Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Pod (The Breeders album)/archive1

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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 Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 9 March 2019 [1].

Pod (The Breeders album)[edit]

Nominator(s): Moisejp (talk) 07:09, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi everyone. This is about the Breeders' debut album, released in 1990. Extra special thanks to Ceoil and BLZ for lots of suggestions in the peer review, including some great ideas for expanding the article. Also big thanks to SchroCat, Wehwalt, Serial Number 54129, and Popcornduff for their feedback in the peer review. Due to C's and B's suggestions, there is quite a bit of new content that any other returning reviewers may not have seen yet, and I hope you'll enjoy. Looking forward to everyone's feedback, cheers! Moisejp (talk) 07:09, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. This was a very long and very rewarding PR. Rewarding because this is a seminal album made by two (Deal and Albini) of the most talented and influential contemporary "musicians", and the back story is fascinating to indie nerds. Long in part because it was such fun to chat about and discuss. Moisejp's final article is to be held up as a example of one of our best alt-rock FAs, where the bar, imo, is already pretty high.. Ceoil (talk) 10:49, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you again, Ceoil, for all your help. The PR was very rewarding from my side of things, too, and I'm really glad about the various additions you and BLZ proposed. Moisejp (talk) 17:14, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This was already a strong article when I gave my thoughts at the PR. Since then it's been improved further, and it meets all the criteria of an FA. I can only echo Ceoil in saying this is (or shortly will be) one of the best alt-rock FAs we have. - SchroCat (talk) 20:24, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wow, thanks so much, Gavin. I certainly wasn't expecting that level of praise for the article, but am really glad if people enjoy it. I'll say again that a lot of ideas for expanding it came up in the PR (thanks again especially to BLZ and Ceoil), which contributed to the article reaching a higher level of comprehensiveness than it otherwise would have. I hope all is well with you, take care! Moisejp (talk) 05:43, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support and echo the sentiments above. The long, in-depth PR was immensely worthwhile and saw remarkable expansion and improvement of an already-solid article, thanks to Moisejp's tireless efforts. I'd agree with Ceoil and SchroCat that this is one of the best articles on an alt-rock album we now have—a just and fitting outcome for a quietly influential album that remains overlooked in rock history and under-appreciated for its quality and impact. (The famous cliche about the outsized influence of The Velvet Underground & Nico is that it only sold 30,000 copies, but "everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band." Pod is a little bit like that. We don't know exactly how many copies Pod has sold—it wasn't too many—but one of the people who bought a copy was Kurt Cobain, and he loved it.)
Also worth mentioning that the article takes a big step, along the lines of WikiProject Women in Red's mission to promote gender parity in the encyclopedia, to highlight and tell the stories of women's contributions to alternative rock. Wikipedia has several FA-quality articles on women in alt-rock, including stellar biographies on Courtney Love, Kate Bush, and Stereolab, but not enough. I count seven current FA-class alternative music articles about albums recorded by bands with women as members, and I believe this would only be the second article—after Title TK, also about the Breeders and written by Moisejp—about an album for which a woman was the primary songwriter and bandleader. This comment is separate from consideration of this article's FA-worthiness on the merits, but as Wikipedians become more conscientious of these issues and strive to overcome old biases I think it warrants mention and praise.
I was involved with providing some of the article's sources, so I'll recuse myself from doing a source review. However I think I can fairly perform an image/file review, so I will do that now. —BLZ · talk 21:37, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Image review[edit]

Copyrighted files:

  • File:The Breeders Pod.jpg — by-the-books fair-use album cover. Appropriate low resolution, appropriate rationale. Used in the infobox as primary identification of the album, and the artwork is also discussed in the article body.
  • File:Doe The Breeders.ogg — 12.7-second sample of a 2:07 minute song. Rationale looks good. 2:07 = 127 seconds; 10% of 127 = 12.7, so this meets the guidance at WP:SAMPLE. The track listing in the article says the song is 2:06, but the Discogs page for the first CD pressing in the US says 2:07 and Spotify gives the track length as 2:07. I see no reason to doubt that the file of "Doe" used to create the sample wasn't 2:07. Critical evaluation of the track included in the article body.
  • File:Happiness Is a Warm Gun The Breeders.ogg — 16-second sample of a 2:47 minute song. Rationale looks good. 2:47 = 167 seconds; 10% of 167 = 16.7, so a 16.0-second file meets the guidance at WP:SAMPLE. Critical evaluation of the track included in the article body.

Some miscellaneous recommendations here:

  • I would highly recommend using Wikipedia:TimedText for audio captions, which is something I only recently learned was possible. In addition to being a neat feature, it helps make audio samples more accessible to deaf users. See the sample of "They Are Night Zombies!!" at Illinois (Sufjan Stevens album)#Musical style and themes for a good example of its implementation, or my transcription of considerably crasser lyrics for a sample of Gucci Mane's "Plain Jane". The formatting for these files looks like this: TimedText:They_Are_Night_Zombies!!_-_Sufjan_Stevens_-_clip.ogg.en.srt.
  • I like that the "Happiness is a Warm Gun" sample captures the song's "I need a fix cuz I'm going down" bridge from start to finish, but I feel like it highlights the "disarmingly gorgeous" quality discussed in the caption while missing the "bipolar" or "punishingly gritty and violent" qualities—which is a shame, because the sample cuts off right before a dramatic shift that makes those qualities evident. I feel like the nearby portion 1:10–1:26, for instance, would better demonstrate both the "gorgeous" and "violent" qualities of the song and the album's overall sound that are discussed in the article text. However, this is just a recommendation; the current sample is acceptable under fair use policy.

Free-license files:

checkY All in all, file usage looks good. —BLZ · talk 21:37, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • BLZ, thank you so much for the support and image review, and again for all your expansion ideas and access to sources! I'll have a good look at your final two recommendations in the near future. My intention in the sound clip was that the heavy guitar at the very beginning of the excerpt was supposed to be the "punishingly gritty" bit—and my initial judgment was that the 16 seconds I used were the best I could find containing both extremes—but I'd like to listen again and seriously consider your suggestion that there may be better examples in the song. Another possibility: I know of another FA where the sound clip uses one bit then fades out and uses goes to another bit; I may look into whether that's the best solution (and whether I can manage the two bits in the 16 seconds). Moisejp (talk) 01:56, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi BLZ, I've now changed the sound clip to the 1:10–1:26 you suggested. I will try to look into your suggestion about TimedText sometime soon. Thanks.Moisejp (talk) 06:41, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Wehwalt[edit]

Gave it another read, just a few minor things:

  • "cover" I would link.
  • "During this time, they had decided that their attempt at dance music was not working and abandoned it.[5][6] They resolved to repurpose their songs for a different genre.[3] " These sentences could probably be combined.
  • "do activity" awkward.
  • " she played on the Breeders' 1992 Safari EP,[27]" presumably a certain instrument?
  • "Pod was recorded in January 1990 at Palladium studio, Scotland,[35][36] " I would mention Edinburgh, as you do in the lede.
  • Why, in "Recording", do you switch to the present tense?
  • "The lyrics concern a woman who has died but continues to obsessively watch over her lover, to the extent that she cannot give him up, even after death.[11] [49][60]" suggest the latter part of the sentence be "not able to give him up, even after death."
  • "which he intended to resemble phallics" Phallics? I might say "as phallic symbols" or even "penises". Source permitting, of course.
  • " To Clifton, it was "plodding";[59] Reynolds felt it sounded "inhibited, moribund, stilted" and "never [let] it rip like the Pixies", and added that "Whenever a song gathers momentum or thrust, [the Breeders] throw in a weird bit, a gear change or an abrupt stop. They seem unhappy with the idea of simple rock exuberance."[61] " the sentence could benefit from splitting.
That's it. Looking forward to supporting.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:11, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Wehwalt, thank you for your additional comments, which all seem very good ones to me. The only one I haven't changed is about the present tense in Recording. The idea behind that is as follows: There were various sources with Donelly and Wiggs saying that Albini wasn't as he likes to describe himself (hands-off, more technical than creative contributions) or as his reputation is (hard to work with, possibly misogynist). In the PR, BLZ and Ceoil strongly suggested a paragraph introducing Albini, partially for readers who may be less familiar with him, and partially to give more context for Wiggs' and Donelly's statements. But basically what was true about him in 1990 is still generally true, so it's in the present tense. Let me know if you still have concerns with this, thanks! Moisejp (talk) 05:18, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support all looks good.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:04, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Wehwalt!! Moisejp (talk) 02:08, 28 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

During the PR I questioned the interpretation and context of a number claims made from book sources. Moisejp scanned and emailed the relevant pages, and the points were eventually resolved. Will stand over the veracity and usages of these, as the article stands, both in terms of claims made, and re paraphrasing etc. The remaining book sources I already had, and would also be familiar with most of the online and magazine based writers used. All of high quality. Not seeing any issues either with ref formatting. Delegates should probably take this review in the context of a disclosed, admitted fanboy of the album, although I had little interaction with the nominator before this, except, IIRC, opposing/neutral on an earlier nom. Ceoil (talk) 22:46, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Ian Rose: Would this suffice as a source review? At a glance, the date formats are good, publishers are listed, p and pp is sorted. I can maybe do an in-depth review, but Ceoil's should be suffice yeah? Kees08 (Talk) 00:36, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That all works for me, tks guys. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:54, 9 March 2019 (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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