi: perhaps this belongs in the Reception section, but it might be relevant to say which songs were considered more worthy?
The author doesn't specifically mention any, only: "It says something about the depth of Carey’s latest disc that this lovely little ditty hasn’t yet made it to radio"
Chris Gardner of The Hollywood Reporter described the song as a deep cut: similar to the bullet point above. Any idea what led him to say this?
Added to the sentence: "described the song as a deep cut on the album in contrast to the commercially successful "We Belong Together", "Shake It Off", and "Say Somethin'""
"Your Girl" was later promoted as part of the #MC30 campaign marking three decades of Carey's career: when was this?
The sentence introduces the date in the next sentence "On January 29, 2021". There is also a link to MC30. I could add another ref to support "2020–2021 #MC30 campaign" but I feel that might be excessive.
Indeed: it's the next sentence, so doesn't imply that the two happened at the same time. Compare: The United States fought a war of independence against Great Britain. Last week, the King visited the White House. That's a perfectly coherent statement of the same construction, but no reader would take away the implication that the War of Independence happened last week. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:47, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to ""Your Girl" was later promoted as part of the #MC30 campaign marking three decades of Carey's career in 2021. On January 29 that year, she issued an extended play..."
All work occurred at various locations in New York City.: what does work mean in this context?
Changed to "The production process occurred at various locations in New York City"
Pat "Pat 'Em Down" Viala: is "Pat 'Em Down" a stage name? Suggest Pat Viala (also known as "Pat 'Em Down") or similar: we wouldn't say Stefani "Lady Gaga" Germanotta.
He is credited as Pat "Pat 'Em Down" Viala in the liner notes, so that's what I used in the article.
It incorporates the acoustic guitar from "A Life with You": suggest the acoustic guitar part or similar, to be clear that we mean the musical track, rather than someone playing the same instrument.
Changed to "acoustic guitar part"
a party for the group's record label: might be worth making it absolutely clear that this is Adeaze, not Jones and his collaborators. Does this mean "the record label owned by Adeaze" or "the record label to which Adeaze are signed"?
Changed to "after performing at a party for Dawn Raid Entertainment, the record label to which Adeaze were signed."
The arranger and guitarist of "A Life with You", Dominique Leauga, alleged he was not credited for his contributions: seems like an odd phrasing -- surely it's easy enough to find out whether he was credited or not? Presumably, he means that he wasn't credited, but felt that he should have been. This might need a bit more explanation.
Changed to "was not credited for his contributions".
a "brassy, full-throated sound" common in musical theatre,: per WP:NFCC, quotes should be attributed inline, but I need some convincing that we need this one as a quotation (as opposed to a paraphrase) anyway.
Paraphrased as "full-throated technique common in musical theatre"
In The New York Times, Jon Pareles said she uses an impersonal delivery: I think wrote is better than said, as it's in print (but stated would be fine).
Changed to "stated"
The song is "innocent, yet still a bit grimy" according to Carey: comma after the quotation?
Added a comma after quotation
There's something a bit "off" about the reviews section to me. We have four named reviews -- three are local news, and one is a fairly small British online newspaper. Where are the big hitters? Is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, with its circulation of 48,000, really a major voice in music criticism?
I looked at over 90 album reviews of The Emancipation of Mimi, and this is what I could extrapolate. I would definitely prioritize citing major publications, but for whatever reason the song didn't receive much attention from them. The section is still a thorough and representative survey of the literature that exists.
I'm sure it is, but I think we could still do with giving the reader a bit more, rather than asking us to trust us. Out of all those 90 reviews, we seem to have four points of analysis: 1) her performance was confident; 2) her singing was good, because it was restrained; 3) her singing was bad, because it wasn't restrained; 4) her voice was "weaker", in some undefined way, than it had been before. It's a pretty dire comment on the music reviewing industry if that's the best that all ninety of them could do! Even then, if those views are widely held, we're doing a disservice by saying e.g. "Dave Tianen said...", if we really mean "Dave Tianen and another thirty-three reviewers said...". I would suggest both adding a few more names and fleshing out the points of praise and criticism a little more. It's a rather more complicated and studied piece of work, admittedly, but I think it would be illustrative to look at the relevant section in Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, a recently promoted song FA: that section does an excellent job of distilling a lot of reading while still giving the reader a sense of the scale of the writing about the song. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:47, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I added a sentence "Carey's vocals received largely negative reviews" to flesh out this theme more. Other than that I don't think there's more I can do. I would love for there to be more literature, but there isn't, and so I literally can't add more names to the section.
I'm a little confused as to how this chimes with I looked at over 90 album reviews of The Emancipation of Mimi. Did eighty-six of them not mention the song at all? There seem to be some useful unused analytical comments in the reviews that have already been used to say that the reviewer thinks the song is particularly good. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:40, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the vast majority of album reviews did not mention the song. I looked through the reviews again and didn't find anything new to add; if you can specify what are you are referring to that would be helpful. Heartfox (talk) 12:44, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, just from the ones in the article, we have:
"Carey comes off as confident and utterly carefree" (The Atlanta Constitution), which would seem to merit equal billing with the similar, if less poetic, comment from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

This is already cited supporting the sentence "Her presence received positive feedback from Marino and Kevin C. Johnson of St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who viewed her as exuding confidence" – is "who both viewed her as exuding confidence" clearer?
Ah, this is my misreading: I think it would be clearer with a from before "Kevin C. Johnson". As written, it sounds as if Marino is also of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Also agreed that adding "both" is necessary: at the moment, it looks as though who is just Johnson. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to "Her presence received positive feedback from both Marino and Kevin C. Johnson"
That doesn't fix the problem, I'm afraid. As above, would advise Her presence received positive feedback from Marino and from Kevin C. Johnson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who both viewed her as exuding confidence. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Added your suggestion

The chorus is an exercise in exhilaration that arrives in a high-registered delirium ... It’s a transcendent moment so bright it’s nearly blinding (Pitchfork): this is much better than the trivial amount of commentary we currently have on the chorus (that it's catchy, and sounds a bit like gospel).

Added the quote.

Billboard calls it a "fan favorite" as well as a deep cut, which gives the opposite impression to what we have currently said: as we've framed it, nobody really listens to it.

I don't really view this as encyclopedic. "Carey's fans like the song a lot" doesn't add much to the article. The link to "deep cut" at wiktionary already implies this with the listed definition: "Any obscure work, a thing likely to be recognized only by a connoisseur" (ie Carey fans).
It does, though we shouldn't force readers to follow links to understand important points about this article (MOS:NOFORCELINK). More to the point, that's the second, general definition: the first, specifically musical, definition reads An obscure song by a well known musician. As it stands, I think we've misrepresented Gardner's comments: our article implies that it is little known and largely unsuccessful; he says it is widely known and beloved among her fans, of whom there are quite a few. If readers have to navigate to a new page and pick the right definition out of three to get our point, we need to make it more clearly in the first place. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Gardner doesn't say at all that "it is widely known and beloved among her fans". The quote is "Alongside The Emancipation of Mimi’s biggest hits like “We Belong Together,” “Shake it Off” and “Say Something,” Carey also performed “deep cuts” like the fan favorite “Circles,” a track that she said she wrote with “the late, great Big Jim White,” and “Your Girl.”"

Added a sentence about fan favorite: "According to Billboard, "Your Girl" is a favorite song among Carey's fans."
As you say, I'd named the wrong reviewer (it was Rowley in Billboard), but we seem to have ended up in the right place regardless. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The rather unkind Independent review goes into much more detail as to the reviewer's problems with the music, particularly lyrical unoriginality and what he sees as lazy production, when talking about the album as a whole.

I would never cite general comments about an album as a whole as relating to a song when the song is not explicitly mentioned. This leans too much into synthesis and the reviewer's opinion is more relevant for the album article.
If a reviewer is writing about all of the songs on the album, as here, those comments also apply to the individual songs. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They may, but I think it's still undue weight to apply that to every song article when it is in the context of the album and a song article should be focused on reception where the song is actually explicitly mentioned. If a critic said "All of Carey's songs are boring" are we supposed to consider adding that to every song article? No, it's more pertinent in the main biography. It's dangerous and disingenuous to present these broader sentiments as about a specific song. Doing more of this would open a can of worms and introduce so much synthesis. It's just lazy, malpractice to rely on broad statements about an album and apply them to individual songs. We don't know if a critic would say the same thing if they were only reviewing one song. That the album "contains not one nanosecond of original thought, elevating lyric, nor interesting music" does not mean the author singled out this song as such and I don't feel comfortable presenting things like that. This is more relevant for the album article.
If the review says that the album contains "not one nanosecond" of those things, they are saying that this song contains none of them. This is a fairly minor point overall, but in this case the reviewer has gone out of their way to say that their comments apply every one of the songs in question. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As the song is not explicitly mentioned, I do not believe this critique is notable for inclusion in the song article. This would create a precedent that would require going back to all of the album reviews and seeing where stuff like "Carey's voice sounds good on the album" and "Carey's voice sounds bad on the album" comes up. Adding these types of vague responses about the album as a whole to every song article is inappropriate when there is no specific song mentioned and would duplicate the album's critical reception section where it is far more relevant to place. This proposal would give undue weight to reviewers who either loved or hated the album as ones in the middle would be unable to make sweeping statements about every song like The Independent.

I could only access one review in addition to those, and that's four quite big bit bits of useful additional context from five sources. That doesn't give me much confidence that there's nothing at all to be gained from any of the other eighty-five. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:05, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's usually spelled a cappella: any reason for the single p?
The source used the single "p" – I don't really care either way
The double p is "correct" (it's Italian for "from the chapel", and the Italian for "chapel" is cappella: the single-p spelling is a mistake so common that it's sometimes accepted as a variant, though I don't think any significant publication prefers it. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:47, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to double p
In 2005, Slezak listed "Your Girl" among the 10 best songs of her career. Escobedo Shepherd considered it one of Carey's top 20 tracks in a 2007 Vibe article. Billboard ranked it at number 38 on their 2020 list of Carey's 100 greatest songs: there may not be much you can do about this, but the shifting dates create a comparability problem here: presumably Carey has written a lot of songs in the past 20 years, so being in the top 40 in 2020 might well be more impressive than being in the two 10 in 2005?
I think moving chronologically flows fine.
The direction of travel is not the problem; the problem is that there's an important piece of missing context to these numbers (the increasing scale of Carey's discography). However, as I said, that might not be a problem we can fix here. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 21:47, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As ever, I hope this is helpful, and please do counter-quibble where it's warranted. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:12, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@UndercoverClassicist: Thank you for the helpful comments, I have replied above. Heartfox (talk) 18:22, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi UC, just checking if you had anything to add following Heartfox's latest changes. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:21, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I do: the article has definitely moved forward, but I think my overall impression is still much the same. Some broad-brush things that stick out and keep me, at the moment, from moving to support:

The prose is generally a bit "choppy" -- it moves from idea to idea, or critic to critic, quickly, but I don't have much sense of coherence within paragraphs or sections.

Every paragraph has a topic sentence and a theme. Multiple opinions may be combined in the same paragraph, but the paragraph is still focused on a theme. And these paragraphs aren't long at all so I don't think the organization is unreasonable. I can understand that some areas might feel short, but this is may just be a product of the literature available rather than the intent of the article's organization. To be fair, there is use of commas and "and" for similar statements and semicolons for flow and stuff. Not every sentence is just 1 critic and then a period.

I think there are technical problems with putting citations in subheadings, though I'm struggling to find the precise bit of guidance.

This was requested in the source review. I think because the bolded pseudo-headings are not actually headings, there aren't any technical problems introduced as outlined in MOS:HEADINGS

Perhaps, but bolded pseudo-headings are themselves a problem under MOS:ACCESS. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:29, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the pseudo-headings. Heartfox (talk) 18:00, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still not sure we quite have the depth in places: for instance, we talk about an explanation for the song's lack of radio airplay, but don't really establish that it had a lack of airplay beforehand. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:30, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Moved this to the second paragraph: ""Your Girl" did not receive significant airplay from radio stations. Entertainment Weekly writer Michael Slezak attributed this to the number of other worthy tracks on The Emancipation of Mimi." Heartfox (talk) 08:45, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi UC, how is this one going? Gog the Mild (talk) 13:11, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As before. Replies have been made above, but I don't see substantial changes other than on the subheading citations. I'm not going to oppose or stand in the way of promotion if other editors think it meets the FA standards, but I don't think I can endorse it on prose either. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:00, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Aoba47

I have a comment on this sentence from the lead: (Carey later released two remixes featuring rappers Cam'ron, Juelz Santana, and N.O.R.E as part of a digital extended play.) I think that it would be beneficial to clarify the year that the EP was released as "later" is rather vague.
Added the year: "as part of a 2021 digital extended play"
I think more context could be added to the part on Glitter as it seems to gloss over the reasons for Carey leaving Island Def Jam. I can understand the rationale against it as this song is not about Glitter, but I still believe it would be beneficial to have a brief part to provide further context to readers. I was thinking of something along the lines of "Following the critical and commercial disappointments of her album Glitter (2001)". The Pitchfork citation used in this sentence would already support this addition as it describes Glitter as a "commercial flop reviled by critics". Again, just something really brief would help.
Added this context as suggested

I hope this review is helpful. The article is in great shape, and I just have two nitpick-y comments. I always enjoy reading your articles. I have been listening to Charmbracelet lately so I thought it would be nice to review a Mariah-related article. Best of luck with the FAC! Aoba47 (talk) 23:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aoba47: Thank you for the review! Heartfox (talk) 02:39, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for addressing everything. I support this FAC for promotion. I hope you are having a great weekend so far. Aoba47 (talk) 14:31, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source and image review

I presume that File:Mariah Carey Your Girl Sample.ogg is representative of the song's themes or style or whatever? I notice that the two files don't use the same formatting for their source/origination. Does the ogg file have an ALT text or equivalent? Source formatting seems consistent. "Carey's vocals received largely negative reviews" is currently attached to Abbott 2005, which does not support it as we can't extrapolate from just one review. I wonder which logic is used for applying webarchive, newspapers.com and ProQuest links and their formatting. In the credits and personnel section, do the references support just the bullet point they are attached to, or the entire (sub)section? In the latter case, you should put them in the (sub)header or after each bullet. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:05, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"I presume that File:Mariah Carey Your Girl Sample.ogg is representative of the song's themes or style or whatever?" → Yes this is mentioned in the NFUR: "The section of the music used is discussed in the article in relation to the song (belting vocal style, background vocals, composition, lyrics) which received critical commentary and are mentioned in adjacent text. The sample includes the final words of the chorus which includes the song title "Your Girl" and thus helps readers understand the major theme of the song and connects the title with the lyrics and sound."
"Does the ogg file have an ALT text or equivalent?" → Alt text for Template:Listen is only when there is an image. I didn't bother adding the lyrics as the sample is only 12 seconds and 2 lines long.
"Carey's vocals received largely negative reviews" → This is meant as a summary of the following two sentences in which 3 opinions are negative and 1 is positive. Added the sfns to the summary sentence to avoid confusion.
"I wonder which logic is used for applying webarchive, newspapers.com and ProQuest links and their formatting" → Generally everything that can be found freely online uses the publication's URL while resources only available on databases like Newspapers.com and ProQuest have links to those. All archive URLs that show the full text are given, as archiving a ProQuest page with no text is not helpful.
"In the credits and personnel section, do the references support just the bullet point they are attached to, or the entire (sub)section" → They support the entire section; moved them to the subheadings.

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Thank you for the review, Heartfox (talk) 01:12, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I guess. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:58, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]