Talk:Uptown Funk/Archive 1

Archive 1

Work needed

"In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres on the Ellen Show, Ronson and Mars stated that it had been filmed in many cities where Mars was touring, including Toronto, London, and Vancouver" - This interview was clearly misinterpreted, they said the song was recorded in many cities - they said nothing about where the music video was filmed. see here at 1:50

"Ronson accrued some serious frequent flyer miles trying to pin Mars down for this album."

The wording of this sentence should REALLY be improved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.173.210.49 (talk) 15:35, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

There should be a paragraph on how this song has been used in different commercials- it's been used in at least 3.

The "!" in the title of the song is not in the article's heading — request to add it

I'm having problems with other usuaries while trying to put "Uptown Funk!" with a "!" in the hot 100 number one singles of Billboard 2015. The "!" appears in Billboard charts and in the single cover but over and over again they change my edit claiming that I'm stylizing the original title (which is not true) and that I'm generating a redirection with the wikilink. The real problem is with the wikilink not with my edit since mine is exact. The wikilink MUST be edited. I suggest you to support me on this question because it seems nobody else want to write it correctly and they prefer criticizing me for the edit. Thank you. - — Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidReyAlvite (talk • contribs) 01:45, 23 April 2015‎

The comment above was written by User:DavidReyAlvite, and I added a section heading as it wasn't present. User decided to add the exclamation point to "Uptown Funk" in the article List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of 2015 (that edit), but the edit was reverted because the wikilink is a redirect (redirects to the article here), and reverting editor, User:Ericorbit, expressed concern about this and says consensus needs to be established to add an exclamation point to the end of the article's title, per the song title's stylization. The user went on to repeat this edit three more times [1] [2] [3], with Ericorbit reverting two of those, and me reverting the last of those edits and referring the user to the talk page here to discuss this matter.

The exclamation point in the title of the song is clearly documented on the Billboard Hot 100 charts online, like this one from April 18, 2015 (#1 song), and it is also shown in the infobox image in this article. On those two grounds, I'd support having the article title changed to include the exclamation point. Any other thoughts? MPFitz1968 (talk) 08:06, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

• support for reasons stated above. any book or TV show with punctuation would be titled in Wiki with the appropriate symbols; not sure why it isn't here. It's not as if the text is stylized in any way... see also Stop! (Jane's Addiction song), Stop! (Sam Brown song) or Stop! In the Name of Love. - eo (talk) 11:44, 23 April 2015 (UTC)~

I would just like to know why is not on the album tracklist, since billboard and the single cover has the exclamation point.MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 20:29, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

No idea why this is, but it seems to make most sense to include the exclamation point in the title (and the text) of this article. - eo (talk) 18:31, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Artwork decoration ≠ the actual name of the song. The song is listed on iTunes and other digital retailers without an exclamation point and according to MarioSoulTruthFan, it is listed that way in the parent album's liner notes. Billboard is in the minority of sources that use an exclamation point with the song. –Chase (talk / contribs) 15:20, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

To be minority doesn't mean to be wrong. Amount doesn't mean quality. By the way, in iTunes you can read Uptown Funk (feat. Bruno Mars) in the title paragrpah and you're not listing the parenthesis in the wikipedia article. the — Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidReyAlvite (talk • contribs) 14:22, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Will take opinion into consideration, DavidReyAlvite, but please do not change this article (or any other articles containing or talking about the song) to include the exclamation point until a consensus is reached here. And I'll agree with you on the punctuation issue you bring up: we can't nitpick every bit of punctuation (the parentheses in "(feat. Bruno Mars)", from iTunes) to how it's stylized in Wikipedia. However, I see the exclamation point as a more significant part of the stylization than those parentheses. MPFitz1968 (talk) 14:35, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Neutral, default to current title. I can find reliable sources that both use, and also don't use, the exclamation point, in roughly equal proportions, for example the NPR article doesn't use it, nor does the official "VEVO" video it cites. MTV.com doesn't use it. Billboard, however, does use it. Given that neither form predominates, there's no reason to switch between one form and the other. Since there is no reason to switch, it should stay wherever it is. The same argument would have applied if it were currently at the other title. --Jayron32 14:51, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

That's true but the article we're talking about is about Billboard, and they use "!" so i suggest to put it in the same way they credit it. If not, it doesn't matter, but I think its better that way. Anyway, it's not true that it's stylized as "UpTown Funk!" since all the words are written in capital letter in the single picture. "U" and "F" are not as big as the "T" so you cannot say it's stylized the way you say, unless you put in capital letter only the T. The "!" shouldn't be considered stylized because it appears the same way in the Billboard source.

Exactly. The capital T "stylization" appears nowhere as far as I can tell. I've made the edit. ForgotMyPW (talk) 09:27, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Parody

Would it be suitable to add "Dark Lord Funk", a Harry Potter Parody, to the "Popular Culture" section? —Phil | Talk 22:35, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Horn section debate

There's a section in the article named "Horn section debate", but there's no apparent debate there, just an explanation as to who plays the horn section. ??? 5.29.139.251 (talk) 08:15, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. I removed the "debate" language. Hoof Hearted (talk) 13:54, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Genre

Why isn't this song considered disco? It definitely sounds like it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:49:4001:9A84:D9D2:B032:ABF2:4E29 (talk) 20:50, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

The song very much can be labeled as "post-disco" (and I think I've read it being labeled as such), but that sub-genre overall is heavily influenced by and fundamentally is a part of the broader genres of "funk music" and "dance music". That's why, I think, this article more broadly just says "Dance/Funk" (I think). CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 20:50, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Genre is the most pointless, subjective, and personal thing in music. If there exists "n" songs ever recorded, there exists a minimum of "n+1" genres to label a song, and there exists far too many people who care disproportionately about correctly pigeonholing works of art into those genres. There is no wrong, there is no right, there is just "not worth it". --Jayron32 22:27, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Exactly! I've suggested removing the genre parameter from the song infobox but that idea was not popular. People think genre is encyclopedic, like age or birthplace. Binksternet (talk) 23:57, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

The problem with Genre is that the granularity is ludicrous. Broad, general categories like "pop" or "rock" or "metal" or "hip hop" or "r&b" would probably suffice, but no one ever wants to leave it at that. "It's not dance music, it's melodic death disco with influences of proto post punk revival and new romanticism". If we could agree on a dozen or so top-level genres and stick to them, we'd be fine. Instead we get debates over the distinction between symphonic black metal and ambient black metal, etc. I've got no time for that silliness. Maybe if we coded the template to ONLY display a genre if a set of pre-approved genres was entered, we may have something. But the debates over the specific micro-sub-genre a band, artist, album, or song should be classified as is beyond pointless. --Jayron32 00:32, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I've discussed that before too @Jayron32:, but most users get pretty uptight when I suggest dropping genre from the infobox. They say "it will only get users adding information to the prose" or "that limits it" or "wikipedia isnt' censored" since we are removing information. Personally, I think the articles I've worked on such as Quique and Glass Swords where genres are a bit off-kilter do a better job in the prose explaining the sound of an album than any sub-sub-genre of electronic music in the infobox could do justice. Anyways, It' been brought up before and I'd back you up, but it seems to be a relatively unpopular thing to do.Andrzejbanas (talk) 01:10, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Another problem with genre is context. If someone in a reliable source says Michael Jackson recorded a hard rock song the context must be understood to be one of MJ's harder songs, but nowhere near as hard as Steppenwolf, so probably not really hard rock as is normally understood by hard rock fans. Same for when the Police or the Clash are said to have produced a reggae song—is it really reggae? But we don't have any method for applying such contextual factors; it would violate NOR. Binksternet (talk) 01:39, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Serbian pop artist Viktorija's claim

Since it's not clear if this artist is filing a lawsuit, having just made an allegation in the press but that's it, well... should we be mentioning this controversy in the first place in the article? And should it be in the lead paragraph, especially? That's 'center stage', to use a more musical term. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 06:33, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Certifications

Where there is a salesref given for a country, the sales figure should be that given in the source. Also, sources for actual sales outrank sources which only give combined figures (sales plus streaming or airplay) even if the latter is more recent. Contrary to popular belief a sale is still a sale even if charts and certifications are using new criteria. Btljs (talk) 08:15, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

What I said above may not necessarily be correct. Please contribute to the WP:RfC discussion at Template talk:Certification Table Entry#Sales_figures: combined vs traditional. Btljs (talk) 10:34, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

What label(s) was this song released on?

I'm reading that RCA released the song, though an edit here randomly changed it to Island. And as recently as this edit two days ago (August 29), RCA was listed along with Sony and Columbia. The iTunes reference in the Track listings section (under Digital download) identifies "Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited" by the copyright. Could somebody please clear this up, as that change to Island did not sound right, and it wasn't sourced anyway. MPFitz1968 (talk) 19:19, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I will do my best to help out. Sony is the parent company, imagine it like the "mother" of RCA and Columbia. The song must have been released in some territories under RCA and in others under Columbia. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 21:31, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Usage in media and remixes

I have tagged this section of the article as having indiscriminate trivia in it, in violation of what Wikipedia is not. While I was tempted to remove the whole section, I decided some of the material might be noteworthy for the section, and article (though I'm unsure what exactly). I will leave it up to other editors watching the page, as well as anyone else interested in making this section more concise and meaningful, to determine the significance of the content. MPFitz1968 (talk) 17:12, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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November 21, 2014

The song didn't debut on the Billboard Hot 100 on the week of November 22, unlike Walk the Moon's "Shut Up and Dance". "Uptown Funk"'s debut date was actually November 29. Ssjhowarthisawesome (talk) 19:03, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

 Done Date fixed, and added chart from Billboard.com as source. The existing Billboard article didn't mention the chart date, and the November 21, 2014, came from the source's date; Gary Trust (the author of the article and chart director) was referring to the November 29 chart, even though it wasn't mentioned. MPFitz1968 (talk) 19:49, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Questionable addition of certain cover versions

Three edits in question ([4][5][6]) made by IPv6s in the same /64 range. The first problem is its placement in the article (right after the lede in disorganized fashion), and the versions mentioned in the edits appear not to be notable versions suitable for inclusion in any case. MPFitz1968 (talk) 02:07, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Missing influences

The opening segment for the song clearly resonates (at least to me) with "Le Freak" by Chic. Only reasons I can think of that it isn't mentioned here is that Chic themselves also "borrowed" it from another group/performer or that the segment is too short to have been considered for the plagiarizing accusation (unlike the others mentioned in the article). Does anyone have information about this?5.29.243.109 (talk) 22:03, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Old Movie Stars Dance to Uptown Funk

As of this morning, this video has 39,965,428 views. Doesn't that qualify as something that should be mentioned? - Lisa (talk - contribs) 07:55, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

If you can find third party sources commenting on it, it could. Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:18, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

{on a sidenote}; Michelle Pfeiffer's reaction to the song is here. It could be added to the Reception section. TGCP (talk) 21:54, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Uptown Funk/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: TenPoundHammer (talk · contribs) 20:27, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

---

Very well written article. I copy edited a few spots to make sentences flow better. Watch for overlinking and slang; I removed multiple links to Unorthodox Jukebox and changed "nail the guitar take" to a more formal phrasing.

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

   There are a lot of Wayback links, but they all seem to be working. Every site referened seems to be reputable and third-party.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Very thorough in its coverage. The song's conception, composition, critical reception, chart history, and cultural impact are all covered extensively and fairly. This happens to be one of my favorite songs, so I was interested in the content and learned quite a bit.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Overall the article is very well written and just need a few little minor tweaks.