Wikipedia:Peer review/Hollaback Girl/archive3

Hollaback Girl

This article had a peer review over a year ago and a highly unsuccessful FA candidacy. I've tried to address the concerns there and add some needed sections, and I've nominated it for GA status. I'd like to see the article reach FA status in the near future, so any recommendations would be very welcome. —ShadowHalo 05:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR _t 21:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To me, the "Music and structure" section reads as a little soulless. The prose certainly isn't compelling. I don't know what to advise in terms of improvement, but "Hey Jude" and "Layla" both have interestingly written musicological analyses. As for your references, I'm not sure it's completely necessary to put the title of each article in quotation marks, but I'm not a hundred percent on that. Overall, it's certainly a well referenced and obscenely informative article. Good luck! Seegoon 17:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments. I've been having some trouble with the "Music and structure" section. It'd be nice to expand it some so it's not so...technical and soulless, but I can't think of any information that would be helpful. One of the biggest problems is that there are so few instrumentals (those six notes in the sheet music just about sum it up). Any idea what else could be added? —ShadowHalo 18:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm I'm not sure. The thing is, it doesn't really describe the actual sound of the song. My advice is to expand upon how it combines "old school hip hop with dance music"; paint the reader a more evocative picture of the sound of the song. Exactly how to do that I have no idea. Seegoon 20:25, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've asked at Wikipedia:WikiProject hip hop about how to describe the musical style of the song since rap uses fewer instrumentals; hopefully that'll produce some ideas. ShadowHalo 03:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trebor

This is generally very good, I've only got some minor niggles with bits of it:

Williams was also impressed with the song - "impressed" seems like an odd word to use, considering he wrote the song - perhaps "pleased" (although there's probably a better word than that).
Rolling Stone was pleased with the song - the opposite of the above - perhaps "was positive".
was not thrilled - not a very encyclopaedic phrase.
For the first time in music history - what other kind of history would this be happening in, in fact, when else would it be happening other than in history? Couldn't it just be "This was the first time a single..."
The first four paragraphs of "Chart performance" could be structured better. At present it goes: immediate single sales; year single and digital sales; radio airplay; digital sales. The digital sales paragraph could be moved up perhaps, to link in better.
Do a search through the whole article for the word "also" and check it's needed. Two paragraphs in chart performance begin with "was also", but it's throughout the text. It's redundant in most cases, I think, particularly at the start of a paragraph.
However, in the United Kingdom - however is probably stronger after Kingdom, although it could be removed altogether.
filmed in Van Nuys, California, United States.[30] Stefani is spending time - sudden change from background information to description of the music video; it could do with something to say that it is.
The whole first paragraph is a bit choppy, with needlessly long phrases like "Following this incident" ("then") and changes between very short and very long sentences.
with the words "Hollaback Girl" in calligraphy, drawn by artist J. Martin - the sentence is ambiguous; did the artist draw the painting (a strange phrase to use) or just the calligraphy? And did he draw the original or the one on the car (or both)?
"Hollaback Girl" proved successful on different video-chart programs. - whole sentence could be seen as redundant, but at the very least the word "different" is unnecessary.

As I said, this isn't far off FA; some polishing of the prose is all that I can see is needed. Trebor 18:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I think I've addressed all the bullets now. I'll see if I can do some tidying of the prose in general too. ShadowHalo 13:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]