Talk:Why? (American band)

First sentence

The first sentence doesn't make sense; I don't know much about this, so I can't correct it, but the article states that it's a band and the first sentence says that Why? is a person and a band and does not make sense in general. Xonybubba (talk) 14:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that I fixed it. See the section below. hmwithτ 14:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Past tense?

Is there any reason the first paragraph is partially written in the past tense? I ask this because the band is still listed as active, so this doesn't make sense to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.187.21.115 (talk • contribs)

I think it had to do with the fact that it used to be a solo project. It was written very awkwardly. I think I mostly fixed it, as the rest of the article needed some cleaning up, as well. Feel free to make more changes if the wording is still confusing. hmwithτ 14:27, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

'Why?' the band & 'Why?' the person

Currently I think this article is somewhat muddled and misleading, because while it is clarified in the first paragraph that 'Why?' used to be Yoni Wolf's stage name, this is not made clear in the dicography section, giving the impression that Why? (the band) have collaborated with Clouddead, Greenthink, Reaching Quiet, etc, and making no distinction between Yoni Wolf I propose creating a separate article for Yoni Wolf and moving his pre-band solo work over there, leaving this article strictly for the band. Yoni's pre-band solo work and involvement with Anticon, Clouddead, etc, certainly meets motability criteria by itself. I see no particular reason why this information should be collapsed into one article. This would not happen if the band had taken a different name (if Yoni still went by the name Why? and the band was called something else), so the decision to put all the info into one article seems to be based solely on the fact that the band took their name from one of their members. Wetdogmeat (talk) 17:33, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, Part-Time People Cage... is over an hour long, so it's not an EP. If we stick with this article combining Why?-the-person with Why?-the-band, then this should be listed as their/his first album, which would make the whole thing even more misleading IMO. Wetdogmeat (talk) 17:41, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

By way of a comparison, let's look at Justin Broadrick. He has used the alias Final for his ambient solo work since the early '80s. And the first Jesu release was also solo Broadrick, but that doesn't mean the Final discography should be collapsed into the Jesu article. The only difference is that he came up with a new name and Yoni Wolf didn't, he transferred his existing alias over to the new band instead. IMO there should one article for Why? (American band) with a discog beginning with Elephant Eyelash, and then another article for Yoni Wolf that lists all of his work from the mid '90s to present, including his recent work with Why?-the-band. Josiah Wolf has a separate page listing his solo releases; what is the rationale for that? Other than the fact that the band isn't called 'Josiah'? Wetdogmeat (talk) 17:52, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Note - this would be different if Yoni continued to use the name 'Why?' in his solo work (in his collaborations with Serengeti, for instance). Broadrick does occasionally release Jesu EPs and such that are just his solo work, making Jesu a collaborative musical project orbiting Justin Broadrick. Unlike the case of Why?, which involves the abandonment of a personal moniker and it's transfer over to the name of the newly formed band, never to be used as a solo moniker again. There's a very exact point at which this happens. Wetdogmeat (talk) 20:30, 3 September 2012 (UTC)