Talk:Street Lights (Kanye West song)

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Desertarun in topic Did you know nomination
Good articleStreet Lights (Kanye West song) has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Good topic starStreet Lights (Kanye West song) is part of the 808s & Heartbreak series, a good topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.
Did You Know Article milestones
DateProcessResult
November 17, 2019Articles for deletionKept
May 2, 2021Good article nomineeListed
December 31, 2021Good topic candidatePromoted
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on June 18, 2021.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Kanye West performs a bare acoustic gospel rendition of "Street Lights" with the Sunday Service Choir in the film Jesus Is King?
Current status: Good article

GA Review

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Street Lights (Kanye West song)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Zmbro (talk · contribs) 23:10, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Reply


I'd be happy to check this out this weekend. :-) – zmbro (talk) 23:10, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Infobox and lead

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  • Has the song been stylized as one word enough to warrant it mentioned here? (i.e. "Foxey Lady" vs. "Foxy Lady") If yes, add quotes around it.
  • Should Mr Hudson be included as a producer in the infobox?
  • Maybe combine the the inspiration and lyric sentences into one? Seems repetitive to say "inspired by street lights" then "references street lights"

Background

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  • "West has often used the word "light" or the plural version of it in his song titles," ain't that the truth lol
  • Going along with the "lights" theme, it personally feels out of place to mention every song he's recorded with "light" in the title, since, save for "All of the Lights", most of them don't specifically relate to "Street Lights".
  • Move the final sentence about the recording period up to the first para or the start of the second. Feels very out of place at the end.

Composition and lyrics

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  • Bhasker is one of West's regular collaborators right? Maybe mention that?
  • Mention that West uses Auto-tune on the entire album here: "Like the rest of its parent album, Auto-Tune is heavily deployed..." (use an extra source if necessary)
  • "After the minute-and-a-half point of the song" → "After the minute-and-a-half point"

Release and reception

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  • "Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone commented that the song features "a haze of distortion" floating over "tolling keyboard chords and a hammering beat"." I would move this to composition, as it doesn't give an opinion on whether it's good or bad compared to other reviews
  • This being moved would be useless, as I have already mentioned the distortion and keyboards in comp. Also, terms like "haze" and "hammering" to add to reception imo. --K. Peake 20:46, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • The entire second para is from one reviewer; seems super excessive
  • This was a reviewer that heavily focused on the song though; there are no issues with overquoting so I don't think this should be a problem because otherwise it would be cherrypicking certain parts of the review. --K. Peake 20:46, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Both reviewers for Washington Post and IGN single out "Street Lights" as worthy of download, yet they're two paras apart. I would put a period after "digital shadow" then say something like: "Both Richards and Alfred H. Leonard, III of IGN listed the song among the ones on 808s & Heartbreak that are worthy of downloading." (flows easier and makes it seem less disjointed)
  •   Not done I have organized the info by thematic element; IGN coming before PopMatters would not make sense due to the latter writing about the comp. --K. Peake 20:46, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Add "The song did receive some negative reviews." before the Slant one
  •   Comment: Is this really needed when I use negative identification to begin that sentence and then write "dismissive" around the start of the following one? --K. Peake 20:46, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Music video and promotion

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  • Can that image be brightened? So dark you can barely see him
  • "During his show for VH1 in February 2009, West delivered a performance of the song." → "West performed the song during a show for VH1 in February 2009."
  • "West's performance of "Street Lights" was" → "Instead, it was"
  • It being "the 20th number" isn't that important
  • "he performed the song as the eighth track of his set." again seems irrelevant; also kinda obvious since it is track 8 on the album
  •   Not done It's not irrelevant when there is 12 tracks, plus I kept the placement so it's clear the album was performed in release order; see Talk: Welcome to Heartbreak/GA1
  • "This marked West's first performance of the song since November 2013;" ditch this here and move it prior to the 2015 shows

Appearances in media

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  •   Comment: This is not specified by the source, although it was used for season 5; should I just keep this unspecified because adding would be WP:OR or do you want me to remove it altogether? --K. Peake 08:12, 2 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Yeah I guess that would be OR, although that brings the question why the source wouldn't specify in the first place. I would keep it, as I imagine a Grey's fan showing up later on and thinking "iT WaS iN tHE sHoW". – zmbro (talk) 19:09, 2 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Is having VHR in parens relevant here?
  • "soundtrack, being set" → "soundtrack set"
  • " stripped-down acoustic rendition of the song." → " stripped-down acoustic rendition of "Street Lights"."

Cover versions

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  • First and foremost, do any of these listed qualify for WP:SONGCOVER? None of these appear to have been released as singles, charted, or (based on the text) got much attention.
  • Now that you point that out that makes sense. Since these are all covered by RSs they do warrant inclusion. Whole section looks good, just wanted to clear that up first. – zmbro (talk) 22:00, 2 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Credits and personnel

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  • Looks good

References

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  • What happened to that copyvio detector that used to be here?
  • Is No Ripcord an RS?
  • Is having a location necessary on ref 20?
  • No author on ref 21?
  • Is Earmilk an RS?
  • It's a music publication that has been around since the early 2000s and has writers across North America, so I do believe it is fully reliable and shouldn't need to be questioned at the talk page. --K. Peake 20:33, 2 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
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  • What is "Streetcar" and why is it here?

Final thoughts

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Zmbro I have now gone over the remaining concerns after my initial response! --K. Peake 20:33, 2 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Did you know nomination

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Desertarun (talk07:05, 13 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Improved to Good Article status by Kyle Peake (talk). Self-nominated at 07:52, 3 May 2021 (UTC).Reply

General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
  • Cited:  
  • Interesting:  
QPQ: Done.

Overall:   The article is approved, but I don't find the hooks interesting, as it is not unusual for an artist to include their own songs in their films or to perform accoustic versions of their song. I have proposed some alternate hooks below; let me know what you think.

ALT4ALT5: ... that the lyrics of "Street Lights" allude to the death of Kanye West's mother?
ALT5: ... that Kanye West's inspiration for "Street Lights" was the movement of lights while driving a car? Z1720 (talk) 18:31, 6 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
Z1720 I sympathise if you wish for me to change the hook; I will use the one about inspiration, which I have reworded above... how's that? --K. Peake 20:35, 6 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

 I have struck out my ALT5 proposal, and renamed my ALT 4 as ALT 5. All ALTs are approved, with a preference for Kyle Peake's ALT4. I'll let the preppers decide which is best. Z1720 (talk) 20:48, 6 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Z1720 Shouldn't interesting be checked off then, plus isn't it up to you to pick which alt? --K. Peake 06:34, 7 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
@Kyle Peake: The green tick beside my last comment indicates that this ready for promotion to the hook set (but I changed the template anyways). Although I approve the hooks, the preppers decide which one is promoted to the hook set. I indicated my preference, so I hope the hook setters take that into consideration, but I like giving the preppers options so they can decide which one they think is best. Z1720 (talk) 14:54, 7 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
Yeah that makes sense; I just tweaked ALT5 for you to fix the grammar. --K. Peake 21:10, 7 June 2021 (UTC)Reply