Wikipedia:Peer review/The 2nd Law/archive2

The 2nd Law

Previous peer review

I've listed this article for peer review because I am planning on nominating this article to FA soon. This article was promoted to GA in July and before nominating it for FA, I want to know what problems exist on the page. Nobody responded in time for the first peer review, so it was closed due to inactivity.

Thanks, Aria1561 (talk) 02:42, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Reply By Furthershore

I saw that no-one has come along to review this article, so I figured I'd offer my input. These are all suggestions, but they are all points that I think would influence a decision for a featured article review:

Suggestions:

• Include in the lead:
  • The content about how the album art represents the brains pathways. This should be in the lead not only because it's interesting and points at the section on packaging, but because an image of the album cover is at the top of the article, and it's helpful to have information in close proximity to the media that it's discussing.
  • Something about the experimental nature of the album.
• Remove some of the lists in the lead (names and dates), and include more easily readable discussion.
• Be careful about making claims that are not directly attributable to sources ("the album was generally well received") even if the evidence strongly implies it.
• Improve organization of content. Possibly restructure the section headings for readability and to make content accessible.
• Expand the discussion of individual singles -- give each single it's own h4 section that summarizes the singles' respective article.
• If there is a stated reason for the band using four studios to record, include discussion of that in the article, possibly the lead.

First Paragraph

The lead is really bogged down with lists, which makes reading a bit daunting. This starts right from the second sentence, i.e. "1 October 2012 and 28 September and 3 October under Warner Bros and Helium 3" . . . "Capitol Studios and Eastwest Studios" . . . "Shangri La Studios and AIR studios".

At this point if I were to take a short quiz on the first paragraph as a casual reader, I wouldn't remember the studios or the record labels. A reader that's looking for that information specifically could always find it in the infobox and/or the body of the article.

More important to a casual reader than the list of studios is why Muse recorded at four studios. Did Capitol not have some equipment that Muse was looking for so Muse went across town to Eastwest, then Eastwest didn't have what they wanted so they flew to Florida, then still couldn't find what they wanted so they flew to London? Were they on the road while they were recording the album and all these studios are partnered together so it was convenient for them? Is Muse a hard band to work with so studio companies kept kicking them out telling them to go elswhere?

The first paragraph should have the information that you would want the reader to know if they read absolutely nothing else, kind of like the lead of the lead.

Second Paragraph

"Upon release, the album received generally favourable reviews from music critics and had a very postive commercial performance"

Ok, do you have a source explicitly saying the album received generally favourable reviews from music critics? Even if you do, you're already saying it was received favorably by mentioning it received a grammy nomination for Best Rock Album. Likewise, you're already saying it had postive commercial performance by mentioning it was a "top ten-charting album in thirty-one countries". That the album was a success is a conclusion that the reader can easily draw on their own. Having an introductory sentence like this may be nice as a matter of style, but in this case I don't see a citation for it in the article, so the statement may be difficult to defend in a featured review, and the paragraph stands well enough on it's own without it.

Third Paragraph

I do agree that the lead focuses a bit too much on the singles, but only because the albums five singles is another list that I have to get through. It's already established that the album was a success overall, so it's not particularly necessary to dive into the individual success of the singles in the lead. Rather, you could say that the album had five singles, all of which were individually successfull (of course you would want to find a source that explicitly states something along these lines).

To summarize my thoughts on the lead: The lead section is this precious area where you have an opportunity to present background to people who may know very little about the topic and only care just enough to read your three paragraphs. From what I've read elsewhere about this album over the past day, this album was highly experimental, and there was a bit of . . . let's call it "buzz" from Muse fans, even if it was positively received overall. If Muse took chances branching out into new territory with this album, that tells a story about the album, something that people will remember having read.

Background

I see two paragraphs in the Background section. How are these paragraphs organized? Are they about two different chronological periods? The second paragraph seems to focus on the bands intentions for the sound of the album, but then the first paragraph includes Matt Bellamy's twitter comment about the album's sound. I'm having trouble making sense of how the sentences in this section are organized.

". . . composer David Campbell who had worked with acts such as . . ."

This list is tangential to the main article. While I see the purpose -- establishing credibility for David Campbell to provide context for the reasons Muse commissioned him to help -- this comes at the cost of disrupting the flow of the article, and IMO isn't really worth pulling the reader away from discussion of the albums topic.

Composition

I see things in the Background section that seem like Composition details and vice versa. The album's influences and use of electronic music seems like information about the composition of the album, while Chris Wolstenholme's mention that he wrote two songs about his battle with alcoholism seems like background about the album. Perhaps merge these together into one h2, and possibly have 2 or more h3s?

Packaging, Promotion

In the promotion section, there's a discussion of five singles broken into two paragraphs. This is a bit difficult to follow which single is being discussed at which point in the paragraph.

On it's own, the packaging section looks good, however it's placement in the article when read from top to bottom would perhaps be better if it were situated so that the article flows chronologically. Chronologically speaking, the background and general discussion would come first, followed by composition, then promotion, including the release of the promo trailer, then the release of the lead singles, then the albums release and packaging, then critical reception of the albums release, then the rest of the singles and their success. This is just a suggestion, but here's how I would structure it:

• Background
  • Discussion (previous "Background" section)
  • Composition
  • Promotion
• Release
  • Lead Singles:
    • Survival
    • Madness
  • Album Release (Packaging)
  • Critical Reception
  • Tour
  • Post Album Singles
    • Follow Me
    • Supremacy
    • Panic Station

Having dedicated h4 sections for the individual singles would allow you to dedicate one or more paragraphs to summarize the songs' respective articles, and in addition to the singles' historical context, you could provide discussion of the individual songs critical reception in the context of the album release, and you can include little gems like this quote from Pitchfork's review of The 2nd Law:

Make sure you put your drink down as Bellamy screams "YOUR SUPREMACYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!" because all of a sudden having The 2nd Law only in audio form feels pathetically inadequate-- next time you will place it against footage from Starship Troopers, although the closest visual equivalent to this batshit moment is a dinosaur with a cowboy hat manning a F-15 and blowing evil aliens to bits while scoring the game-winning touchdown in the Super Bowl.

This is just one way to go, but I would advocate something like this because it allows you to present the article as a story. People can read from top to bottom and each topic flows into the next, and the article can have overarching themes. The background and composition already discusses the band's intentions for the album to have an eclectic and experimental nature -- the sections on the release of the albums and singles can include discussion on specifically how well the bands attempt to branch out was received, with facts -- names and dates -- woven into an interesting discussion in a way that people will remember; that is, in a way that's engaging, even brilliant.

Furthershore 04:20, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestions. I will take from these and see what can I do. Aria1561 (talk) 23:12, 22 November 2015 (UTC)