Talk:Evita (soundtrack)/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) 22:31, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

It's been a while since I've listened to this soundtrack; giving it a GA review looks like an excellent excuse!

I'll try to give the whole article a proper review tomorrow, but just from glancing at the lead there are a few things:

• "Evita was different than the styles of music Madonna had worked previously." this doesn't seem right. "The musical style for Evita differed from Madonna's previous works", perhaps?
• The first ref in the lead supports the claim that the album is considered one of Madonna's, and that Madonna performed the majority of the songs, but not explicitly that the latter is the reason for the former: indeed, it contains discussion of an album (Who's That Girl) credited to "Madonna and various artists" where Madonna performs fewer than half of the songs.

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:31, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, having a look at the main body of the article now:

• "Together with Rice he went to Webber's home in France and worked on the 146 music notes that he had." I'm not sure I understand what this sentence means.
• "Webber was apoplectic about the instrument arrangement, conductor, engineer, orchestra configuration, as well as criticized the closeness of the violins to the studio wall." Apoplectic is extremely emotive language, and should not be in wikipedia's voice. If your source says "apoplectic", quote directly and attribute; if not, tone down the language a little.
• "Banderas found the experience "scary" while Madonna was allegedly "petrified" when it came to recording the songs."

1. "scary" and "petrified" are direct quotes, they should be clearly cited
2. Why "allegedly"? See WP:ALLEGED

• "In "Goodnight and Thank You", Madonna and Banderas trade verses, talking about ending their love affairs": where does this talk about Che's love affairs? It's all about Eva ditching her various lovers, no?
• "The soundtrack was released on November 12, 1996, in the United States almost two weeks before the release of the film.": depending on exactly what you mean, either "The soundtrack was released in the United States on November 12, 1996, almost two weeks before the release of the film" or "The soundtrack was released on November 12, 1996, almost two weeks before the release of the film in the United States" would be an improvement.
• "However, since the film was not supposed to be released two weeks after the soundtrack, Warner Bros. depended on pre-release press reviews, consumer curiosity and the timely release of singles from the album, lead by "You Must Love Me" on October 27, 1996." Another sentence I don't understand. I suspect that the word "until" is intended to be in that sentence somewhere, but it could still be made clear what WB depended on pre-release previews for? To generate consumer interest in the soundtrack?
• "Evita consisted of mainly two formats": "mainly two formats"? Were there others?
• This paragraph should also make it clear that the planned EP was not released. (I presume. If an EP was released, it should definitely make that clear.)
• "the song went on to reach the top of the charts across Europe, Spain and the remix reached number-one on US Dance Club Songs charts." another "what does this even mean?" sentence.
• "Flores and Garza kept the Latin composition of the track, while "flattening" the groove to make it cater to dance floor." what does "cater to dance floor" mean here? (Grammatically it seems like it should be "cater to the dancefloor", but I still don't understand...

So far, I have read down to the end of the section on "Release and promotion". I've made a number of copyedits, but in addition to those and the problems I have pointed out here, the prose in the article is consistently weak. It's hard for me to give examples of this and explain what the problems are, but here are three:

1. "Rikky Rooksby noted in The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna that Evita was different than the styles of music Madonna had worked previously." Firstly, "worked" is the wrong verb; perhaps "performed" or "recorded" would be better; secondly "was different than" is grammatically wrong; thirdly Evita is not a style of music, which this sentence seems to imply. I would personally re-write this particular sentence as "Rikky Rooksby noted in The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna that Evita was stylistically different to the music that Madonna had previously performed."
2. "With "Waltz for Eva and Che", the soundtrack's atmosphere becomes tense, as Banderas and Madonna sing the politics influenced lyrics accusing each other, on top of bass and timpani." "Politics influenced lyrics" should be "politically-influenced lyrics", but really the reader is left wanting -- in what way are the lyrics politically influenced, and what are Madonna and Banderas accusing one another of?
3. "Steven Baker, president of the same label, expected that the connection of the soundtrack to the film would mutually benefit each other, resulting in artistic and commercial success." Firstly, "the connection of the soundtrack to the film" cannot "benefit each other", as they are one thing; it is the soundtrack and the film that benefit one another. Secondly, "mutually" is redundant. Better would be "Steven Baker, president of the label, expected that the soundtrack and the film would benefit each other, resulting in artistic and commercial success", but even that reads like a meaningless platitude to me; I'd cut the whole sentence as I'm not sure what it adds to the article.

Frankly, the prose needs tightening up throughout. There are bits which are awkward, unclear, and ungrammatical, and I recommend a thorough copy-edit. I have only corrected the most obvious and easy-to-fix errors.

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:43, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

More:

• The paragraph on the soundtrack's multi-platinum awards in the US is extremely confusing. Partially that's because US multi-platinum certification is confusing (it can be awarded for either shipments or sales; a double album counts as two units) but the article could probably explain this better.

And now I've read the article in its entirety, and had a bit of a chance to think about it, a couple more comments.

• In the section on background, we hear quite a bit about whether Madonna's singing would be enough for the role, and the vocal training that she went through. What about the other vocalists? Banderas, at least, is best known as an actor rather than a singer...
• The article is full of direct quotations. I wonder if they are all necessary...

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 10:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Caeciliusinhorto:, thank you for the detailed review. Will I address them now or you are going to add some more? Let me know. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 10:24, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

@IndianBio: feel free to start addressing them now. If I have any more comments, I'll ping you. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:52, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

And now looking at the Good article criteria:

• 1a and b are problematic as per commentary above.
• 2a-c seem fine (though I haven't spot checked any of the sources yet).
• 2d: "One of the many changes that Parker made was to rearrange the most of the last act, eliminating the prolonged recitative of the original" is almost identical to "One of the many changes I had made was to rearrange the order of most of the last act, eliminating the prolonged recitative of the original" in Parker's article on "The Making of Evita". Can this be re-written? That's far too close for something not attributed as a quote.
• 3a and b are okay.
• 4 and 5 are okay.
• 6 seems mostly okay, but I'm concerned about two images. They are the album cover and the Tim Rice picture, and I've asked for further clarification at user talk:Nikkimaria#Images from Evita (soundtrack.

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:47, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto: I'm a little tied up with my activities in real life, so probably won't be able to finish this week, I would need next week also. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 10:01, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

@IndianBio: that's fine, I can wait if you'll take a little while to address things.

re: Image use/copyright, File:Evita OST Madonna.png needs the fields in its Fair Use Rationale currently marked "n.a." filled in; File:2008-11-15_Эндрю_Ллойд_Уэббер.jpeg is tagged as both CC3.0 and CC4.0, as far as I can tell it was in fact released under CC3.0.

Per discussion on IndianBio's talkpage, they will not have time to respond to this review. Therefore, I am closing it. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:38, 15 October 2016 (UTC)