Jump to content

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Guitar Songs/archive1

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 Hog Farm via FACBot (talk) 21 April 2023 [1].

Guitar Songs

[edit]
Nominator(s): ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 12:05, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

After months away from FAC, I am back with more Billie Eilish; that is, if you disregard this blip. Today we set our sights on a EP---a quirky one, for it has only two tracks. But despite the brevity, these two tracks are confessional and pensive enough to leave a lasting impression. One "explores the topics of abandonment issues and a desire for numbness as a distraction from the problems that plague the world", and the other is a very detailed chronicling of a car accident experienced by Eilish's very close friend. Ready for any and all comments. :^)

A little aside: @Indopug, since you opposed the last FAC, you might interest yourself reviewing the parent article now, but of course you are in no way obligated to comment again. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 12:05, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image and media review

[edit]
  • File:Billie Eilish - Guitar Songs.png has a clearly defined purpose within the article. The WP:FUR is complete, and I appreciate the archived version of the source link being included. There is also clear and appropriate WP:ALT text.
  • Everything looks solid with File:BillieEilishO2160622 (44 of 45) (52152978743) (cropped).jpg, but I think it would be beneficial to include in the image caption what year the photo was taken to provide a fuller context to readers. This is not necessarily required though, and it is more of an encouragement on my part.
    • I chose not to include the year because I feel readers can glean from the prose anyway roughly when it was taken; it makes the caption clunkier as well.
  • I have a question about File:Billie Eilish - The 30th song sample.ogg. The caption and the WP:FUR are focused on the song, but from my understanding, if an editor is using an audio sample for an album (or an EP in this case), it should be restricted to something that is representative of the release as a whole and not just an individual song. While I do understand the EP is only two songs, I think it should be remembered that it is encouraged to keep non-free usage to a minimal, and the caption and the WP:FUR seem better suited to justify the sample's inclusion in an article about the song not the EP. Would there be any way to reframe this as being representative of the EP and less about the song as an individual release?
  • Everything looks appropriate with File:Cloud Forest, Gardens by the Bay, Singapore.jpg, and I will assume good faith that it really is the uploader's original work.

I hope this review was helpful. Everything is solid with the images, but I do have a concern and a question about the appropriateness of the audio sample for this particular article. Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope you are having a great end to your week! Aoba47 (talk) 23:02, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, @Aoba47, and likewise! I'm off to see a therapist appointment later in the day, so my mood's particularly up this weekend. Hope life is treating you well. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 02:03, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the very prompt responses. I hope you have a solid and productive therapy appointment. It is always good to be in a good mood. I plan on being productive and using this weekend to hunker down and get a lot of off-Wiki work done. At least hopefully. Anyway, this passes my image and media review. Aoba47 (talk) 03:29, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pseud 14

[edit]
  • the song is titled after November 30, 2021, -- think it should be, the song title is a reference to the 30th day of November...
  • Eilish and Finneas played "TV" again and "The 30th" for the first time during the Asian leg of the world tour, and the two performed them in Singapore in collaboration with its tourism board to promote the country. -- Perhaps this can be shortened to the tracks being performed as part of her world tour or during the Asian leg of her tour, something along those lines. Since the details can be found in the body.
    • That would be inaccurate considering they performed TV in the Oceania leg too (New Zealand, Sydney). I think it is notable to mention when The 30th had its debut performance, and it is also only fair given that it says when TV had its debut, hence the specificity.
  • starting the end of the year -- by the end of the year
    • Done
  • someone close to her fell victim to a car accident -- we can refer to this as her friend a friend was involved in a car accident
    • Not done. For one, I try to make sentences like this in active tense. The next problem - the previous sentence's subject is Eilish and Finneas, and if we go through with this change, we make it ambiguous which among the two has the other person as a friend.
      • Someone close to her was involved in a car accident is much better I think. The other seems a bit informal. Pseud 14 (talk) 23:19, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • IMO "was involved" does not do justice to how much physical and emotional trauma the friend went through in the crash. Changed to "nearly died", which is a blunter approach.
  • Eilish wrote "The 30th" on December 30, 2021, virtually immediately -- remove virtually
    • She didn't really write it immediately - I had been writing down all these thoughts that I was having. I was with Finneas, and I was like, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you were planning on doing, but we need to write this song about this right now" - hence the need to clarify almost immediately. She could have been writing down her thoughts for, say, a few days.
  • a 2022–2023 world tour in support of Happier Than Ever -- name the tour instead
    • "embarked on the Happier than Ever, the World Tour" .. ? no, too clunky for me
  • Eilish, who has a track record with political activism -- Eilish, who is known for her political activism
    • Her activism is merely ancillary to her career as a musician, and to prove otherwise would require a preponderance of sources that agree she is known for that. I doubt when critics and musicologists look back on her career as a whole they're going to say it like dat. I feel like we should not assume that the general audience knows Eilish specifically for that one thing, too.
  • her rights as a woman were getting stripped away -- were being stripped away
    • You right for dat
  • Weeks after writing "TV" had ended -- maybe after she finished writing "TV" or something along those lines instead of using ended.
    • Changed to "finished"
  • Eilish debuted "TV" via a live performance with Finneas -- since it was performed during the tour, one would assume it is a live performance, Eilish performed "TV with Finneas, who provided...
    • Partially done - it is important to highlight its status as a debut performance so I don't see why you removed that
  • This marked the first time since around 2017 -- since 2017
    • We haven't played a new song live before it's out since 2017 or 2018 is the relevant quotation here
  • without prior warning -- maybe something like without prior promotion or marketing campaign
    • Changed to "prior announcement"
  • and it includes "TV" and "The 30th", tallying two songs for the track list. -- maybe the latter isn't needed anymore, since it is distinguishable that there is only two singles based on the track titles given.
    • Is it, though? I would agree with you if it said "consists of 'TV' ...", but "include" doesn't preclude the possibility that other tracks may be present in an extended play.
  • "TV" had higher peaks than "The 30th" -- "TV" peaked higher than "The 30th"
    • Not done. "X peaked higher than Y and reached the top 40 in five more territories" implies that the peak positions for "TV" were higher than "The 30th" only in those five territories. However, "TV" outpeaked it in every territory where "TV" charted. The issue here is that "peaked" is a transitive verb (it must come with an object, in this case "territories", so it will inevitably restrict the topic.)
  • Songwriting for "TV" and "The 30th" was co-handled by Finneas, who produced both songs -- "TV" and "The 30th" was co-written by Finneas, who also produced both songs.
    • Done
  • explores the topics of abandonment issues -- abandonment only, perhaps link it to abandonment (emotional)
  • shared by an unknown NME author -- perhaps remove unknown; our use a writer or a critic from NME.
    • Removed the "unknown" bit

That's all I have from a prose perspective. Overall a good read and another great article re Eilish's work. Hope you had a chance to see her live during the tour's Manila stop. Pseud 14 (talk) 16:10, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for leaving the comments, @Pseud 14. Everything should have a response. Quite a bit of rebutting there, so bear with me. Re, the last part: since tickets here are expensive, I couldn't exactly attend the Eilish concert... to be fair I can't afford any concert by any international act either 🤭 ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 22:16, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am satisfied with the replies except where I have stated otherwise. Pseud 14 (talk) 23:19, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
ping Pseud 14 ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 23:56, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by FrB.TG

[edit]
Prose review
[edit]
  • "Its release came as a surprise, a decision that she made" - same meaning with one word less
  • "Written in December 2021 after Eilish saw a friend experienced a near-death car crash, the song is titled after November 30, 2021, the date when the accident occurred." I would simplify it as "Written in December 2021, the song references November 30, 2021; on that day, Eilish saw a friend experience a near-death car crash."
  • "..formulating ideas for songs that she wanted to"
  • "The first song that they wrote"
  • "..I was like, 'I'm sorry, I don’t know what" - there's a curly apostrophe in "don’t". Per MoS:', we should only use a straight one.
  • "during which she was busy with writing another song" - I know most of the suggestion so far are cutting one word but if its absence conveys the same meaning, we should always remove it.
  • "By July, "TV" and "The 30th" were the only songs that the two had made"
  • "After a discussion with Finneas, she decided to exclude them from the third album's track list" - if she did indeed do it, I would remove "decided to" and say "excluded them.."
  • "made Eilish in par with" - shouldn't it be "on par with"?
  • "Other music journalists focused on how the EP was produced" - I would just say "..focused on the EP's production".

Just some minor prose suggestions here and there but a great read overall. FrB.TG (talk) 11:40, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@FrB.TG: Should all be done. Thank you for the comments; relieved to see that the article's pretty much up to code already. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 00:15, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source review
[edit]
  • Spot-checks: ref. 30 (it confirms the quote "increasingly confident" but I'm not sure "Billie Eilish is already moving on to new sounds and ideas on Guitar Songs, a two-pack of acoustic tracks that could either be a gesture toward a new sonic and lyrical direction, or a stopgap between best-selling full-lengths" necessarily counts as "improvement in Eilish's technique"), 51, 56, 67, 90, 93,
    • Removed the "technique bit"
  • Ref. 69 does not load for me.
    • The problem was because the link used an "HTTPS" protocol - it seems like it loads only when the protocol is HTTP
  • I'm not sure Stereogum is an FA-quality source.
    • Replaced with the Variety source, which has the relevant quotation in full anyway
  • Same concern for Bandwagon.
    • The author's LinkedIn suggests some ok credentials (loads of student journalism in Temasek Polytechnic, entertainment journalism for a major Singapore newspaper, etc). This and this (the latter is from another Singapore newspaper) are linked on their about page. All three websites, to me, say there is very likely an organized editorial division in Bandwagon, and from a quick glance at their other articles, no red flags arise wrt journalism ethics.

FrB.TG (talk) 07:05, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

pinging @FrB.TG. thanks for handling both the SR and a prose review :) ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 15:02, 8 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the quick fixes. After checking spot-checking three more sources, I can confidently pass this source review and support this article for promotion. FrB.TG (talk) 17:00, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Chris

[edit]
  • "The EP marks Eilish's new body of work since" - think there's a word missing here and it should be "The EP marks Eilish's first new body of work since"
    • i'll stick with just "first" - "first new" is redundant imo
  • "The EP contains two tracks that she considered including for her third one" => "The EP contains two tracks that she considered including for her third album" (the words are too far removed from the mention of her second album for readers to automatically release that "third one" means "third album")
  • "She debuted its first one" => "She debuted the first song" or "She debuted the first track"
    • Done both
  • "Eilish went on the Apple Music interview" - don't think this works. Maybe "Eilish gave the interview to Apple Music"....?
    • Rewrote, but not in the way you suggested because it doesn't gel for me either
  • "and a similar sentiment was shared by an NME author. The author wrote" => "and a similar sentiment was shared by an NME author, who wrote"
  • Notes b, c and e do not need full stops
    • Done both
  • Think that's it -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:05, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:12, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Guitar_Songs/archive1&oldid=1151019102"