Talk:Heritage (Opeth album)/Archive 1

Archive 1

The gernes

Someone has to bring it up on the talk page, so I will. Can people's minds be made up about this album's genre? Please!!? I am not going to champion one genre line-up over another, but the frivolous genre debating has been going on consistently for the past few weeks. At first, I helped eliminate the genre area, but I stopped doing that as time got closer to the release date. The genre feuding is a waste of time, like it would be on any other occasion, and there needs to be an agreed-upon stance as to what genre it is. Sources would be nice as well. This has obviously gone on long enough, and I'm sick of seeing my watchlist updated with edits of people blatantly ignoring the invisible messages there and instead posting what genre they think this album is. Genre feuding is an entirely stupid and unencyclopedic practice. This is an encyclopedia, not a freaking free-for-all. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 22:37, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Reviews

Can we remove Angry Metal Guy's review? I think it is extremely biased. He focuses on only one aspect of Opeth's songwriting (transitions) as the basis for his criticism, and punishes the album too much for not matching his expectations in this regard:

"Instead, I’d say there’s about 40 minutes of pretty good to excellent music, but a lot of bad transitions and only a couple great songs. This leaves me, frankly, aghast, as the fantastic transitions and compositions are the thing that really elevated Opeth to the level of great in my mind"

He acknowledges that the album contains intricate music and that there is a "unifying" feel to it, but doesn't factor this into his rating. His rating (2/5) says he is "disappointed" because it didn't contain what he likes about Opeth's music. That, to me, is not a good review.

Furthermore, he says the album contains "somewhat linear songs, often times with little regard as to key, time signature or context and feel". This is exactly the opposite of what they really are. As the Allmusic review points out, "these ten songs are drenched in instrumental interludes, knotty key and chord changes, shifting time signatures, clean vocals, and a keyboard-heavy instrumentation". It is impossible to create such intricate songs without regard to key or time signatures.

It is obvious that the album disappointed "Angry Metal Guy", and he bashes it for not living up to his expectations, instead of listening to other aspects of the album. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.152.14.67 (talk) 07:10, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

It's just a non-notable blog, so it actually doesn't belong at Wikipedia at all. Nymf _hideliho! 14:04, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

It is irrelevant whether or not you think that this is a good review or not. It is frankly offensive to me that anyone would be such a fanboy as to critique reviews which are an inherently subjective endeavor as being "biased." Removing Angry Metal Guy for being non-notable (which in and of itself I don't think is appropriate or true, but that's not my call) is reasonable. But removing it for being "biased" (i.e., you don't agree with it) just shows what a butthurt fanboy you are. I think the review should be reinstated just to get in your craw.

The review at Allmusic is also the guy's opinion. Reviewing is inherently subjective. There can be no factual statements about whether or not music is "good" or not. Man Opeth fans are the biggest fucking crybabies on the fucking planet.

Oh, btw, go and read what he's quoting. The whole sentence is: "Instead, the listener is left feeling like the writing process was just to take a bunch of ideas and to hamfistedly shove them into these somewhat linear songs, often times with little regard as to key, time signature or context and feel." Either this man doesn't understand English or he is misrepresenting what was written. The ideas or the changes are shoved "hamfistedly" into songs regardless of whether they worked together. This does not deny the existence of the fundamentals of music, thereby making it "not objective." It calls into question whether Åkerfeldt spent any time writing this record, or whether he just recorded every idea that came to mind in the order that they showed up. --PhilC. (talk) 15:49, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

None of that matters. I can find nothing that indicates that "Angry Metal Guy" might be notable, so for now it stays out. Oh, and you might want to refrain from personal attacks. Comment on content - not editors. Nymf _hideliho! 16:25, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and looking at your talk, I remember who you are now. Hi, Angry Metal Guy! Might want to be less angry on here. Nymf _hideliho! 16:31, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi! My identity is irrelevant, by the way. I have not posted a link to my own review since whenever you took that one down. And I would debate this regardless of whether or not I've written the review. This kind of reaction is ridiculous. That said, no one seems to give a shit that my blog is "not notable" when links to my positive reviews are posted here. And as the case is here, neither Thrash Hits nor Sea of Tranquillity are anything more than blogs, and yet somehow their reviews are still on here. So your judgement was based on the fact that you didn't like my review, not that you don't think my blog is notable. --PhilC. (talk) 16:42, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Please stick to the topic of discussion instead of launching personal attacks. I'm quite sure people here on Wikipedia would prefer a sane, objective discussion rather than posts filled with expletives doing nothing but trying to hurt others or make them look bad. Reinstating the album to irk me? Please, I hardly care. It's just an article, and I wanted to improve it by removing a poor review.

I am quite aware of the fact that reviews are subjective in nature, having tried to write some myself. Regardless, a good review tries to touch many aspects of a work of art instead of focusing on one. Read all the other reviews posted on the page, and you will notice that they comment on the composition, the production, the "sound", as well as the performances on the album. Angry Metal Guy's review focuses only on composition. This is why I call the review biased, not because it didn't match my opinion. In fact, I agree with it when it says that the transitions on the album are disappointing. That alone, however, does not justify a 2/5 rating.

When I read that an album was rated 2/5, I would think that the work on the album is bad in many regards. That is clearly not the case with Heritage. The other reviews point to other factors involved in the album, such as flow, performances, etc and consider them in rating the album. Even Angry Metal Guy's review agrees that the music on the album is good.

When one shoves ideas "hamfistedly" into a song with little regard to key, time signatures, context, and feel, the song will also have little regard for these things. The allmusic review said that the songs did consider these things. I did not take the sentence out of context, just quoted what it implied. Furthermore, the point that the ideas on the songs do not progress smoothly does not justify that an album be rated as low as 2/5. Akerfeldt might have spent time focusing on other things in the album. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.152.14.67 (talk)(UTC)

The review names all of the things you name with the exception of production and it focuses on the composition because the composition is the reason that I don't think it's a good record. A 2/5 on my arbitrary rating scale is "disappointing." I deemed the record "disappointing." Since there is no objective measure by which one should rate a record, regardless of how you feel about it, you cannot with any sound logic object to the review based on an entirely arbitrary numbering system.

Because reviews are subjective and the numbering system is arbitrary there is absolutely no justification for removing a review because you personally do not think the score that was given is justified. I personally think that the five and four star ratings are way overkill and that they are biased by the fact that the PR people at the labels that distribute promos to reviewers put pressure on reviewers to be positive about their records so that said reviewers can have future access to releases and access to bands reviewers like. Does that mean they should be taken away because they are biased in favor of the record industry which supplies the promotional copies?

None of this is relevant, however, as the review has been deemed "non-notable." At that point, I move for Thrash Hits and Sea of Tranquillity also be removed because they are also non-notable. --PhilC. (talk) 17:37, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh. I didn't consider that your scale was supposed to be a different scale. I took the scale to be similar to those used on other reviews, and thought that "disappointing" was a word used for "bad". In that context, I have no qualms with your review, except probably that posting it here would give the wrong idea to viewers because it'll be placed in the context of other reviews that go by the usual system.198.152.14.67 (talk)(UTC)

Wait, what's the usual system? Here's how I do rating: 5.0 - Perfect; 4.5 - Excellent; 4.0 - Great; 3.5 - Very Good; 3.0 - Good; 2.5 - OK - Nothing Special; 2.0 - Disappointing; 1.5 - Bad; 1.0 - Embarrassing; 0.5 - Pathetic; 0.0 - Worthless. It says so on the site. Also, I am not aware that there is a broad concensus among reviewers on what the star system means. If I see four stars, I think that the record must be really good. And three stars must be pretty good and two stars must be not that good. And in this case two stars isn't that good. Because this record, in my opinion, isn't good. It's not even really OK. It's poor, but it's not crap. I mean, rating systems for all intents and purposes are arbitrary. But people like the number, it's like a cuddly blanket or something. --PhilC. (talk) 18:00, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, it seems that your rating represents your reaction to the album. Usually ratings are more or less a weighted average of the reviewer's perception of the various aspects of the album. This is usually perceived by viewers to represent the effort that was put into the album. A lower rating would usually mean that the album was badly done - there was no effort involved in any of it. In any case, this was just a misunderstanding on my part. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.152.14.67 (talk)(UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.162.93.93 (talk)

I think Angry Metal Guy's review should also stay up based on the fact that any and all reviews are nothing more than personal opinions, biased or otherwise, which makes them neither right or wrong. To remove a review because it is against your own opinion makes it censorship. Period. He stated his thoughts on the album, you didn't agree, so what? Should your review be removed because somebody else doesn't agree? Think about that the next time you try to take away the right of free speech from another, everyone isn't going to agree. Get over it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.58.190.174 (talk) 16:04, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Angry Metal Guy's review is clearly a blog, and WP:USERG says (in part): "Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable..."Blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs." Regardless of anyone's personal opinion, it is not a reliable source, is not notable, and thus is not acceptable on Wikipedia as a review. If you disagree, feel free to take it up at WP:RSN. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 05:24, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Why have Thrash Hits and Sea of Tranquility not been removed? They are also blogs. --PhilC. (talk) 19:45, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Short answer: they aren't you. ;) Nymf _hideliho! 21:17, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Release Date

Why does this article say that Heritage is "scheduled to be released on September 14th"? First of all, it's the 16th and the album is not out yet, and secondly, according to Roadrunner it's not going to be out until the 20th (http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/newreleases/release.aspx?releaseID=486). What gives? Chrlyon (talk) 19:07, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Apparently it is out in Japan already. Nymf _hideliho! 19:13, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay. But shouldn't there be something distinguishing the Japan release and the North America/Europe release? Otherwise people might get confused. :D Chrlyon (talk) 19:33, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Nah, there is no need to do that in the lead/infobox. It's done down in the release history section :-) Nymf _hideliho! 19:39, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Is this a reliable source for the genre?

It says here the genre of this album is mainly progressive metal, progressive rock, and jazz rock (jazz fusion) with a lot of influences on swedish folk music and jazz, so would this be a reliable source to put on the article? backing up progressive metal, progressive rock and jazz fusion? http://www.allmusic.com/album/heritage-r2255282/review ETFFAN123 (talk) 17:11, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Allmusic is generally considered a reliable source, and the review itself does mention all three of those genres, so I'm willing to support those three genres based on the Allmusic review. It would be good to write up a sentence or two for the Musical style section and source it there instead of in the infobox, though. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 17:44, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I have since reconsidered on "jazz fusion"; see below. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 21:31, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Tour dates

I am certain that Wikipedia is not a place to list tour dates, at most just a mention of the tour and a reference. User:Reza 1389 disagrees. I am removing it per WP:BRD (I'm the revert portion) and starting discussion here. Is there consensus to add tour dates here? MrMoustacheMM (talk) 19:53, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I think it's necessary to include them in the album's page since there's no article for the Heritage Tour. the tour belongs to this album, and i showed you an example of Rihanna's album but all you said is: "It's not a good article". who cares it's a good article or not. it was an example that i linked you. before the Loud Tour article they included all the tour dates in the album's article and there was nobody like you to remove them from the page till its own article got created and say things like "Wikipedia is not a place to list tour dates". they wanted to add every single details about that album. and these tour dates are details about this album but all you say is "Wikipedia is not a place to list tour dates". actually it is, and we see them on the wikipedia whether you like it or not. so i think we should include them since there's no article for Heritage Tour. yeah if you have more information about this tour and its acts, let's create an article for it and add all of these to it. (Reza ^(Let'sTalk) 21:41, 5 November 2011 (UTC))

Something I mentioned on Reza 1389's talk page that I think I should repeat here:

I think WP:NOTDIR applies here: "For example, an article on a radio station should not list upcoming events, current promotions, current schedules, et cetera". The analogy here being that listing tour dates on an article about an album would be a "list [of] upcoming events" or a "current schedule". If the tour's notability can be established, then perhaps the setup of a small section about the tour (which currently exists) and a separate article about the tour itself (Main article:Heritage Tour) would apply. However, I doubt Opeth's tours are really notable enough to have their own stand-alone article...an article such as List of Opeth tour dates might be considered notable, but there would have to be a lot of sources supporting its notability.

But I'll leave this for a bit and hopefully other editors weigh in, so we can all come to a consensus on the article. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 04:12, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Credits source

Do we need a sentence saying "Credits taken from Allmusic" at the beginning of the credits? I'm inclined to say that credits fall under WP:PRIMARY and don't really need a source explicitly stated. Even if a reference is needed, I don't think the sentence is necessary, and the reference can be included with the section header or support the first or last name in the list of Personnel. This one I'll leave in, but again some consensus would be a good thing here. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 20:04, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually we should include this in the Personnel section. all the albums pages have this. some of them wrote "Credits adapted from Heritage liner notes" or "Credits adapted from band's official website" and some wrote "Credits taken from Allmusic" or any reliable source. this should be mention in this section. you're right about using it in the heading but why we should do it since we can mention our source in 4 words. then people know we got it from a good place. if we use them like you said, people should click on it to see it and then, oh ok it's from allmusic. but if we write this simple sentence "Credits taken from Allmusic" they shouldn't do all these things and they know we got it from a reliable source and there's no doubt in it. (Reza ^(Let'sTalk) 21:31, 5 November 2011 (UTC))

Vital information

What vital information is missing from this article, or, more generally, how could it be improved as a whole? It definitely seems to be missing some stuff, but I can't put a finger on what.--Ktmartell (talk) 18:31, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't particularly know what would be missing either; it probably doesn't help that I don't own a copy of the album. However, I'd be willing to help out in that regard. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 19:59, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

More sources in the artwork section wouldn't hurt. Is there more info about the recording process that could be added? Any sort of special marketing/promotion done for the album? Information on the writing of specific songs or what specific songs mean? Date ranges for the tours (not just "started on date X", but rather "ran from Sep 2011–Month Year")? Has the album received any accolades yet (#20 on Magazine's top 100 of 2011 or something like that)? Swedish chart positions (if any) and Swedish release date? Check out WP:MOSALBUM for more ideas. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 21:09, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Conventional ??????

I resent the use of the phrase "another conventional Opeth album" in the Background section of this article. There is NOTHING conventional about any Opeth album; they have been evolving from one record to the next right from the very beginning, in a way no other metal band has ever dared to do. 81.83.141.98 (talk) 23:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point. Besides, "conventional" might be too subjective of a term anyways. Backtable ^{Speak to me}_{concerning my deeds.} 05:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Genres

I have removed jazz fusion and progressive metal as jazz fusion is unsourced and the source for progressive metal doesn't mention progressive metal, progressive rock should be enough. Lukejordan02 (talk) 19:16, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Reverted until discussed. I agree with removing "Jazz fusion", I don't see that anywhere in the cited review. The Allmusic review does say "it melds progressive metal to prog rock", which I think supports keeping "progressive metal" in the infobox, but what do other editors think? Enough to keep or not? MrMoustacheMM (talk) 19:23, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

"It melds progressive metal to prog rock", is referring to the song "The Devil's Orchard" not the album as a whole and I don't think 1 song should be enough to warrant labelling the album as such. Lukejordan02 (talk) 19:27, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree, this isn't a metal album! And the Allmusic review doesn't even call it that... TheamDreaterxXx2334 (talk) 13:43, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Alright, I agree with removing it. You are both right, referring to one song is not enough. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 18:09, 14 July 2014 (UTC)