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Mariah Carey

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The first peer review for this article back in November (see Wikipedia:Peer review/Mariah Carey/archive1) was very helpful, but I've very recently performed a major rewrite of the article. I've tried to insert more reliable and print-based references, expand the information on Carey's musical style and influences, balance the critical appraisal with quotes and paraphrasing from Carey herself, and generally improve the prose. It's somewhat more detailed than previously, but I think that the new material is worth including. I'm considering taking it to WP:FAC, so I was wondering if people think that it's ready and what could be done to improve it. Thanks. Extraordinary Machine 00:01, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article has expanded considerably and adheres to certain qualities. Although I'm not a fan of her music (well, except for one song), here are some suggestions:

  • If there are any redirects, make sure to correct them.
  • Could you include an inline citation for what made Carey's rise to prominence a "Cinderella story"?
  • After marrying Mottola in 1993, hit ballads such as "Hero" and "One Sweet Day" consolidated her position as one of Columbia's most successful acts. — this sentence may be changed often; various fans of Carey's may change "Hero" to "Dreamlover" or "One Sweet Day" to "Forever". Perhaps the albums Music Box and Daydream should be placed there instead?
  • Image:Dont4getaboutus.jpeg includes a logo; this is generally frowned upon despite being passable. Perhaps the logo should be cut?
  • Consider creating articles for all red links, although this is not necessary.
  • Carey made a notorious appearance on MTV's Total Request Live, where she handed out popsicles to the teen-aged audience and began what was later described as a "strip tease". — how was it notorious?
  • I dislike the word "hit" proceeding "number-one". For example, ...Carey the only act to have a number-one hit in each year of the 1990s. Consider using just "number-one" or "number-one success". However, I prefer the former.
  • The majority of featured articles on music artists contain a couple of samples.

Other than these few requests, I am impressed with the work that has gone into the article. —Eternal Equinox | talk 02:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

    • I checked the links as I inserted them, as well as a lot of the already-present ones, but apologies if I missed any.
    • Inline citation added (to an article titled, coincidentially, "Cinderella Story").
    • All mentions of albums and singles in the lead have been removed per yourself and user:Rossrs below, so I don't think it will be a problem anymore.
    • I searched everywhere I could think of, and I couldn't find screencaps from the "Don't Forget About Us" video that didn't include a logo from a television channel.
    • I'll see what I can do with the redlinks.
    • "Notorious" removed.
    • Well, in other discussions I haven't heard anybody else say that they think don't the phrase "number-one hit" should be used, but I wouldn't mind if they were to be edited as such. I'm indifferent.
    • My computer currently isn't capable of creating sound samples, but I'll ask around.
    • Thanks! Extraordinary Machine 18:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very Good. Very few issues: The intro is not very consistent. For example, you mentioned her voice in the second paragraph, moved on to something else, then rementioned it in the last paragraph. Secondly, I think you should include her albums instead of singles when talking about her being one of Columbia's biggest acts (just personal preference here). Thirdly, after skimming, I've realized that there are some places where new paragraphs should be, but arent. "Return of the Voice" was more appropriate for the comeback: it was her slogan/catch phrase or whatever. I think it should be included, but in quotation. Finally, a couple sentences are a bit disjointed— needs a better flow. Other than those, I'm absolutely impressed with everywhere else. GREAT WORK!! Oran e (t) (c) (e) 04:02, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have replied to some of your points at Talk:Mariah Carey. Could you give examples of disjointed sentences? It's just that my eyes tend to glaze over after I've read the same thing over and over. Thanks. Extraordinary Machine 18:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very good indeed. The structure is great. The various phases of her career are handled evenly and sufficiently. Quotes, sources all well done. Image description pages are excellent, as are the images (with one exception). The total package is pretty impressive. I remember when this article was one of the worst articles on Wikipedia - what you have done is outstanding!!! I'll read though it a few more times, but for now I would look at these things :

  • I would avoid mentioning specific album titles in the lead paragraph and absolutely avoid mentioning the single titles. It's meant to be an overview - by spotlighting 2 particular albums and not the rest, and 2 particular singles and not the rest, it's POVish. The lead doesn't have to be substantiated to the same degree as the article text, because we should expect to go to the main article for further info. It should be a nice, broad, neutral, non specific summary.
  • I don't believe "unsuccess" is a real word. ;-) (from lead para 2)
  • "Voted as having "the greatest in music" in 2003" - doesn't make sense.
  • Agree that the Cinderella reference doesn't quite work. Perhaps citing an example of where the press used this term would put it into a more encyclopedic context.
  • "Daydream achieved career-best reviews" - I don't think this comment is supported. It's a lofty claim, so you need to prove that it was across a spectrum of reviewers, not just the New York Times, otherwise it should be reworded so it doesn't look so speculative.
  • "notorious" is not the best choice of word in describing her MTV appearance. I think you could remove the word without losing anything.
  • "as Carey has a tendency to rely too much upon music videos and lip-synched performances to promote her projects" - (my italics - this bit reads like a judgement). Should be reworded so it's just a bland fact.
  • some minor examples of spelling and grammatical errors. I'll go through when I have more time and fix these. (But there is no such thing as too much copyediting - read it through a dozen times if you have to)
  • Butterfly Melodies album cover does not qualify as fair use in this instance. It is not used to illustrate the album and as Carey's image does not appear, it does not illustrate her either. The album is mentioned only tangentially, almost as an aside, in the article. It really needs to be removed, I'm afraid.
  • Music samples would be great.
  • A suggestion - have a look at other featured articles for musicians/pop celebrities/bands (Kylie Minogue, Celine Dion, Johnny Cash, Duran Duran, New Radicals, Pink Floyd, The Supremes etc). The articles themselves are helpful, but the peer reviews and featured article nominations for them should be even more valuable. Hopefully if you can identify what people objected to in these articles, you can preempt any possible objections in regards to Mariah, and fix it before it goes to FAC. You know that people are going to object just because it's Mariah Carey so the less ammunition you leave for them, the better. Rossrs 10:29, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, I got the idea of mentioning her most notable singles in the lead from The Jackson 5, though I agree with your point that it is POV, and as user:Eternal Equinox said above, it would just create edit disputes over which of her songs should be mentioned.
    • I found "unsuccess" on dictionary.com, but you're right, it does sound suspect. I've replaced it with "minimal success".
    • "Voted as having "the greatest in music" in 2003" has been clarified and attributed to a source.
    • Inline citation added (to an article titled, coincidentially, "Cinderella Story").
    • Well, it isn't completely speculative as I found it in Marc Shapiro's biography of Carey, so would it be acceptable to add a footnote to the specific page?
    • "Notorious" removed.
    • This was inserted by an anon earlier; I've removed it.
    • My eyes tend to glaze over when I read the same thing repeatedly, sorry about this!
    • The Butterfly Melodies album cover has been removed.
    • I'm unable to make samples, but I hope that you can help out with this.
    • Thanks, I'll go take a look at those. Extraordinary Machine 18:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you have not already done so, you might want to go check out Wikipedia:Featured Music Project, which I found to be extremely helpful in my own nomination. I'm certain that, if you have most of the requirements for the FMP, your article will be 95-100% ready for FAC.--Ataricodfish 05:09, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've just read the criteria listed there, and I think that the article meets all of them. I might ask user:Tuf-Kat to take another look at it, though. Extraordinary Machine 22:34, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you need to include We Belong Together in the sound samples. Otherwise the most recent sample is 8 years old, which is not really appropriate for a current recording artist. I think also that one large sample box is a bit overwhelming. I would consider breaking it into 2, and having one near the beginning of her career and one near the end. Rossrs 01:18, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added the "We Belong Together" sample and rearranged the others. I was worried about the "Career" section becoming too crowded with images and samples though, so I inserted three samples in that section and left the other three in "Style and influence" (and split the box up). Extraordinary Machine 22:44, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that you didn't want to overcrowd sectons with images and samples. I think the first few you've done look good but I'm not sure that it works they way you have included the samples in "style and influence" because those particular songs are not discussed in sufficient depth to justify the inclusion of the samples there. But they are discussed back up in the career section. I'll give it some more thought because I'm not sure how to improve this. Rossrs 00:59, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've rearranged them again; now, the "Emotions", "One Sweet Day" and "Honey" samples are within the captions for the images that relate to those songs, while the other samples are beside paragraphs where the song or things related to it are discussed. Another option would be to move all of the samples to their own section near the bottom of the article (as on Marilyn Manson and Phil Collins), but I agree with you that it's better when they're placed inline with the text. Extraordinary Machine 18:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest using Image:Mariah Carey13 Edwards Dec 1998.jpg as the primary photo for purely aesthetic reasons, because the current one is long vertically and on higher screen resolutions causes text wrapping with the early life paragraph.--Fallout boy 07:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The website MariahDaily.com has generously licensed Image:Mariah Carey in January 2000.jpg (among others) under the GFDL, and I've inserted that at the top of the article instead. Extraordinary Machine 23:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think overall the article is very good - but my concern is that it is far too long. A lot of the information included doesn't really need to be there and could be either removed or edited down. A key example of this would be the style and influence section. Imo it is at least three times longer than it needs to be. Another example would be 2001-2004; it is a time with relatively little activity in her career - yet its longer than other sections when she was in her prime.

To make the article better, I feel it needs to be cut down by about a third. It should give a good overview of her career - a blow by blow account of everything isn't needed; and its also off putting to readers because its too time consuming to read at the moment... Rimmers 04:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have read a lot of criticisms directed at several articles about musicians for not providing adequate discussion of the musician's style, so I wanted to make sure that the article was comprehensive in that respect. I (and other editors of the article) have been trying to improve it by consulting featured articles about musicians, some of which are longer than this one; we certainly didn't want to get carried away and we only wrote about the more important points in her life and career. As for the 2001 to 2004 section; well, I think it would be misleading to readers and slightly POV to reduce coverage of the low point(s) of Carey's career. The fact that there was relatively little activity for her during this period is why it is so notable. That said, I've made an attempt to tighten the language and remove some of the more trivial material, and I've managed to shave 3kb off the article's size. Extraordinary Machine 23:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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