Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Archive 40

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Archive 41

Proposed "R from band name" rcat template

I would like to create an {{R from}} category to sort musical band and group names that redirect to an article on an single person (e.g. {{R from band name}} or {{R from group name}}). Examples include Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Afrika Bambaataa & the Soul Sonic Force, and Puff Daddy and the Family. Please comment here if you care. —  AjaxSmack  00:41, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Error in musical example for Goldberg Variations

There's an error in the example for the Aria, as noted on its talk page. Since no one will ever read that talk page, I'm mentioning it here. 79.64.184.87 (talk) 20:05, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Which section of the talk page is about this particular error? QuietHere (talk) 04:46, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

See Commons:File talk:Bach-goldberg-aria.png#Error in bar 4. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:45, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Numerous KPOP songs marked as "singles" are not singles

This discussion is the result research done and a different conclusion reached after this Wikiproject:Music discussion and a user discussion.

A very large quantity of articles describing major KPOP songs on this wiki are marked as Singles when they are actually only Songs.

For example:

• Umpah Umpah
• Psycho (Red Velvet song)
• More & More (Twice song)
• Feel Special (song)
• Life Goes On (BTS song) (this is actually a single, see below)
• Wolfgang (song)
• Lilac (song)

And a lot more...

These songs are just songs that were only released as part of an EP or album, but never a single (a release with 1-3 songs).

This can be seen in the linked references next to each of the songs. These lead to song's Musicbrainz recording page. If you notice, for all of these songs' Release Group Type is only either a EP, album, or Album + Compilation. That means that they were only released on these types of releases. Never a single.

So, you might be wondering, how has this happened?

There are many reasons:

• These songs are what are known as title track (Q107124378)s/title songs/titles by the South Korean music industry. They are the promoted songs on a release (they have an MV, they are performed on shows, etc.). Here is an example of that definition in-use. The song Lilac in the list above is the first track and the "title track" on the album shown on this teaser poster released by the record label. People have equated "title track" = "single", even though a title track is typically always just a song. We will see why they do this below.
• Music publications, especially NME, have misused the word "single" and "lead single" to describe "title tracks" on their articles about KPOP songs. For example, the song Psycho listed above according to NME is Red Velvet's "new single". NME does not do their homework to see if the song was actually released as part of a single and wrongly assumes that the KPOP industry did release a single with the promoted song on the album before or with the main release like the Western music industry does. As seen above, the KPOP industry does not do this. They just release their promoted tracks with the main release. As a result, Wiki editors will cite NME and use that as an excuse that the song is a "single", even though the major music news publication is wrong themselves.
• This marking of "title tracks" as "singles" has become a trend on this Wiki. As major KPOP contributor and article-creator User:Paper9oll explained, "Btw, I didn't follow NME just because they wrote in their article that it is lead single but I'm simply just following the older/recent releases from other K-pop groups album/EP be it their lead single having the same name or not, and also referencing GA article such The Boys (Girls' Generation song), Umpah Umpah, and Psycho (Red Velvet song) or if you prefer more recent non-GA ones like Life Goes On (BTS song)". So, there are literally Good articles marked as singles when they are not, and clearly users are just using them as templates to continue this wrong trend.
• The final reason has to do with a bit of egoism. If these songs aren't marked as singles, they can't show up on the artist's singles discography page. Wiki contributors would like to have a nice list of "all of an artists major songs" and currently singles discographies lists fulfill that desire. For example, many of the songs on Twice singles discography are not singles but title tracks (the accurate list can be found on their Musicbrainz discography page). If all of these singles were now only marked as songs, many of them would disappear from the list!

And that final reason leads me into what solution are we going to make. Clearly to deal with this problem, a lot of pages are going to have to be changed from "single". Are we going to just change all of these to songs? Should we create a "title track" song type, add it to Template:Infobox song, and make or combine title track discography lists with singles lists? Or do we have another solution?

Let me know your thoughts, solutions, and questions!

Lectrician1 (talk) 12:44, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, editors listing every promo song released as a single is a problem across rock music artists as well. It's hard to do much about it though - the definition of a single has blurred in the age of digital downloads and streaming. It's hard to establish rule on Wikipedia when the industry itself hasn't established hard definitions. I just generally go by the generic rule of "if reliable sources generally call it a single, label it as such. If they don't, then don't." That was the only real solution that picked up any support years back on one of the Wikiprojects talk pages. Sergecross73 msg me 13:20, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Just a summary for all editors, the issues started when Lectrician1 changed the short description in Wikidata for Stereotype (STAYC song) from "2021 single by STAYC" to "2021 song by STAYC" of which the item was created by me, which I reference from older items I have created prior, of which the older items are referenced from older items created by other editors. After which, he posted in my talk page to give his views and explained why. However, he also mentioned that he and other editor (Moebeus) discussed it on Telegram and came to an conclusion that song is correct, which goes against WP:OFF. So how does this really have anything to do with English Wikipedia? Well, because some articles for K-pop don't include {{short description}}, of which the data would be automatically pulled from wikidata, older ones included the hatnote but newer ones doesn't hence there will be an inconsistency between the short description and the body of the article. I used to include {{short description}} in articles I created or edits, but those were removed by another editor.

I disagreed we should be referencing what Musicbrainz is doing or stating/categorizing and applying it one on one on English Wikipedia, that would literally be copying. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 14:04, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

We are able to find all of the formats a release is released in usually from a record label press release, their catalog, or publications. That's how Musicbrainz gets its data as well. Lectrician1 (talk) 14:44, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Oh and to further elaborate, this specifically affects Wikidata because we cannot make items instance of (P31) song (Q7366) and single (Q134556) (what Paper9oll was doing). single (Q134556) only covers the release-type single and not the definition for song-type single. Also, future constraints we'll impose will prevent these from being used together without conflicts. If there are seperate released singles and songs, they have their own items. Lectrician1 (talk) 14:50, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: Yeah and I tried "fixing this" by changing the actual Single (music) article to include the "promoted song-type" definition so that there wasn't confusion, but due to a lack of sources (It's impossible to find any about a "industry trend" that's never been reported about), it was reverted quick. Lectrician1 (talk) 14:09, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Hold on just a second...since when did we begin considering MusicBrainz as the definitive source for anything? For all intents and purposes, what you have just described above for these songs makes them singles. Yes, K-pop albums have lead singles or singles released in conjunction with the album, which are called title tracks by the K-pop industry. That doesn't negate them being singles. A song selected to promote the album, having a music video made for it, and the groups who made these songs extensively promoting these specific songs in South Korea, performing the song on the various music countdown and live performance programs there, makes them singles. "Umpah Umpah" is a single from The ReVe Festival: Day 2, "Psycho" is a single from The ReVe Festival: Finale, "Life Goes On" (a US number one, by the way) is a single from Be, and "Lilac" was the second single from IU's Lilac (given a promotional push in conjunction with the album's release, as evidenced by it going to number one in South Korea).

Claiming all of this is a "trend" of experienced music sources misusing the term "single" and egoism on the part of a large cohort of editors, including casual editors who aren't K-pop fans but can discern what is promoted as a single and what is not, is a huge leap. I'd love to know what is a single in the K-pop industry to you if these very prominent recent examples are not singles. Please, by all means, name a few K-pop singles for me if "Life Goes On" by BTS is not a single. Ping @Explicit and Carlobunnie: as editors who are interested in this topic. If I had to guess, I would say MusicBrainz doesn't consider these "singles" because in a majority of cases, as these singles come out at the same time as the album, they do not have their own separate single pages on Apple Music, Spotify, the Korean streaming sites like Melon, and so on and so forth. And as we know, they wouldn't be released physically, as CD singles are essentially dead everywhere outside of Japan (apart from single albums issued by South Korean artists, which are generally released physically). Ss112 15:07, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

100% agreed with Ss112. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 15:14, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@Ss112: you pretty much voiced my thoughts to the letter. This is the first I'm hearing that Musicbrainz is the standard by which we define or should be defining songs/singles. As Sergecross73 said, we go by what the sources say. Now, while I can't speak for every single kpop article on WP, I can say that of the examples Lectrician1 listed above, LGO was released as a limited edition 1-sided 7" vinyl single and a 1-track A/B side cassette single. So by the very definition being pushed (a release with 1–3 songs) it is a single (as already correctly stated on its page). -- Carlobunnie (talk) 16:06, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Ah good catch Carlobunnie. Did not see that with LGO. Then yes, it would be a single. Lectrician1 (talk) 16:47, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@Ss112: Okay, and you would be completely right if you considered a "single" as a type of song. I used to have the same thought! However, I find that most of the music industry considers a "single" as a type of release and not a song, just as Single (music) describes what a single is. That's the issue at hand: a difference in definitions, and what to do about it on Wikipedia and Wikidata. Lectrician1 (talk) 15:19, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I think this brings us full circle back to what I was originally saying now. If it was 1982 right now, we'd have a hard, concrete definition of what a single is. Then, it was a concrete, objective type of physical release. But in the modern age of downloads and streaming, that's generally not what reliable sources are referring to. But unfortunately the industry really hasn't given an updated, concrete definition of a single. And this is why these sort of disputes keep arising. And it's hard to come to a conclusion as Wikipedia when the industry itself still hasn't reconciled this yet. Which is why we generally default to using reliable sources stances on the matter - because that's pretty much how we solve most things on Wikipedia. I know it's not ideal, but I don't know how we could do anything else without overstepping our roles as editors, which is about "documenting history", not making it ourselves. Sergecross73 msg me 16:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Wikipedia needs to evolve as the industry evolves, rather than rigidly sticking to traditional meanings of terms that have been rapidly changing with the times. What constitutes a single won't stay the same forever, and we should adapt accordingly. It may not be preferable or pleasing, as is clearly the case for Lectrician1, but it doesn't make sense to do otherwise when the sources we rely on say differently. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 20:44, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Okay, then it seems like all of you want to remain with the current mixed definition of single.

I mentioned at the end of the last singles discussion that the Single (music) page should change to accomodate this song-type definition, but that never happened. So, if anyone wants to build off my attempt with good sources, please do. If that's not possible, I'd love to establish some other way such as a Wikiproject documentation page describing that both releases and songs can be "singles" so that others don't run into the same confusion I did.

Secondly, we need to solve the Wikidata problem that original sparked this discussion. My proposed solution is to create a new item named "single (song)" that covers the song-type single definition (single (Q134556) covers the release type) and is described as "a type of promoted song". Then, this new single item will be used on song items with the has characteristic (P1552) property instead of instance of (P31). @Paper9oll: does this work for you?

Lectrician1 (talk) 23:36, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@Lectrician1 Just answering the portion on wikidata, I'm fine as long as you don't touch the short-description portion, meaning don't go around and change it from "20XX single by X" to "20XX song by X". "20XX single by X" should be retained. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 01:21, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Cardi B has an RFC

Cardi B has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. shanghai.^{talk to me} 03:44, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Peer review on Phonk

Hi, there's an open peer review discussion regarding Phonk; if anyone wanted to comment it would be much appreciated! Nehme₁₄₉₉ 15:19, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

RfC started on track listing sections

An RfC has been started at MOS:MUSIC relating to song articles. All comments are welcome. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 05:21, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

We should be adding more music files

I've been surprised recently, looking at music articles recently, how few include audio files with music samples. With e.g. blues, shouldn't there be a sample of blues music beyond just auto-generated lines? Licensing may be an issue in some areas, but we can at least tag the talk pages with {{Music requested}}. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:52, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree. A year ago I put in a request at the Beatles project page for a few samples where there's ample coverage in the sources to warrant including the non-free files – no joy. Aside from that type of specific sample, to illustrate points discussed in the text, we should be able to include a short sample in an article's infobox anyway. (I just can't get my around how to create them.) JG66 (talk) 02:08, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

I always assumed the process was difficult or the legal requirements for uploading correctly was high (like our image policy) and that's why there weren't more music files around. I honestly have no idea though. Sergecross73 msg me 13:58, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: The licensing is probably fairly difficult—my understanding (with the heavy caveat that I'm not a copyright specialist) is that both the music itself and the performance of it need to be freely licensed. It is possible to upload some fair use clips, though, such as I did at Cirrus (song). I recently pointed an editor at my talk to WP:MCQ, and I'll be interested to hear what the experts have to say to them. Regarding other difficulty, the process of uploading music files is roughly similar to images or other files. The technical support and user interface hasn't gotten enough attention from the WMF yet, but that'll be remedied over time. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:57, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

RfC started on track listing sections in albums

An RfC has been started at MOS:MUSIC relating to album articles. All comments are welcome. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 17:13, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Roud Folk Song Index and Child Ballads nr in the WP:LEAD of articles about songs

For the interested. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:10, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

"Infinity (audio)" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Infinity (audio). The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 25#Infinity (audio) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. 64.229.90.53 (talk) 04:30, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Elton John albums discography

Should his latest album be moved from the collaborative albums sub-section, given other sources are not categorising it that way? The same point could apply to the other albums listed in that section. Where an album is a genuine collaboration I have seen it still listed in the regular studio albums section, but with info in brackets showing the credit. I see the recent Gorillaz album which featured various guests is just listed as a studio album. Regards. Eldumpo (talk) 16:08, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Billboard and NME both describe it as a collaboration album. Are there any sources which describe it as a new studio album? Richard3120 (talk) 17:50, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Discogs and Spotify list it as part of his standard album collections. Are the Billboard and NME sources referring to at as a collaboration album in the sense of separate from his other albums i.e. in the context of the discography article? Eldumpo (talk) 20:41, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Discogs isn't a usable source - it's just put together by random people in the same way Wikipedia is - and I don't think streaming services are a good reference point either. I'm always surprised to see how frequently Apple Music mislabels albums/compilations/EPs etc. It's probably best to see how reliable sources and the musicians themselves. Green Day and Foxboro Hot Tubs are all the same musicians yet different albums are labeled by different bands. Intent matters in these things. Sergecross73 msg me 20:52, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I don’t see why the streaming services should be dismissed as a source, ok Discogs is like Wikipedia. We would not normally use original sources (i.e. the artists themselves) to determine content. Anyway, I note no consensus to change. Eldumpo (talk) 19:28, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

See WP:NOTRSMUSIC. There's already a Wikiproject level consensus to shy away from using retail listings and distributors as sources. Partially because linking to them is inherently promotional in nature, and partially because they're prone to errors. If it's really just down to "Spotify versus Billboard/NME", your argument doesn't stand a chance. Better hope no one puts in the slightest amount of effort in contesting your stance. Sergecross73 msg me 19:59, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Heavy metal music under 2nd FAR

I created the 2nd FA review on heavy metal music. Please your contributions to the article are welcome. --George Ho (talk) 06:07, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Non-related, but, eh, I just wish someone has finally started splitting that article into heavy metal and metal concepts. Saying that all metal genres are subgenres of heavy metal is just nonsensical for 2020s. The very same is fair for alternative music and alternative rock. Combining 'musical direction'/'umbrella genre' with a particular music genre is the bane of Wikipedia. These are someone's 15-year-old mistakes that no one ever reached to correct yet, while it caused a ton of inaccuracies and spree of new mistakes. Solidest (talk) 06:54, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow. There are endless metal spin out articles. What exactly would you spin out? There's plenty wrong with the heavy metal article, but I wouldn't think that is one of them. Sergecross73 msg me 01:04, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

It is not about the sources, but about the understanding of the concepts they describe, while using similar terms.

There are two concepts:

• "Metal music", originally called "Heavy metal".
• "Heavy metal", sometimes referred to as "Traditional heavy metal" to avoid misconception.

More reliable and trustworthy sources always separate the two concepts and use one of the pairs of terms. Many interwikis are already based on this distinction. We have traditional heavy metal (Q1133657) concept on wikidata with a bunch of articles. However, most wikipedias still follow the English wikipedia model and mix the two concepts, keeping everything in a single article. It would be totally incorrect to call either type extreme metal or alternative metal a sub-genre of traditional heavy metal. But the English article actually says that, without giving much thought to the depth of the sources it follow. It's like saying rock and pop are one concept and don't deserve separate articles, because allmusic in its hierarchy doesn't divide these concepts ([1]), while other sources will tell you that they are definitely separate concepts. The situation with metal is a little less sweeping, but the point is the same. Or vice versa, indie music in its origins days was indie rock only. And that issue could have been on the same scale as metal, if someone hadn't just created a separate article and categories for independent music at the right moment. Whereas you can still find sources that tell you that every indie music genre = indie rock. It's literally all about a poor handling of sources. The authors of the sources who understand what subgenre of music exactly is (in terms of hierarchy continuity) understand that and never cross these concepts. But there are some sources that don't care about that, unfortunately, and they just lump everything together without giving it any importance, while this contradicts other, more advanced sources. Solidest (talk) 03:11, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I see. That's not part of my reservations, nor do I see such a massive revamp happening with the little interest in updating, let alone totally reworking and rewriting, but its an interesting thought at least. Sergecross73 msg me 20:16, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion re using Discogs as a source when photos provided

At Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Discogs -- material backed by photos (typically discographies, track listings, and some credits). Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources says not to use Discogs, the proposal is to allow for info when there's a photo of the album label or sleeve provided. Input welcome. Herostratus (talk) 13:35, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:FASA nomination for Spiderland

Featured Article Save Award nomination at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/Spiderland/archive1. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:06, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

TopHit as a single indicator

Guys, I think we need to talk about TopHit. Since its usage throughout articles is viewed differently depending on a person. Some people see it as a clear single release proof (recent changes or should I say warring on "Off the Table" and "Walking on Air"), and some even doubt the need to include it in release history tables (e.g. "Oh My God"). In my opinion TopHit should not be counted as a single indicator unless its supported by other radio releases or what artist/lable says, so if there is no other release surrounding the song (besides possible earlier release as a promo single already, e.g. "Million Reasons" or "What Makes a Woman") then it should be clasified only as a promotional single. Of course it is only my opinion, so that's why I'm bringing it up here to determine what should we really do about that, since we should stop recent edit wars. infsai (talkie? UwU) 13:38, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Probably worth mentioning that there is already a lengthy discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs#TopHit and it is probably best to comment there to keep the discussion in one place. Richard3120 (talk) 17:08, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Richard3120. I'm not quite informed where such discussions should held, so I just didn't know about it, thanks for notifying! infsai (talkie? UwU) 19:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tell All Your Friends/archive1

I understand that this is not the exact place to put this, but this article - currently at FAC - it is not gaining very much attention. It has received two supports and has been open for one month; I don't want it to be closed for lack of participation, and it is part of the Music project of Wikipedia, so I thought I would ask around. I understand the notice placed at the top, and I have bumped this thread twice on the albums WP, but garnered no serious interest or response. dannymusiceditor ^oops 14:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

2008 Universal Studios fire - how appropriate?

There are hundreds of articles that now contain the phrase "... was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire" (some use "reportedly destroyed") with a link to the Jody Rosen's New York Times article. However, a quick read of the 2008 Universal fire article shows that Rosen's account has been heavily disputed by Universal and they have only confirmed 19 artists had material destroyed. Some artists named in Rosen's article (like Hole) seem to have dropped lawsuits after Universal confirmed certain material was not destroyed.

My question is this: Given that this report is disputed, how appropriate is it that ~800 articles contain this sentence? Vladimir.copic (talk) 05:53, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Just realised this was discussed earlier this year so pinging those editors: @Kaltenmeyer, Sergecross73, Binksternet, Walter Görlitz, and Ojorojo: Vladimir.copic (talk) 06:02, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I'd say it would be better if the articles said something like: According to a 2019 report by The New York Times, X was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire; this was disputed by Universal Music Group. If we can agree on a set wording to use here I'm happy to help adjust this across the affected articles. Popcornfud (talk) 11:28, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

As I mentioned last time, a single-sentence paragraph tagged at the end of artist's articles was not a good idea to begin with. But if only a small fraction of the 800 articles were actually effected, the phrase should only appear in those articles (but properly integrated). The rest should be removed. —Ojorojo (talk) 14:23, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm actually tired of the whole thing. There's too many. About every artist article I view its there to point it's annoying. Why not "This artist is/was a divorced person" etc etc or whatever. This stuff belongs in categories. Make a Category:Artists with material destroyed in 2008 Universal fire. Add Category:Artists with material alleged to have been destroyed in 2008 Universal fire if that's needed. If you need a shorter name than Category:Universal file victims or whatever.

If you like make a list article too. Then you can have a notes column which has more details than a category can have -- "Not confirmed" or whatever. Add it in the See Also section maybe. Herostratus (talk)

I don't recall previous conversations on this (my memory is bad, sorry), but it doesn't seem crazy t include to me. I think if there was a fire in which only, say, Nirvana's tapes were destroyed, then I'd be in favor of including, in the Nirvana article, "In 2009, Nirvana's master tapes were destroyed in a fire." I therefore can't think why I would oppose mentioning it for a few other hundred artists.

I don't really understand the "divorced" analogy - when people get divorced, we mention it in the Personal life section. Popcornfud (talk) 16:57, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I think my stance last time was that its worth a (sourced) sentence, but nothing more. I haven't been following up on developments, so if it's true that a vast majority weren't actually affected, then it's probably less important to mention. Or one could alter it to something to the capacity of "(Album's) masters were thought to be lost originally, but it was later found to be untrue." Outright removal might mean that people keep re-adding it if they haven't been following along to the whole thing. I don't feel all that strongly on it though. I'm not really sure why anyone would, really. It's a pretty innocuous, short note. Sergecross73 msg me 17:09, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree that’s it’s a short note but it’s on hundreds of articles and it is possibly untrue or an allegation denied by Universal. Most of the artists were only mentioned once in the initial NYT piece. I would be in favour in removing the sentence from most articles as undue but obviously keeping the information for the 20 or so articles where there was further coverages. I need to do a bit more reading to be sure of this and I would like at least a little bit of support from other editors before undertaking something so big. Vladimir.copic (talk) 23:41, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, why not just explain the whole situation then? Here's the report and here's what ended up happening. So many people get caught up on what is or isn't true, when all you have to do is write a nuanced sentence on what really happened in the end. Sergecross73 msg me 23:53, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I would be in favor of removing the note unless it can be fully substantiated. It doesn't really deserve a mention if it is just alleged. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 00:28, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Like I said, it could future-proof things a bit at least, so we're not back here discussing it again in 6 months after we delete every mention and then some random unaffiliated person re-adds it because they think the info not being there is just an oversight. It's remarkable how often this sort of stuff happens in the articles I maintain. Sergecross73 msg me 18:04, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

The fire was in 2008 and if only ~20 artists have been confirmed to have lost tapes as of April 2020,[2] there is no reason to keep this disputed allegation in articles about the other ~780 artists. I agree with Editorofthewiki and Vladimir.copic that the report should be removed from unaffected artist articles. Trying to clarify the report in so many articles with "13 years later and this is still unproven" would be a colossal waste of time and of little benefit; leaving the articles "as is" is misleading. Open a RfC if necessary. —Ojorojo (talk) 19:03, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

I think there might be enough support to start the removal of this from pages. I think being bold might be the right step here. If editors take issue, I can raise an RfC. Vladimir.copic (talk) 23:35, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

@Vladimir.copic: The "reportedly" qualifier regarding the destruction by the fire has been removed from several articles that I watch (for example, see the changes made by Jpgordon on 13 December[3]). However, the changes are not accompanied by a new citation and the artists are not one of the 19 confirmed by Universal according to Rolling Stone.[4]. Do you know of any new info about what exactly was lost? —Ojorojo (talk) 15:38, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I saw the "reportedly" removed from the Edie Brickell & New Bohemians article, so based on this conversation I went bold and removed the whole section about the UMG fire from her article, with this comment in the edit summary "Removed statement of master tapes being destroyed in the Universal Studios fire as unlikely based on speculative reporting by the New York Times and never supported after that one article. The citation provided has been disputed, and instead of hundreds of artists, only nineteen artists/bands have been confirmed to have their master-tapes destroyed, and Edie Brickell is not among the confirmed artists. 2008 Universal Studios fire#UMG response". I think we should be bold and start removing the sections from the various artist pages now, except for the known nineteen affected. Mburrell (talk) 17:09, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I did a couple of searches and couldn't find any new info. So I'll begin removing these from some articles that I watch too. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

If there's consensus, I can easily remove all of them in a semi-automated fashion. I'd been focusing on how annoying it was that each one of these said "On so-and-so date, the NYT magazine reported that blah blah blah", without considering whether the insertion should have been made in the first place. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 15:26, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a consensus, but reviewing this talk page section, I see two people on the fence for more discussion (User:Sergecross73, User:Popcornfud), and four users in favor of removing the mention on the various artist pages (User:Vladimir.copic, User:Mburrell, User:Ojorojo, User:EDDY. Should we have a poll, further discussion, or is that sufficient to call consensus? Mburrell (talk) 03:17, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I still believe outright deletion is the wrong choice. (Seems like Popcornfud may have been too?) But I also see the consensus is currently against me. Do as you please. None of these album articles are on my watchlist of articles I maintain, so it's not my burden if disputes or confusion keep arising over the subject. Sergecross73 msg me 03:31, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

The thing I don't get here is that if the fire had (reportedly) affected only one artist, and there was the same level of uncertainty about whether they had been affected or not, then I don't think we'd be having this conversation. Everyone would agree that it would be appropriate to mention in the article that "according to X, the band's master records were destroyed in Y fire, though this is disputed by Z". If I'm right about that, then why do we want to remove this information when it affects several artists instead?

In any case, I don't feel strongly about this matter. It doesn't make sense to me, but I've stated my 2 cents and I won't oppose it if the gang wants to press on. Popcornfud (talk) 11:24, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Remove the unconfirmed The original report added to articles did not qualify "material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire" as potentially affecting only a portion of the artist's catalogue. Artist with long recording careers often change labels; Universal (and through its affiliates) might have only had control over a fraction of an artist's recording catalogue and master tapes. The last wording in the Johnny Winter article (now removed)[5] stated "Johnny Winter was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire". This may give some readers the impression that all or a significant portion of Winter's material was lost, when in fact, he only recorded six albums for Universal affiliates out of total of about 43 albums during his career. Plus the fact that Winter is not among the 19 confirmed makes this wording quite misleading (and I suspect for many of the 700+ other artists). With problems like these, the report should be removed from the unconfirmed artists' articles. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:01, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

OK, I've got my tool set up to remove all of these that are stand-alone paragraphs; this should be most of the 750+. My process is to eyeball each one of them before saving. So as soon as consensus is reached, I'm ready to roll. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 19:48, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

@Jpgordon: With Serge's and Popcorn's non-objections, it seems that there is a consensus to remove. However, a RfC may be started if necessary. By the way, is there a reason why "reportedly" was removed from the statements? Universal has consistently denied the NYT allegations, except for 19 artists, and a judge dismissed the lawsuits against Universal for the rest. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:27, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

There was nothing to indicate any reason for the "reportedly" in any of the articles, and I hadn't seen this discussion yet. If someone has good scripting abilities, I'd be happy if all of my such edits were undone. I don't quite know how to do it, though. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 15:42, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jpgordon: Looks like many of these can simply be reverted. Although it seems easier just to remove them with your tool as you mentioned above. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:40, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't bother continuing with the reversions, though; there are some 800 of them to do. I can use JWB to remove entire paragraphs. I'll be able to start on that in the next day or two. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 16:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good. It's too bad some of these bot operators get blocked before they can clean up their messes. —Ojorojo (talk) 17:26, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I asked him to do so 2019 but he pretty much blew me off. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 17:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

OK, I've gotten rid of most of them, but [6] still finds about 130 of them. I kept in those that had some discussion attached (like, "so and so denied it" or "so and so verified it"). I'll filter through the remaining bunch on another pass eventually. Or someone else can! --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 23:32, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Expect friction at individual entries, like my disagreement at Sammy Kaye. I'm aware that Universal has denied and claimed that the NYT article was flawed, but it seems unlikely only 19 artists' masters were lost in such a massive fire. I can see reasons why the company would deny any losses even if true. At the very least, it would be helpful in 700+ automated edits to link this discussion in edit summary. I am satisfied the list (while collapsed) appears in the fire article. BusterD (talk) 23:40, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry about not including the full link in the summary. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 23:58, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Seems like a natural segue into an ad donating to internet archive, doesn't it? Sammy Kaye? "Swing and sway" it isn't so... BusterD (talk) 00:46, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I only saw this discussion (thanks to the Volunteer Response Team) after the mass deletion, which showed up on a couple of pages that I follow. This discussion was helpful - I did not know that much of the reported destruction of artists' master tapes was disputed. (And I am sure that disputes will continue -- nobody will ever be able to catalog with great confidence what was lost in the fire.) I strongly agree that jpgordon should have included a link to this discussion as a comment on in each of the edits; otherwise, some of them will surely be reverted. Also fwiw, my personal inclination on substance: it is a major issue, and certainly worth inclusion in their Wikipedia page, for each of the artists if some of the original master tapes of their work were destroyed. So I would have preferred to say that the allegation is disputed, rather than to delete the allegation. But my view seems to be a minority one. Sullidav (talk) 02:44, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Not really a big issue for the artists. Artists who own the rights to their masters keep them. If their labels, own the rights, they keep them, and would have kept them in a place like this. Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:03, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Infobox musical artist, MOS:STYLERET and a low-grade edit war

{{Infobox musical artist}} allows comma-separated lists for lists of three or fewer items, and always allows formal, bullet lists in the infobox. MOS:STYLERET makes an ArbCom decision clear: "When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change." About 24 hours ago an editor changed the style in the infobox. I reverted and pointed to STYLERET, and made other reverts that I felt were stylistic. This started a low-grade edit war. The other editor does not seem to accept STYLERET and wants me to leave him alone and has essentially threatened to escalate in some way. Also, the editor seems to think I am following them, and does not understand how or why some editors patrol changes to their watchlist. Regardless, I would appreciate advice, comments and even support. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:10, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Jumped in and supported your edits. One style is not necessarily better than another, but as you stated, MOS:STYLERET does apply, and while you have initiated dialogue, the other editor has been disruptive and accusative, and I can't support that. Mburrell (talk) 05:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! The editor has responded to comments I made on their own talk page (a variant of WP:OSE). I know that some editors prefer the bullets but that's not a reason to change. Just today, I had to convert a comma separate list to a formal one because two labels were added to the infobox and there were five, so I'm not opposed to their use. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:02, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Colin Larkin references

Hello WikiProject Music members. I am hoping that some of you can help us with a situation that first arose at the conflict of interest noticeboard and spawned into sockpuppet investigation. It concerns the use of references written by Colin Larkin, a music writer and author of works such as the Encyclopedia of Popular Music and All Time Top 1000 Albums. While there seems to be consensus that the author is reputable and the books he authored are reliable sources, the behaviour of certain users has raised questions about their use in articles.

The user "Colin Larkin" is the real-life person (confirmed through OTRS 2018100310003528). His edit history began as largely that of a single purpose account. He edited the Colin Larkin article directly until warned by Kleuske in October 2018. Soon after, the user "Muso805" appeared and began editing album and artist articles; frequently mentioning Larkin's book and also using it as a reference. This edit is just one example of hundreds of such similar edits.

Concern over the editing habits of the two accounts was noted in December 2021 at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 182#User:Muso805. Larkin denied any connection between the two accounts, although he admitted to sharing an account but no action was taken. Soon after this discussion ended, the user "Southwold54" picked up where Muso805 left off, with edits such as this.

Concerns were again raised this month Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#The Music Guides Playlists / Colin Larkin. At the time, Southwold's edits hadn't been noticed, but another user's ("The Music Guides Playlists", now renamed to "MelomaneQC") were mentioned. Larkin again indignantly denied any wrongdoing, but a sockpuppet investigation confirmed that Colin Larkin, Muso805 and Southwold54 were the same user. All three accounts have now been blocked.

MelomaneQC was found to be unrelated to the others, but there is still meatpuppetry concerns over that account's edits, as they bear resemblance to the sockpuppet accounts (example). We're now asking if members here could help comb through the edits of these accounts, and evaluate their merits against their possible promotional motivations. Not only are the number of edits daunting, the subject matter is a bit outside our area of expertise.

Any and all assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 06:56, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

For as much as there might be infractions against Wikipedia guidelines...we should be so lucky as to have Larkin editing for us. Chubbles (talk) 13:14, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

It's not clear how I can assist. I have not seen any Larkin reviews to articles on my watchlist so I may be immune to this issue for now. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, same. Not sure what else there is to be done besides a mass reverting? Sergecross73 msg me 21:34, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that that would be constructive to the overall project of building the encyclopedia. Chubbles (talk) 13:46, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't particularly find much value in barebones additions like this. If someone wants to re-add it with some meaningful content from the source, I support that. But nothing is lost by removing it as is. Sergecross73 msg me 13:53, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

If a large portion of the edits are mere boilerplate of that sort, then yes, I agree with blanket removal of those - but not also of any content of substance, or of gnome edits. Chubbles (talk) 17:10, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay, we're on the same page then. Sergecross73 msg me 17:13, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello WikiProject members, I am MelomaneQC. I renamed myself upon Wiki member’s request because it was mentioned that The Music Guides Playlist was a conflict of interest. I chose a name that should be all good now. Concerning Colin Larkin, I still wonder why it’s an issue because I own his encyclopedias, it’s an editor for which I have respect for years. I add ratings because I want to contribute to Wikipedia’s database in the music category. In the future, I also want to add Penguin’s Jazz ratings, but I only own the 4th edition (now trying to buy the 9th edition) and Rough Guides quotes as they don’t have ratings but is a great music reference. It’s only a labor of love. As mentioned to Drm310 on my talk page, I also did edit for Quebec artists. In the beginning, I used this reference I made myself, see Beauty Stab but I have learned from a Wiki member and as an unexperienced editor that I had to keep the The before Encyclopedia of Popular Music. To respect the reference code, I copied one that was generic, without the page number as I was doing before. I didn’t know that coping a reference code would put me in this situation and being accused of meatpuppetry as I don’t promote anyone, I simply transfer information of books I own into the Wikipedia database. If it can help my situation, I can vary my entries by doing more than a book at the time (The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Rough Guides, Penguin Guides, Gramophone Guides, etc). Let me know. Thanks MelomaneQC (talk) 13:30, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Afrikaans

Nelisa voice 41.114.199.168 (talk) 18:55, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Proposal for consistent diminished chord typography

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Music#Consistent diminished chord typography if interested. Thanks! -- Beland (talk) 00:25, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Template Help

I'm a music fan, and I'm trying to clean some genre templates up and put them in the correct pages, but users like Ojorojo, Binksternet, MrOllie, FlightTime, and ILIL keep messing up my edits. Could someone do something about this? 47.36.25.163 (talk) 20:35, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I reviewed some of your edits and some of the reversions of edits, and I think the problem is that you are not justifying your changes, so what you call cleaning up a genre template by changing the order of categories or by adding additional genres does not appear to be cleaning up or placing in correct pages. Maybe you see something others are not seeing, but you need to use the talk page or the edit summary to explain you work so that what you see others can comprehend. I cannot agree that your edits are cleaning up the templates or placing genres in the correct page, so I am one of the people who need to understand your logic before I could support your changes. Always glad to help, just tell me and others why your edits deserve the support, and if we comprehend your logic and agree with it, we can work with you to make your edits stick. Mburrell (talk) 00:13, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Art pop

I started a discussion at Talk:Art pop#Remaining audio samples. --George Ho (talk) 08:09, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

dab repair from Kenzie to one of two articles

Hi, I had noticed that there were a lot of articles which had formerly had a link pointing to Kenzie which is now a disambiguation page but I have changed them to the relevant article as either Kenzie (rapper) or Kenzie (songwriter). I am wondering and hoping I have done this correctly since I don't know much about these two famous people relating to music. Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 19:15, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Don't think a band title should be all caps, but is there a guideline that is prescriptive about this?

I am pretty sure that stylization is not allowed for album titles and band names for the Wikipedia article title, but I am not finding a guideline that clearly states that. I encountered a band article that lists the band in all caps, but no matter how I search, I cannot find that it is based off of an acronym. I was going to leave a message on the talk page suggesting I move the article in a week to non-stylized spelling unless they could justify the all caps as anything more than stylization, but when I was looking for guideline to support my statement, I was not satisfied with any article I found as being strong enough to justify this. To not be mysterious, the band article is TOPS (band), and I cannot find any reason it should not be changed to Tops (band). However, the guidelines I find are not prescriptive enough to allow me to lay down the law, and I would have sworn I have seen something prescriptive about all cap titles.

So, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) deals with the first letter of every word in a title. MOS:TITLECAPS states that most articles should be sentence case except titles which follow title case. MOS:ALLCAPS says to avoid using all caps in articles, but could this be used for article titles or only for within the article? It is possible that MOS:AT could apply, but is it strong enough to sway fans of stylized names? It states "Capitalize the initial letter, but otherwise follow sentence case, not title case, except where title case would be expected were the title to occur in ordinary prose."

Does anyone know of a stronger argument about not using all capital stylization for band titles and album titles? Mburrell (talk) 04:51, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

The policy, WP:AT applies at WP:TITLETM (Standard English and trademarks). A band name is a trade name. It is basically telling us to use standard casing, not allcaps. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:04, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

@Cinderella157: I've run into this issue before, with editors arguing that we should follow the second part of WP:TITLETM... "...unless the trademarked spelling is demonstrably the most common usage in sources independent of the owner of the trademark". In the case of TOPS, most reliable sources do use the all caps for the band's name. I don't agree with this, as I also believe it's a stylisation... many artists use all caps for themselves just to look important, in my opinion. Richard3120 (talk) 21:50, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Richard3120: Article titles follow standard English text formatting in the case of trademarks, unless the trademarked spelling is demonstrably the most common usage in sources independent of the owner of the trademark. Items in full or partial uppercase (such as Invader ZIM) should have standard capitalization (Invader Zim); however, if the name is ambiguous, and one meaning is usually capitalized, this is one possible method of disambiguation. I'm not seeing that the exception is to apply here and there are plenty of other "tops" articles so, while the name is ambiguous, the ambiguity is not resolved by capitalisation. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:36, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Reliable Source Suggestion(For Japanese Boy Bands)

Could anyone suggest some websites that are considered as reliable sources to find information about Japanese boy bands? Resmise (talk) 11:18, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

@Resmise: Oricon, billboard japan (the English Billboard site also posts translated articles from BBJ under their International news section), Natalie, model press, barks, real sound, MTV Japan etc. Various Japanese news media (asahi Shimbun, nikkan sports etc.) also cover news on groups/bands as well. Just search the band's name in Japanese on the news sites themselves. Yahoo Japan also hosts articles published by various news outlets. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 01:08, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

@Carlobunnie:Thanks! You made finding sources that has verifiable information easy for me. -- Resmise (talk) 12:20, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Citing contemporary classical music

Hi folks, I wondering if there is template that can cite classical music pieces. It is regarding the The Aesthetics of Resistance article. The German article has a bunch of musical pieces associated with the book and they include things like the usual composer, name but then it has extended details for example, conductor for individual pieces and Music for 32 voices in 4 groups with text projection (ad libitum). Is there any template could cite that sort of thing, or would be done via just writing a block of text. Thanks. scope_creep^Talk 11:05, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

The German article doesn't use any templates for citing those works, and that is fine. However, it also has no references for the claims, which is not fine – those are needed. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:21, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

That is not what I was asking. Do you know of a template on here that can be used to cite such information? scope_creep^Talk 14:10, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

I can't help you, sorry. But have you tried asking at WT:CM? The Classical Music WikiProject is usually quite active, and more relevant to what you are asking. Richard3120 (talk) 15:32, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

@Richard3120: Thanks. I will do. scope_creep^Talk 16:51, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musical Instruments#RfC "Lists of Repertoire" and "Use in Popular Music"

Please come share your input! Why? I Ask (talk) 04:50, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Music#Instrumentalist names in italics?

Come share your input! Why? I Ask (talk) 18:13, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Fan editor interviews for PhD project

Hey all! My name is Gen. Quon and I'm currently a Wikipedia editor and PhD student working on a dissertation about information behavior of fan editors on Wikipedia. (Although I'm using "fan" fairly broadly, I intend to focus on media fans, so people who like music, movies, TV shows, books, etc. are all a-go.) Here's more info on my project, if you're curious. As evidenced by my edit history, I've been reaching out to folks who work on pop culture articles and seeing if they'd be interested in chatting with me about their experiences on the site. I was wondering if anyone who is a part of this WikiProject might be interested in chatting with me? If so, reply here, drop me a message on my talk page, or use the WP email function! I'd love to hear what you have to say.--Gen. Quon_[Talk]^{(I'm studying Wikipedia!)} 13:30, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Discussion of George Strait

There is a discussion at Talk:George_Strait#Count_of_number_hits? regarding his tally of number-one singles, which may be of interest to editors here. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:52, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Ultravox

Hi, the infobox of the article lists "New Romantic" as a genre, but I only see that here, the recurring genre on Wikipedia for acts labeled that term seems to be "new wave". Should it be removed? -- 10Trix.Never (talk) 21:34, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Basically, unless a reliable source explicitly describes their music as "New Romantic", it shouldn't be included as a genre. I'm not sure New Romantic is even a music genre anyway... it was more a scene or a style. I suspect the most common terms in the literature to describe the band would be "new wave" or "synth-pop". Richard3120 (talk) 21:39, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

You'd better not go that road. And especially the road of genre vs style :) Solidest (talk) 21:45, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

The British post-punk/new wave/synth-pop of the late 1970s and early 1980s was the soundtrack to my childhood – we're definitely talking my thing here. :-) Anyway, I still say a reliable source needs to describe Ultravox as New Romantic for it to be included as their music genre. Richard3120 (talk) 21:52, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

There's two sources cited for New Romantic, one I can't access, the other the AllMusic page for Seona Dancing: "Inspired by the New Romantic sounds of Japan and Ultravox...". The Wikipedia page for New Romantic says Ultravox were "often identified as New Romantics by the press, although they did not exhibit the same visual styles of the movement, despite their link to the band Visage." On the other hand, Adam and the Ants were labelled New Romantic apparently for their dress sense, while forgoing synthesizers in their music.
Has there been a discussion on this before? What was the conclussion? -- 10Trix.Never (talk) 22:02, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any previous discussion - it's probably not a musical era of interest to many Wikipedia editors other than myself. Seona Dancing were never famous and are only remembered now for one thing - a young Ricky Gervais was their singer. AllMusic have ahown in their Adam and the Ants description why I think New Romantic was more aligned with a scene or style of dressing than actual music... but Solidest is right, best not open that can of worms. Richard3120 (talk) 23:10, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I vaguely remember a conversation--I think I brought up this: [7]. Terms like this, or "classic rock", "yacht rock", "golden age hip hop", etc., aren't really genres, and have mostly been scrubbed (although we gotta work on "golden age hip hop")... The Beatles aren't any less classic rock than Bad Company, in the radio format sense ... or, in 2022, Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Oasis, for that matter... Caro7200 (talk) 23:36, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I should just say, that was an observation I made about Adam and the Ants, not AllMusic, but the articles on Spandau Ballet and Visage do mention ties to the "New Romantic movement" in lede but not in the infobox which suggests there is/was some sort of consensus on Wikipedia that New Romantic is not a music genre. AllMusic do say "the New Romantic sounds of Japan and Ultravox", which makes it sound like a music style maybe as well as a fashion style. I think it looks odd only being in the infobox for Ultravox and not the others, so should it be removed? -- 10Trix.Never (talk) 01:11, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

AllAccess radio

There have been recent disagreements over the legitimacy of whether or not the songs listed when you search an artists name on AllAccess are all singles. Some think they are all singles. Some think only the songs with the "single" marker are singles. Some think that there is a difference between being released to radio and impacting radio. There needs to be a consensus about this because people are being bold and people are reverting without talking about it. So let's. Tree Critter (talk) 06:28, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

In my opinion, we should count "Cool New Music" tab as a release, since it would explain some songs appearing on radio charts. I would not call all of them singles, until they don't have any moniker (single, package, etc.). Plus, besides it being done sort of radio release, it's also a digital download release. We should also talk about cover arts used on the site. Are they reliable? infsai (talkie? UwU) 07:23, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

You don't think the songs should be considered singles UNTIL they don't have a moniker? All of the songs that I've seen that have a marker, also have a dropdown menu where you can pick a specific track. Like a 6 second intro, a radio edit of the song and an outro. ("Hey this is x and that was my newest single y"). I think thats all that the marker means, and I don't think those go away. Tree Critter (talk) 09:31, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I've been seeing about AllAccess since I posted this and I've noticed a couple things:

• All of the songs that appeared in 'future releases' also appear when you search library.
• Not all of the songs listed when you search library appeared in 'future releases'.
• The dates the songs are posted in the search library is often several days before they were a 'future release'.
• Not all songs are available for download (signified by a box with an arrow on it, to the right of the listing).
• You need access to download the songs.
  • This is the disclaimer if you try to download without access:

DISCLAIMER:

ALLACCESS.COM'S COOL NEW MUSIC PAGES ARE POWERED BY THE ALL ACCESS DOWNLOADS AUDIO DELIVERY SYSTEM

ALL ACCESS DOWNLOADS is currently available in the US & Canada, via a permission-based recipient list that is approved by record labels and other music providers. Authorized users include: (1) All radio programming personnel at all MEDIABASE and BDS-monitored or reporting stations, (2) Label-selected non-reporting stations, (3) Those in corporate programming positions at all radio companies, and (4) Consultants, satellite providers, syndicated shows, and a growing number of the major Internet programming services.

Tree Critter (talk) 14:34, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I said much of what I would say here at Talk:Taylor Swift singles discography#Singles chronology. For a song to be classified as a single, I think it needs to have an impact day, not just an "availability" day. In addition, while it technically doesn't go against WP:SOURCEACCESS, there is no way to archive the "Cool New Music" page, making verifiability impossible if the page gets moved to a new address or the site eventually goes offline. I don't really like that. Heartfox (talk) 23:10, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

@Heartfox: Yes, you got the point with the fact its not archivable. That's a shame, since it's the closest source we got to explain some songs existance on airplay charts even with no "Future Releases" note. :v infsai (talkie? UwU) 09:52, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

RFC discussion about samples in song articles

I started the RFC discussion about using non-free samples in song articles. Your input there is welcome. Link: Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 72#RfC: Using samples to identify songs in song articles --George Ho (talk) 08:11, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

A discussion on sources

There is a deletion discussion here about the show Can You Duet. While the show lasted for two seasons, it seems to have garnered no coverage as I've dissected in the AFD. I would appreciate more eyes on the AFD to judge the validity of the sources already there and prove or disprove the existence of further sources. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:06, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Is blanking a column in discography table using asterisk (*) right?

In many South Korean artists' discographies columns are blanked using asterisk to denote that a 'record chart' did not exist at that time. But is it right? Because there are multiple instances where songs have charted even on a 'record chart' which started tracking years after the song was released. For example, all Blackpink singles since 2018 have charted on Billboard Global 200 although the chart started tracking in late 2020.

I brought this discussion at WikiProject Korea but there was only one reply. Thank you. -ink&fables «talk» 13:20, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

AFD source hunt for Kerry Marx

I would appreciate further input at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kerry Marx, as I feel that the sources provided by other editors do not pass muster as significant third-party coverage and would appreciate a greater consensus. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 19:48, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

YouTube infobox in record label articles?

A discussion is taking place at Talk:NoCopyrightSounds#Youtube regarding the question of whether Infobox YouTube as a module is necessary for some, possibly all, record label articles. Jalen Folf (talk) 03:18, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

GAR

Eddie Bayers has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 05:08, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Join the discussion on standardization of musical artist's infobox

I have proposed changes to the infobox of musical artists here: Template talk:Infobox musical artist#Reduction of AKAs, on which consensus needs to be reached. The main points to be discussed are:

• decapitalization and standardization of parameter writings (which is already done for the other major music-related infoboxes)
• replacing a pair of singular spellings with plurals. Solidest (talk) 13:25, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Roger Waters

I have nominated Roger Waters for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. (t · c) buidhe 03:11, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

RfC on whether Navigational templates should have articles that do not have their own dedicated article, or are a redirect to their artists discography

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a clear consensus among participants that only WP:EXISTING links should be present in a music-related navbox, with the exception of band members. This consensus follows the common practice in the project, in which navboxes avoid having non-wikilinked items as well as items that redirect to a more general article, such as the title of an album leading to a section in the discography. Some points were raised about how the lack of some items could cause confusion among readers, but editors here believe adding items that do not have their own article would go against the purpose of a navbox. (non-admin closure) Isabelle ^🏳‍🌈 03:10, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

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As the title of the section suggests, should navigational templates for bands, such as Template:Megadeth have items that do not have their own dedicated pages or are simply redirects to the respective artists' discography (such as) [[Deathstars#Discography|Decade of Debauchery]]? Obviously redlinks in navboxes are prohibited, but is it okay to include a non-wikilinked item? The subject of this is Template:Eisbrecher, where I have attempted to add a compilation album (best hit album) section for their best hits album Ewiges Eis - 15 Jahre Eisbrecher, but it has been reverted by User:Jax 0677, firstly under the grounds of WTAF, which is not valid since band members who do not have have their respective articles have remained (don't tell me notability reasons, Ewiges Eis charted on German charts) and previous albums that did not have articles (namely Schicksalsmelodien, which I created myself), remained intact. Following a short discussion which Jax has decided to ignore, citing BRD (how is this change even bold??), I have come to here to settle this. He has violated 3RR and I cannot be bothered reporting this to WP:AN/3RR. Interested to hear your thoughts X-750 _{I've made a mistake, haven't I?} 05:37, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

• Navigation templates are not lists, they should only include links to articles. WP:EXISTING. Linking to redirects is also inappropriate. The one exception has been band members. If any have an article, it is safe to list them all, even without an article, but only above the main part of the nav template. Your RfC was added incorrectly as well. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:48, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Noted. I just find it rather annoying that something like Schicksalsmelodien existed for a long time, like you said per WP:EXISTING it should've been deleted, but my change was reverted within pretty much a day. Appreciate it X-750 _{I've made a mistake, haven't I?} 05:53, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

• I think it's misleading for a template to have, for instance, only links to studio albums with their own articles. Any discographical list implies to its user that the list is complete (or an attempt at completion); truncating it to linked articles is an information reduction that suggests only the linked albums were ever released. The same logic for bandmembers applies, and WP:EXISTING was updated to reflect this; I think the same should be done with album discographies (as well as filmographies and bibliographies). Chubbles (talk) 10:27, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
• Im generally in favor of following WP:WTAF; it's a navigation tool, not a discography. It should generally only be items that have their own article. (It feels like it's geberall believed that current band members are an exception, so I don't take issue with that.) Sergecross73 msg me 13:14, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
• Definitely only for existing articles imo - as others have said, they're navigation boxes, not lists. Popcornfud (talk) 18:06, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
• I don't think they should include albums/songs without their own article, either. You would have to set some kind of limits, otherwise there would be nothing to stop editors creating a navbox containing one bluelinked article and 20 non-notable albums, just to display a complete discography... which entirely defeats the point of a navbox. Richard3120 (talk) 15:58, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

In cases like that, there's no need for a navbox at all. Chubbles (talk) 00:01, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely – what I mean is that you would have to draw the line somewhere. Okay, so one article and 20 non-articles = no navbox. Four articles and 12 non-articles? Not sure. Unless we follow WP:NENAN and set three bluelinked articles as the minimum number for a navbox to exist with a complete discography, some kind of guideline would have to be drawn up to determine what would be the minimum number of articles or minimum percentage of bluelinked articles to have a complete discography in a navbox. That's why it seems easier to follow the existing navbox rules and only include WTAF. Richard3120 (talk) 02:26, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think you need to appeal to that essay when WP:EXISTING is clear. Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:41, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Actually, I think you're on to something there. I think what we should be doing in cases like this is discouraging the creation of navboxes for small-nucleus article topics, rather than pursuing a WTAF strategy. A topic should reach some threshold of links where this tool makes sense to employ, but without a prohibition on including unlinked information. Chubbles (talk) 15:36, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Seconding this notion. Having a navbox full of unlinked text that really only exists for two or three pages (which would likely be linked somewhere in the articles anyway) seems like a waste of resources. Not sure what the threshold should be, but it certainly makes sense to have one. QuietHere (talk) 16:25, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

• I would say no to redirects and unlinked entries, per WP:EXISTING, because the navigation template is for clicking on things to go somewhere specific. Let's not trick the reader with a link that doesn't give them what they expected. And there is little need to have unlinked items because these should already be listed in the related articles. The navbox should not duplicate or substitute for a discography. Binksternet (talk) 03:06, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Several users have expressed a similar opinion here - that a navbox is not a discography (or a filmography, or what have you), and since it is for navigating, it should only include navigable links. This is the wrong way to think about the problem. Both a discography and a navigation box are information organization tools. A navigation box helps navigate, but its primary purpose is to inform; the navigation is in the service of informing. It helps people find more information about these existing bluelinked articles, but only if it has arranged the data in a way that makes those articles contextually meaningful; if there are gaps between discographical entries, the navbox is hiding information from the navigator (user), just as it would be if the discography listing were incomplete. That's not a good way to organize information. To be honest, it would be better not to have navboxes at all than navboxes with missing (non-bluelinked) entries; side note - do we have stats on user engagement with these tools? Chubbles (talk) 07:07, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm just not following at all. Can you give an example where you've observed where such confusion has occurred? I edit templates a fair amount in music and game-related subject areas, and this just isn't something that has been an issue in my experience. Sergecross73 msg me 11:08, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Template:Caravan would imply that the band stopped releasing studio albums in 2003; half of Template: Barclay James Harvest's discographical entries would be culled; Template: Wishbone Ash would suggest the band released only one studio album between 1982 and 2007, when in fact it released nine. Why is it that band members are important enough to include even if unlinked, and studio albums are not? I'm arguing the exact same principle holds here. Chubbles (talk) 15:36, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the rules should be applied evenly between artists and discographies, but I would take it in the opposite direction; what use is there to listing a bunch of non-notable band members in a navbox? Band articles and infoboxes already have that information. QuietHere (talk) 16:25, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the better solution is to also remove bandmembers from navboxes, but at least that would be consistent, and I'd prefer that than leaving the bandmembers and culling disc/bib/filmographies. Chubbles (talk) 23:29, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand why people would use a navigation template to come to conclusions like that. If someone wants to know when Caravan released their last album, they'd check the bands history section, or their discography. I don't believe they're jumping all the way to the bottom of an article to look at the navigation template to come to those sorts of conclusions. Sergecross73 msg me 17:12, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Surely it's called a navbox because its primary purpose is for navigation, and a box made for providing information would have a different name. Perhaps "infobox". That aside, if the only purpose an item of info serves is to tell you that a thing exists but isn't notable enough to have a page, is that really valuable information that we desperately need to make it visible all over this website? If you ask me, that's in direct counterpoint to the core of WP policy. Stick to WP:WTAF and leave non-notables to discog sections. QuietHere (talk) 12:34, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

This argument is an unfortunately hidebound reading of the semantics of what the boxes are called, rather than how they should function. I don't think it merits further addressing. Chubbles (talk) 15:36, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

I would disagree, I think the argument merits further addressing. Calling something hidebound is a dismissive argument rather than a reasoned argument. Basically, I think you are trying to re-invent an existing tool. The navigation tool that shows all the albums is called a discography page, and one can be set up for most bands, and it can have non-linking album listings and linking album listings. A navigation box is at the bottom of the page and is intended to be an aid to navigation, and has a function and layout defined by WP:Existing. They are two different tools, and do not need to be merged into one. Mburrell (talk) 16:02, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

On top of this, and while I hate pulling any sort of "majority rules" argument, it seems that you're the only one here claiming that a navbox is meant to serve a purpose other than navigation between existing articles, and in fact numerous people have explicitly stated the opposite so far. I'd argue that it not only merits further discussion, but has already been addressed quite clearly. QuietHere (talk) 16:31, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree: it's called a navbox because its only purpose is for navigation. It is not called an organization box because that's what articles and lists are for. WP:TFD has had discussions on many nav boxes that have only one or two linked items. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:56, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

The name of the item does not define in full what its purpose is. This argument is along the same lines as, "if women were meant to do utility work, they wouldn't call them manholes", and it's not worthy of the pride of discussion it's being given here. Beyond that, non-linked placeholder information is a navigation aid - it guides the reader to understand the placement of the links in time. It works the same way that the spatial orientation, sorting, and dating does in the navbox; it is organizing information for the reader. Chubbles (talk) 23:29, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Okay, then let's not limit it to the word, let's look at WP:NAV: "A navigation template is a template that links between existing articles belonging to the same topic on English Wikipedia." That sounds pretty straightforward to me. And the closest statement I can find regarding your definition is "Tangential information should be kept out of sidebars." If you wanna debate that definition further, this is not the venue for it, but for the moment I don't see anything supporting your point. QuietHere (talk) 15:11, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That's not even remotely the same. The "man" in "manholes" has no function in the concept. The "navigation" in "navigation template" does. I would totally understand your concerns if our concept of discography sections/articles didn't exist. But they do. Prominently. So your proposed function you wish navigation templates had...are redundant to what we already do. Sergecross73 msg me 15:24, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

So, the better version of the argument is one that would claim I am guilty of scope creep here, but as I noted above, I don't think nonlinked text is outside the purview of navigation. But if that is the judgment of this RfC, then it should also cover non-notable bandmembers and any dates of release (as are common in e.g. navboxes with filmography sections). Chubbles (talk) 19:51, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I personally still favour keeping to WP:EXISTING. One issue that hasn't been brought up yet is that most navboxes don't just include studio albums, they also generally include EPs, live albums, compilation albums, and singles – in fact, this RfC was started because of an attempt to add a non-notable compilation album. Listing singles might not be a big issue for editors who work mainly on jazz artists and 70s rock bands, but for many alternative rock bands there could be dozens of singles released throughout their career, and few of them will be notable enough to have their own article. Look at {{The Fall}}, which is a manageable size, and then look at The Fall discography (every record listed here is an official release, not a bootleg), and imagine all of that listed in a navbox... it would take up most of the page on most Fall articles. Richard3120 (talk) 15:32, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Those in charge of the templates do think non-linked text is outside the purview, hence EXISTING. I think you need to convince them, not this project. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:21, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

You're right, Walter – these navboxes aren't just related to music projects, but across Wikipedia. Saying we should accept a full discography in a navbox sets a precedent for an actor's navbox to include a full filmography, for example. Then you lose sight of what a navbox is supposed to do and it simply becomes a list. Richard3120 (talk) 15:47, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

• Conditional yes – I support the points made by Chubbles. The "navigation boxes, not lists" argument does not jive with the principle of least astonishment. If an artist's navbox does not contain all of their core albums, there's nothing to indicate to the reader that some albums are missing, unless they navigate to the artist's discography article. This can be accomplished by redirecting the missing albums' articles to that discography. However, if the missing album in question is something like a non-notable limited-release greatest hits compilation, then it's probably not worth including in the navbox. ili (talk) 16:43, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

• You've clearly lost the plot on what navigation means if you think it should be a list. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:45, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

• I'm not sure WP:PLA applies here – personally I wouldn't be looking at a navbox if I wanted to find an artist's full discography, I'd look at the discography page. And adding a whole load of redirects to a navbox is going to try the reader's patience if they keep getting redirected back to the discography page, because they won't know which albums actually have an article to read. And having a case-by-case argument about what constitutes a non-notable album to not include in a navbox sounds like a whole lot of trouble to me. Richard3120 (talk) 15:47, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
• @Walter Görlitz: There is no article for the album Santa Barbara, yet, a link on the artist's navbox will navigate readers to the section on the encyclopedia that contains the most information about the album. If you're saying that the navbox isn't serving its intended purpose there, then who's really "lost the plot"? ili (talk) 20:11, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

• No need to do this if there is no article about the album. Period. Knowing that a French-released EP became an album, none of which is sourced, is rather useless overall. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:15, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

• FWIW, my opinion is that a navbox aide should NOT have redirects, confusing and possibly taking the reader somewhere they do not wish to go. The discussion here should be whether they are removed or delinked. --Richhoncho (talk) 19:19, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
• Only include existing articles. Very rare exceptions may apply, but certainly not to the extent of providing readers with a full discography when each item does not merit sufficient or perhaps any coverage at all. As others have said, navboxes are there to help people navigate the encyclopedia in relation to the topic. So if an item has no presence on the encyclopedia, it has no place in a navbox.

I think half the problem is when editors add years in the navboxes; they're making a leap in scope from purely navigational to informative. With the years added, it's then easy to get lulled into the idea that the content is incomplete. I've had fairly limited involvement with music navboxes, but at, eg, Template:Ravi Shankar or Template:Billy Preston, does anyone really think each field is exhaustive? I'd doubt it if you know anything about those artists.

There are a few examples of Beach Boys album navboxes that shouldn't exist at all, imo. See Template:Friends (album) – not only do most of the main songs there not have articles, but some of the links under Outtakes lead to album articles where the outtake is barely mentioned at all. JG66 (talk) 01:27, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Actually, make that no end of examples at Category:The Beach Boys album navigational boxes. JG66 (talk) 01:35, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

• Only include existing articles. WP:EXISTING is clear (as an essay supporting a guideline) and I'm not sure why we needed an RfC here as if a local consensus could override that. Changing this would justify the creation of so many unnecessary navboxes. The purpose of them is to point readers to related topics that exist, not ones that don't for the sake of completionism. Ss112 04:58, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - With respect to musical compositions, only links to actual albums and songs (and perhaps similar entities) should be in a navbox about musicians or musical ensembles. This means that redirects, links to sections of another article and listings of compositions with no actual article should not be in the navbox at all, because it is not an infobox. For a musical ensemble comprised of multiple individuals, a complete list of members should probably be in the navbox to prevent the misconception that the entity is a solo act. If the number of individuals is enormous, such listing can be discussed on a case by case basis. --Jax 0677 (talk) 23:43, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Heavy metal lead discussion

There is a discussion on how to handle the lead section in the heavy metal music article and how the lead covers the accusations of misogyny in the sourced section about sexism in the body. Any input is appreciated. Thanks. Sergecross73 msg me 17:13, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Just realized I forgot to link to it. It can be located here. Thanks. Sergecross73 msg me 17:18, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Once again bringing up the unresolved topic of the NPOVness and unnecessity of music genre infobox coloring

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Through custom and practice, the community has developed an intricate system of colour-coding for the infoboxes in articles about music. The colours reflect the music's genre. In this discussion the community considers whether to abandon this system.

Infoboxes don't cope well with complexity. Populating them needs either-or decisions: which colour (where you can only have one), which word (where you can only have one or two), which parameter (from a limited range). But modern music is replete with blending and blurring of genre boundaries, and not everyone has the colour vision, so deciding in which one, single genre to place a track, album or band and then using a colour for it (a) creates disagreement that burns up volunteer time (and of course volunteer time is Wikipedia's only limiting resource, so these disagreements are very "expensive", if you will); (b) creates difficulties with accessibility; and (c) by oversimplification risks misleading our readers.

Although the discussion was not particularly well-attended, there is sufficient participation to make a decision and community does reach a clear consensus to eliminate the colours in infoboxes. Editors are free to replace them with grey. In consequence I shall mark Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/Music genres task force/Colours as historical with my next edit.

I hope this helps. Criticism, challenge, comments or questions about this close, if any, should be directed to my talk page in the first instance.—S Marshall T/C 11:07, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

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Read here. TLDR: The current situation is mess (examples included), it has been unresolved mess since 2010-2012 with no decisive solution and only occasional "tweaks" to allowed color scheme, bringing only more mess to the issue, the coloring scheme is arbitrary and basically is a legacy thing bearing no worth. I propose to uniformly color all music genre infoboxes gray (taking the color from the electronic genre infoboxes), as the most readable of all currently used color for music genre infoboxes (negotiable). Albums, movies, books in Wikipedia are not "colored" according to genre, and that works just well, so music genre should not be colored either. Wikipedia is not a coloring book for children and music fans. AK 178.121.43.158 (talk) 17:30, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

The issue's been brought up numerous times in the past only to conclude to that "it needs more work" and occasional "tweaks" to the color scheme which only created more confusion over time. The only space where it worked seamlessly is electronic music, where the interconnectedness of genres made wikipedians abandon fruitless color debates and introduce uniform color.

But with the further development of trap and post-trap music the question rises again even for the trap genres which are 100% electronic, yet "of different lineage" and thus of different color. The cross-pollination continues now as all the hypey genres such as hyperpop, trap music, EDM (colors suggesting being subgenres of pop, rap and electronic, respectively) are all basically made in one program , even using the same VSTs and samplepacks, and freely intermix within one album. Same gets with time basically true for rock (especially pop-punk now, which is during the 2022 wave made exclusively by trap and trap-adjecent beatmakers on a laptop, with many more genres of electronic rock existing previously) and even for heavy metal which is often right now metal only in its name and is made using VSTs. This could be an essay, but I won't bother with it, as it's as clear as day that colors in music genre infoboxes in 2022 and beyond only add to tribalism and confusion. 178.121.43.158 (talk) 17:42, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support uniform default/gray - This solution help similar issues at the video games Wikiproject. Colors add zero benefit, but brings a lot of potential for extra arguing, disputes, edit warring, etc. Sergecross73 msg me 17:45, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support uniform default/gray I have no strong opinion, but IMO the varying colors serve little values and just add unneeded complications. North8000 (talk) 18:10, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support uniform default/gray: I have no strong opinion on this personally, but clearly there's no additional benefit for readers to having a color scheme, and anything that gets rid of potential edit warring (and genres are one of the biggest reasons for this) is a good thing. Richard3120 (talk) 19:35, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support uniform default/gray per all previously stated reasons. To be honest, I don't think I ever noticed the color-coding before so it wasn't even useful beyond someone's aesthetic preference (not that any greater attention-grabbing quality would've made it more useful). QuietHere (talk) 03:42, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
• Opposing the removal of colors, but in favor of reorganizing their application. I've been extensively involved in applying colors to genres for the last year and a half. I've drastically reduced single genre colors and linked the remaining colors to subgenre categories: see WP:GENRECOLOR and compare to what it was before. I even had a plan for how to reorganize genre colors to a broader application based on major cultural and musical regions or groups of genres. But over time I realized that it's not a good idea to add exclusive colors for a few regions while ignoring the others, which are represented on the English Wiki a little worse. The colors are still an important informational identifier, indicating the connection between genre branches. Nothing else on the wiki more versatile indicates the grouping of genres right now. Preambles are often written too vaguely, and individual categories for genre groups are sometimes missing, or are non-obvious sub-sub-categories.

I've changed my view now from how I was going to do it before. Now it seems to me that the scheme used in the music albums template is the most successful. There you specify an album type from a pre-defined set: Template:Infobox album/color, and through it you put both a color and a wiki link to a such type. It seems to me that the same approach should be used for music genres. In the template, we should add a field: "Direction", which would indicate which lineage of genres a particular genre belongs to, and each lineage would have a separate color. Such directions will be predefined by a separate page, like the existing colors list WP:GENRECOLOR, and added to the template's auto-propositions via TemplateData. In the template it should look like "Direction: Electronic, pop" indicated by the very first field in the template, and the color is automatically set to silver. Two or more directions can be specified for a particular genre, in which case the color is either set to the first value in the list or left uncolored. We can take the list of genres from the existing list of genres, reducing the small groups. With the ability to add separate groups, with the condition that this meta-genre must have its own category of sub-genres, including at least 10 sub-genres. So generally speaking, after reviewing and adjusting almost all of the music genre template applications on en-wiki, this seems to me to be the best option. Whereas eliminating colors and not adding anything in return seems to me to be a significant degradation for readers. Solidest (talk) 04:53, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• This post is in response to a post in another thread, so as not to double the discussion. @178.121.43.158, all of your arguments seem a bit questionable to me. For all the frustration about the color setting, you forget that the colors are directly related to how concrete genre is positioned by it's article — to what category that genre is placed in and in which navigation template it's placed in. Broken beat is not jazz, it is an electronic genre and therefore placed in the electronic music genre category and has silver color. Nu jazz is a fusion between jazz and electronic, but it is primarily listed as a sub-genre of jazz in the navigation template, and therefore is the same color. (It is worth saying that the Electronic-based template itself is absurd and nonsensical and should be removed, as it levels the term electronic music to the use of synthesizers, which simply contradicts scientific sources). About new age, ambient and drone is fair - they should not have electronic color, and the color of New Age should be removed, as it is not as broad as the others (this kind of reorganization I was doing for the last year and I thought whether New Age could find a broader category, so I did not touch it yet). Kuduro is light-purple because I guess that's the standard color of Wikipedia templates without coloring. Want to prove it's a techno or electronic genre? Go ahead, change the article and category and put electronic coloring. With the argument that gray is more neutral, you should probably go to the main Wikipedia forum and decide there. Repealing the colors will not change the content of the articles or the categories in which genres are placed. The dissatisfaction with specific colors, on the other hand, is something subjective. They are primarily used to indicate the difference between genre branches and links within branches. They all pass for contrast standards, So eye tiredness from red isn't an argument either, especially considering it's just a few lines of headings in the templates. The choice of specific colors is certainly something long accepted without consensus and probably needs to be reconsidered. And it's probably worth moving to more neutral shades and generally automate the application of colors along genre directions (which I detailed above). But actually the criticism you're applying in that post could similarly be used in relation to the [standard colors approved by Wikimedia]. It's just subjective. And arguments along the lines that pink is girly and blue is because African-Americans are democratic sound silly and inappropriate at once, which is a bit disconcerting. Solidest (talk) 05:07, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Comment from the IP user who started all this. I've seen you did work on colors. But your point only serves to prove my points further:

1. After a year or longer of your "extensive reorganization" of colors, colors are still a subjective mess. As they have always been (see my examples). "Reorganization" only adds to mess. Years go, mess persists, and can be effectively solved all for once by locking a color for all genres. Moreof, you are not the first one to try to "reorganize" that mess, as I've said earlier. New users with new feelings will come after you and will "reorganize" it to their taste too, adding more to the mess. This situation exactly describe what the issue is: breeding ground for edit warring and point of view pushing, and that is.
2. Your comment, as it seems only goes to strengthen my position. You literally posted a wall of text warring about which colors should be which, in regards to the arbitrary subset of genres I chose for examples. Your opinion is different I get it. Half or more of what you said needs specific references to back every specific color you objected to. And so do all my opinions about the random genres too, they also need sources. Sources, which are often not even there, notwithstanding the fact that you are arguing for sources to change a literal color of infobox. If that's not genre warring, don't know what it is. Near to zero contribution to encyclopedic content, if you ask me.
3. Your point of the usefulness of music infobox genre colors is what I also disagree with. The "Stylistic origins" and "cultural origins" sections of the music genre infobox serve exactly the purpose of defining the genealogy of music genres. The colors do not actually define a genealogy, they, phylogenetically speaking, define clusters over the set of all genres. As you are arguing for the clusters, you should be aware, that clustering items in science needs good sources to back up the discussed clustering. You cannot simply go in modern biology, for instance, and define a cluster out of thin air. You need principal component analysis for that at least. And you also need a ton of publications to define the clustering/taxonomy. In music, by analogy, there is a similar field of study, called musicology, so it's not exactly free of responsibility to adhere to the same basic and clear scientific procedure. The issue with the music genres is that no one, to my best knowledge, apart from media journalists, even seriously bothers to delineate the genres rigorously (and journalists do not employ the scientific apparatus, so their opinions may be significant in regard to WP:GNG but still never scientific). More than that, say two journalists disagree on topic of lineages as they understand them, there is no standard procedure to account for that, apart POV-pushing (read, adding weights to their opinions, which often, I'll say it again, don't even exist for many genres). The set of criteria for clustering is not even delineated for music genres. Should it be the lineages (trees, saying phylogenetically)? I think not, I think music genres heavily cross-pollinate and thus the tree model would not work there. But that doesn't matter either way at all because it's only my opinion and it is therefore NPOV. Same as yours about the perceived difference. TLDR: Rigorous and clear criteria set for phylogenetic delineation/clustering of genres doesn't exist; and "stylistic origins"/"cultural origins" serve the purpose of hinting on the genealogy of a specific genre way better than arbitrary colors.
4. And once again there are success stories in regards to how to solve this mess once and for all, each accounting to the complete forgoing (=locking) of the colors in the music genre infoboxes. Electronic music genres in Wikipedia, music genres on discogs, on rateyourmusic, and so on and so further, do not have "colors" and function just well without them. I am yet to see someone who was confused by, for instance, "Hardstyle" and "Deep house" having the same color in the infobox. The lack of color doesn't thus add to confusion, while the presence of color often does. AK 178.121.44.47 (talk) 09:36, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• Firstly, I don't really understand what you're saying about adding a mess when I've reduced the use of colors by about 30%, leaving only the most extensive categories (but not finished with all the small ones yet).

Second, all of your arguments once again collapse on what I wrote above. Colors don't set categories, they visualize existing information from an article. Each article is already placed in a "Category:Genre" or "Category:Genre's subgenres". And color, as part of the infobox, simply summarizes and visually duplicates that information from the article or just show root meta-genre from the categories tree. This is exactly what the infoboxes on wikipedia are for - they are designed to summarize the article briefly. Color is not a statement in and of itself. Neither is the "stylistic origins" parameter such a statement - it's also only supposed to duplicate and summarize information from the article.

And in your statement, you are not fighting with colors, but with the very system of categorizing genres on wikipedia. And in doing so, you mention RateYourMusic and Discogs, which both based on the very same hierarchy. Your argument rather suggests that you want to abolish the entire category hierarchy and put all genres in Category:Music genres, isn't it?

If you are talking about the problem of what color to color fusion genres. That's not a problem for me either. Having worked with hundreds of genres, this issue has actually only arisen with hyperpop (electronic vs pop vs no color) and new wave (pop vs rock vs no color). And in both cases the dissatisfaction with the color was expressed by one and the same user, and it is resolved by removing the color and adding a comment in the box that there is no consensus. I haven't seen this kind of controversy with any other genre.

I still think that the only way out of doing away with colors should be the "Direction" graph. Because "Stylistic origins" doesn't solve the question of genre affiliation. Both parent genres and inspirations and other based on stuff are listed there. One genre can have a dozen various cross-genre inspirations and they will all be listed in alphabetical order. Therefore, this field is not useful in terms of genre affiliation. Like, for example, dubstep is obviously electronic genre. But how would show that clearly and distinctly in infobox? That's what the colors are doing now. Any genre on wikipedia is already categorized under one of the dozen major meta-genres. Both the color and the "direction" simply would serve to indicate which group the genre belongs to. Solidest (talk) 12:28, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Both of your need to tone it down with these massive responses. Massive walls of text stifle participation in discussions and you're never going to get a consensus on this that way. (Unless that's what you're trying to do, in which I politely ask you to stop.) Sergecross73 msg me 14:51, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree. AK 178.121.44.47 (talk) 16:13, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

It would not be hard to deduce that dubstep is a genre of electronic music, as the first sentence explicitly says Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s.. This is an explicit function of the referenced text, and implicit ambiguous visual cues like infobox colors are thus reduntant. If rock music subgenres evolution is a substantial topic for Wikipedia, it probably warrants a section or a separate article, but hardly that topic should be set as implicit visual cues such as coloring. 178.121.44.47 (talk) 16:13, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

That addresses your underlined point directly, colors may visualize what article says, but may as well set a breeding ground for edit warring. And for many genres, especially for fusion genres, these visualizations are either subjective, or inconsistent, or cannot be backed by sources. 178.121.44.47 (talk) 16:22, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• It seems to me that all these arguments I have already answered above, and you again argue with the sense of the use of infoboxes as such. Dubstep has it in the premise that it is an electronic genre, kuduro and hundreds of others do not. Premise and infobox don't have to be mutually exclusive. For fusion genres, I've already shared that so far I've only seen two such cases with color setting issues. And given that color now applies in 975 genre articles, there's clearly more benefit than potential edit wars in very few cases. Also given that such cases are solved by consensus with color disablement. And I don't see a problem with picking and choosing between the two colors — it's not so matter as the color is just a visual summary of the article text, and not the sole argument. And arguments such as "subjective, or inconsistent, or cannot be backed by sources" also refer to the object of the article, and not the color. Solidest (talk) 17:30, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• It's clear you've put a great deal of thought and effort into this. So it pains me to say that...I doubt that any of this would ever really be noticed, let alone understood, by most readers. Hell, I've been heavily involved in the music content area for the last decade, and it never really registered with me that the infoboxes were color-coded at all until this discussion arose. It's just not intuitive or easily understood. And anything not intuitive is going to a hotbed for edit warring and disputes. And I don't believe it provides the benefit you think it does. Sergecross73 msg me 18:14, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• From my personal experience: As far as I remember, when I first started researching genres years ago, I knew right away that the same colors belonged to the same genre branch (pop/rock/electronic/hip-hop/folk were pretty obvious) and only months later I randomly found complete list of colors that confirmed that. So it does felt pretty intuitive to me. The only issue was with the colors used in a small number of articles so I got rid of them years later.

But yes, it may not be as instantly obvious for someone and it doesn't work if you only open a couple of pages and don't come back to it again. So I think, instead of removal it must be better replaced to text parameter "Direction", which also would automatically set the colors if needed, and would work similarly to {{Infobox album/color}}. (Btw it also may not be so obvious why box-set + greatest hits + mixtape have the same color, but it would be obvious why rock genres have the same color). We could simply replace "bgcolor: silver" with "direction: Electronic music", etc. without any problems. If we had such a parameter, then we can already consider abandoning colors, because a similar visualization would have a better replacement. But not before that. This parameter, by the way, works fine on the Russian wikipedia for a long time, and may be supported by wikidata, if its integration with the English wiki finally ever starts. 19:28, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

If there was any discernible benefit, I'd agree, but again, I'm still struggling to see any benefit to this color scheme stuff. Sergecross73 msg me 00:54, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion about Every Breath You Take

I have started a discussion regarding a passage in the Every Breath You Take article regarding the piano part in the song. Feedback is welcome at Talk:Every Breath You Take § Piano part, revisited. isaacl (talk) 19:56, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

More participants are needed to help establish consensus–please feel free to comment at Talk:Every Breath You Take § Piano part, revisited. isaacl (talk) 21:15, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Now that the Navbox RfC has closed, we should have another discussion about bandmembers.

Since the RfC has closed with consensus that nonlinked discographical information should not be included in navboxes, it stands to reason that nonlinked bandmembers should also not be included in navboxes, for all and exactly the same reasons. Does this require a second RfC, or is discussion here sufficient? Chubbles (talk) 07:23, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Is that necessary? I didn't get the vibe most editors were all that concerned about that in the last discussion... Sergecross73 msg me 11:17, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't think either question was about necessity, but rather about what is best for the ordering of navboxes, and nonlinked bandmembers are not navigable content in these boxes which are for navigation. Chubbles (talk) 13:17, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

You asked if a second RFC was required. I was saying no, because it didn't appear anyone was particularly concerned about it. It felt more like a "what about this" tangent. Was there anyone who actually had strong feelings about changing how we handle them right now? If there were, I missed it. Sergecross73 msg me 14:15, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Reply - It seems that we already discussed that. If only a limited number of the band members are listed, it gives the appearance that the ensemble is a solo act, or a duo, etc. --Jax 0677 (talk) 02:19, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

No, that line of reasoning failed in the last discussion. If only a limited number of albums are listed, it gives the appearance that the band released fewer albums than it did - but that is not of concern, because the navbox is not providing full information on the discography, but only navigable links about the topic. There is consensus on that. The exact same logic should apply to bandmembers - if they are not navigable links, they do not belong there. Chubbles (talk) 06:36, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

I didn't get the vibe that most participants really had any strong feelings on the band member part. As in, they weren't particularly bothered by them being an exception to the rule, or in favor of changing how we handle them. So if you're pushing towards changing that, then yes, you should probably hold another discussion. My two cents would be to leave it alone and move on, but that's me. Sergecross73 msg me 13:47, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Seconding this. While I personally agree with Chubbles' logic here, I didn't personally get the vibe that band members were at issue in the previous discussion so it's not a safe guarantee all editors were thinking about that in their responses. Better safe than sorry, y'know? Especially with such a massive change. QuietHere (talk) 18:53, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Okay, I'll start a new Request. Chubbles (talk) 01:53, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Change to template:Musical artist

Just an FYI, per this discussion the associated acts parameter in the musical artist infobox has been replaced by several new "members" parameters. -- Vaulter 05:16, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Moving of discographies into their own respective pages?

A user I have been observing is moving the discographies of Lil Tecca & G Herbo onto their own discography pages (i.e. Lil Tecca discography). I'm just wondering what's the consensus regarding this, and is there any relevant Wikipedia policy dictating this? X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 21:04, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a guideline for discographies for artists, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians/Article guidelines#Discography section. It states that "Musicians who have released a significant amount of work should be given their own discography articles." This is a bit vague. I cannot find it right now, but I saw a rule of thumb or it was mentioned to me once, that if a discography section would be half or more of an artist article, it would be better to split out the discography into its own article.

The guideline also states that a discography section on the musician's primary article should be a summary of the musician's major works, which is mostly a listing of their studio albums, leaving a complete list of releases to a discography article. Live and compilation albums, EPs, singles, etc. should generally not be included in the discography section of the artist's primary article, so if you want to list additional work such as extensive list of singles, a discography article would be a good choice.

I see from the Lil Tecca discography that there is extensive listing of singles as a lead artist and as a featured artist. This appears to be a good use of the creation of a discography page, since those singles should not be listed out on the artist's primary article page per the guideline referenced above. Mburrell (talk) 22:28, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Seconding Mburrell here. Giving a look at both the Tecca and G Herbo discography pages, they're both quite extensive which would be an issue in terms of size. It's probably an issue that most of the Herbo page is sourced to iTunes but that can be resolved. QuietHere (talk) 00:39, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Excellent page you've linked, Mburrell, and excellent explanation. Thanks a lot. X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 00:52, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

'Hyperpop'

I feel I should alert the project to the mess of an article that is 'hyperpop', a term apparently made up by Spotify to market unrelated music styles and not recognised by the likes of AllMusic. It makes all the mistakes WP:NOTFANPAGE warns against, editors have cherry-picked online sources, a lot of which seem to have used Wikipedia's page on the topic as the basis of their research yet unlike most music genre articles here it doesn't cite a single book source (usually from the likes of Simon Reynolds). I think there's also a certain degree of historical negationism going on (whether intentional or not), PC Music and Sophie's sound can easily be traced to the grime-influenced wonky sound that emerged in the wake of London's post-dubstep sound system scene. Which is why 'bubblegum bass' on their articles links to 'UK bass'. -- 10Trix.Never (talk) 23:34, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

To be clear, hyperpop is a legitimate music genre with an established history and plenty of successful acts and online coverage (including pieces from the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the New York Times among others). Plenty reliable sources are already present in the article, so I don't know where this "apparently made up by Spotify" line of thinking comes from but it makes no sense to me. And as for the lack of book sources (at least as far as I'm aware), it's worth noting that the genre is relatively quite young (its biggest releases are all less than five years old at this point) so it'll take time for all media to catch up, but that shouldn't negate the coverage we do have. Whether the article is up to snuff or not is another question, but I'd like that much made clear. QuietHere (talk) 00:34, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but all three links of yours prove 10Trix's point, how Spotify created a new playlist called hyperpop. How Hyperpop, a Small Spotify Playlist, Grew Into a Big Deal - New York Times, Though 100 Gecs’ music rejects classification and formulas, a fungal burst of artists with like-minded approaches has erupted in the past few years, and Spotify has started using a new genre label: hyperpop. - The Atlantic, So in 2019, to address the quandary of 100 gecs’ unlikely popularity and unwieldy style, Spotify launched a new playlist designed to give their sound a home on the platform. It was called “hyperpop.” - The New Yorker. Further from the New Yorker: Incoherence is inherent to the genre, and the songs on Spotify’s hyperpop playlist vary widely in style. To me, I personally don't think it's so much of a music genre rather than what, again, the New Yorker says: the hyperpop playlist serves many functions: it is a corporate branding exercise (among others). X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 00:51, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

To be fair, the New Yorker source does note that the term hyper-pop dates back to at least 2014 when it was used to refer to a style of music associated with PC Music (i.e. pretty much exactly what the term refers to now), so I don't think it's fair to say that the terms is a complete fabrication of Spotify for marketing purposes. It seems that a more appropriate interpretation of the sources is that the Spotify playlist made the term popular but that it was referring to an actually developing genre rather than some kind of fake marketing gimmick. Either way, the article is a mess, it's certainly notable per GNG but it does need to be fixed up. (Also, X750, I believe you have attributed some quotes from the New Yorker to the Atlantic by mistake, just thought I'd let you know.) Alduin2000 (talk) 02:14, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Appreciate it, Alduin2000, I stand corrected. _Whoops... X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 02:19, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Reliable source discussion

I have started a discussion at the reliable sources noticeboard regarding the reliability of songfacts.com as a source in articles. If you would like to join the discussion, please contribute here. Thank you. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 22:03, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Traditional music as disambiguation

Yesterday I changed the article Traditional music from a redirect to strict traditional folk music, to a concept related to musical traditions, which we have equally mentioned in articles about both traditional folk music and classical and religious music (still missing ritual/ceremonial music for which this concept would also hold true). There is probably no need to cite sources in this case, as you can easily find any of these concepts via "traditional (folk/classical/religious) music" search and the word tradition itself does not make it seem descriptive, but rather refers specifically to non-contemporary/popular form of such music. The next step is to change all inclusions of wikilinks to this disambiguation to traditional folk music, as this was most often used meaning. Before doing so, I would like to discuss it per WP:CON. Solidest (talk) 15:32, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

So first change and create hundreds of links to disambiguation pages. And only when you get some push back you start discussion? The Banner talk 15:53, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

(ec) Apart from the 990 incoming links to Traditional music, you also have to deal with its talk page which had a considerable number of discussions, but is now empty. There is a way of keeping that and placing a notice on Talk:Folk music, but the details for doing that are beyond my pay grade. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 16:01, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, while not required per se, its usually good to discuss massive, long-ranging changes prior to making them. Extremely long reaching music genre articles would be one of those things. Sergecross73 msg me 16:11, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for that. For the record, I'm not opposed to your change. I was just chiming in that I agreed that it would be best to discuss on the front end this time. Sergecross73 msg me 16:50, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Ok, I've put the changes into the comment tags and rolled back talk page as well for now until the discussion is going. Solidest (talk) 16:24, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

• The discussed change to the article is [8]. Solidest (talk) 16:45, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
  • I have reverted the article to its original state for the sake of this discussion. The Banner talk 17:45, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Grammy nomination?

Lots of news sources state in interview/upcoming concert articles (example 1, example 2, example 3) that Perla Batalla was nominated for a Grammy (presumably quoting her press materials). However, I can't find any trace on the Grammys site that she was nominated. Am I missing something? Should this be removed from the article, or just retained supported by one of the sources? Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:28, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

@BennyOnTheLoose: I can't find anything either, and I've searched the Grammy nominations for 2005, 2006 and 2007. The addition that she was "Grammy-nominated" was made in 2008, by an editor who never made any other contribution to Wikipedia, which immediately makes me wonder if it was a hoax. Even if it's true, it clearly wasn't any direct major nomination, otherwise we would have found it... I'm betting it was for "best sleeve notes" or "best engineered album" or something like that. In which case, Ms. Batalla wasn't nominated directly, and that's why her name doesn't appear on the Grammy's website. Personally I would remove the mentions, as they are unsourced, MOS:PUFFERY, and a "nomination by association". Richard3120 (talk) 14:35, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

"Hip hop is a given"

I've seen the above phrase pop up at least a couple times recently in album infoboxes (I imagine it occurs in song and artist/band pages as well though I can't remember seeing a specific instance of it), most recently Come Home the Kids Miss You, and I'm curious how this is generally considered. In this instance, I had earlier added hip hop in the genre parameter (with a source of course), but that was removed and replaced with a hidden notice including that phrase. Personally I don't think that's a healthy way of conducting business here. For one, if the available sources simply refer to an album/song as hip hop without any qualifiers pointing to more specific subgenres, why shouldn't that be included? At least until a more specific source is found. And secondly, it is to my understanding that "a given" is fundamentally opposed to this website's mission. Requiring an assumption be made by readers rather than providing relevant info for them just doesn't sit right with me. And sure, in the instance of Come Home the lead does refer to the artist as "American rapper Jack Harlow", and it's not necessarily wrong to assume that one could reasonably draw the conclusion that an album must be hip hop if the artist is a rapper, but I'm still not sure if that's in the spirit of WP. Am I alone in this? Is this phrase based on a previously established consensus that I'm unaware of? Or should this type of notice be discouraged? QuietHere (talk) 06:01, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

No, I'm with you, I don't particularly think notices like that are helpful, or correct even. There are some similar ideas I've seen implemented. I don't know hip hop genre/sub-genre enough to give an exact example, but in the rock music world, while putting "Rock" as a genre for an album is perfectly fine, sometimes, if there's also sources verifying alternative rock, hard rock, and pop rock for the same album, we often remove just "rock" because it's less specific than the other ones. So, maybe they mean something like that? But if that's what they mean, they should articulate it better. Sergecross73 msg me 13:43, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree. If we base the genre info on what we personally feel is a "given" then it will just be subject to the whims and biases of whoever happens to be making the article. You need sources of some kind. Nikki Lee 1999 (talk) 00:00, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Article request: Bailey Zimmerman and his two charting songs.

I'm not sure if this is the proper place to request this. And I know I'm getting ahead of myself here a bit. But the Country artist Bailey Zimmerman seems to be fast approaching notability. His song "Fall In Love" is currently at #52 on the Hot 100, and his song "Rock And A Hard Place" seems posed to debut in the top 30 of that same chart. That's an unusually strong debut for an up and coming country artist. I'm not sure the exact qualifications for notability, and don't know how to make articles by myself. But I know that it's typical for country songs that do this well on the charts to have Wikipedia articles. I figured maybe somebody here would jump at the opportunity of being the first person to make the article. Nikki Lee 1999 (talk) 00:06, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

The WP:GNG is the general standard for something being notable for its own article. There's often more specific ones too, like WP:NMUSICIAN or WP:NSONGS. Having songs that chart on major charts are generally considered a good sign (but not guarantee) of being notable. But you'd want to find third party sources that discuss the given subject in detail. (See WP:RSMUSIC and WP:NOTRSMUSIC for some examples of sources commonly deemed usable or unusable.) Sergecross73 msg me 01:16, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I know that third party sources are what's needed for a subject to be notable. What I don't know is what those third party sources should be, and where to find them, for an upcoming artist like Bailey Zimmerman. I imagine for his songs that routine listings on websites like Billboard is enough for a standard stubby song article. But for the artist himself, I'm not sure. Nikki Lee 1999 (talk) 05:43, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Apologies, I guess I misunderstood what you meant when you said "I'm not sure the exact qualifications for notability". And I assumed you were new considering your blank user/talk page. But anyways, it's as simple as using Google or whatever search engine you prefer and looking for dedicated articles from websites found at RSMUSIC, and writing prose around those sources. There's a chance someone may take up your request, but it's not particularly common to happen. You'll likely either need to do it yourself or wait until someone randomly does it of their own accord. Sergecross73 msg me 12:17, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

What can be regarded as a "cover"?

Hi all, updating some track listings for some albums that I like, and if a song is written, for example, by an independent writer and is performed by another person, case in hand: What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me), written by Glenn Sutton and first performed by Jerry Lee Lewis, is it appropriate to consider any other following recordings of the song to be a "cover"? I know this may seem silly, but I just wanted to make sure. Cheers X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 10:21, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I have always assumes that a "cover version" requires a recording, not just one or more performances, i.e. the first recording is seen as the original, not a first performance. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:25, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

So, as Jerry Lee Lewis was the first to record it, can any further recordings of it be considered to be a "Jerry Lee Lewis" cover? X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 20:50, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I guess so. But maybe the term is less exact. If another artists has a hit, or much bigger hit, with the same song, then I suspect later versions are likely to be called covers of that version/ artist. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:38, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I believe the original recording will always be the reference. Two examples, top of my head, is I Love Rock 'n' Roll, first by the Arrows, and then a #1 hit by Joan Jett, and yet any further releases are an Arrows cover, even if they are honoring Joan Jett. Then there is Black Magic Woman by Fleetwood Mac, then a massive hit for Santana, and yet any reference to other people covering the song will always go back to Fleetwood Mac, even if there are references to it as a Fleetwood Mac/Santana cover. Mburrell (talk) 22:03, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, all very true. I was thinking more of stuff like this. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:07, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Martinevans123 & Mburrell. Good point about the bigger hit, like Sailing (Rod Stewart song) was actually first recorded by the Sutherland Brothers but it's not often regarded as a "cover" per se. X-750 _{Rust In Peace... Polaris} 22:51, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

William John Titus Bishop

Dear all,

Might I suggest the draft page for William John Titus Bishop as a project that could benefit from your editing? JohnEricHiggs (talk) 15:08, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Are you asking for help with Draft:William John Titus Bishop? Sergecross73 msg me 15:38, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Singles in album articles?

There is a discussion here about whether or not album articles should include singles discographies. Please participate in the discussion if so inclined, to help form a consensus. Thank you. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 20:22, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Searching for charts info

Pretty straightforward question: is there an easier way to find digital chart information? The only method I can think of is opening every country's individual websites (as listed on WP:GOODCHARTS) and searching them all manually, but that's time-consuming and a general hassle. So is there a faster way of accessing all of those sites' information at once, or something along those lines? I'd like to start adding charting info to my album articles but the inconvenience has been a barrier for me. QuietHere (talk) 15:30, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Overcategorisation?

Is this WP:OVERCAT?

• Category:Musicians by genre, instrument and nationality
• Category:Musicians by genre, nationality and instrument
• Category:Musicians by instrument, genre and nationality

There elements are specified in different order and this all results into the same categories on lower level but via a bunch of various duplicated categories. I guess this whole tree should be reworked to list only 2 elements at once? Solidest (talk) 21:42, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Category:Musicians by genre and nationality, Category:Musicians by genre and instrument, and Category:Musicians by nationality and instrument already exist so if you're getting rid of those then just delete 'em (whether or not that's needed I couldn't say, leaving that up to consensus). QuietHere (talk) 22:27, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• Keep "Category:Musicians by genre, instrument and nationality" - Delete both "Category:Musicians by genre, nationality and instrument" and "Category:Musicians by instrument, genre and nationality". --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:12, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

RfC Adding new parameter "Direction" to replace the removal of colors in the Infobox music genre

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is consensus against the proposal. Those opposing argue the parameter is too vague, and including it risks having another locus of needless arguments. Femke (talk) 15:17, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

---

Since it was decided above to remove the colors from the infoboxes of music genres, I propose to replace the information conveyed by the colors with a separate text field. Suggested name is "Direction" (variants are "Branch", "Division"). This field would indicate the closest largest parent genre(s) with the text.

The problems with using the color scheme have been pointed out above:

• (a) creates disagreement that burns up volunteer time;
• (b) creates difficulties with accessibility;
• (c) oversimplification risks misleading our readers.

(a) is solved by allowing the field to be filled with more than one value, and this also coincides with the solution of (c). Problem (b) is also solved by transferring to text.

It is important to say that since infoboxes are designed to summarize information about the article, this field will not give any new information, but rather should convey the essence of the article (since now there is no systematic indication of the parent genre (or genre branch) in the premise of articles). As for genres to be filled in, I suggest to limit the condition in the template documentation specifying it as largest parent genres, aka the closest upper genre in the hierarchy that have 5 or more subgenres. Usually it is easy to select such genre(s) from the existing text of articles or by existing hierarchy of article's categorization. And initially we could focus and be guided by List of music genres and styles and Category:Musical subgenres by genre. Thus, this parameter would reflect the largest 20-25 genres, linking their sub-genres. The same goal was pursued with the colors, but now it will be much looser and at the same time more accurate. It would also not be a problem to replace the color parameter with the direction parameter using bots. Solidest (talk) 14:15, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - the level of time wasted arguing about music genre leads me to believe that this will be a messy time sink. Sergecross73 msg me 14:24, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

  I don't understand how marking what categories an article is placed in, or what is already written in the article by sources, and reflecting that in the infobox can be a time sink. I probably should have highlighted and emphasized the above text that the information in the infobox is not something new, but rather a summation and quick access to article's information: Help:Infobox#What infoboxes do. Are you suggesting that breaking the rules of infoboxes would be time-consuming? Or why shouldn't your argument apply to editing articles and categories? The fact that a genre belongs to some branch of genres is pretty important information to put in an infobox. I've personally encountered many articles where neither the premise nor the text in the infobox nor direct categories labeled the genre as folk or popular. This information was "hidden" in the text of the article and hub categories. For example, wouldn't it be useful to indicate in the infobox that the genre Skweee is electronic, when premise only mentions funk and rnb and synth-pop? The fact that it's an electronic music genre can only be determined by re-reading the prose and sources, or by browsing the categories. We already have this information stored in template colours. I have been checking and correcting it for several years. I doubt anyone will want to transfer this information, correcting thousands of premises anytime soon. Solidest (talk) 15:15, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Not sure how you missed the mark of what I was saying so badly, but what I'm saying is that genre is subjective and people love to argue over their interpretation over what's a sub genre of whatever. It's the same spirit of what got the infobox color stuff rejected. Sergecross73 msg me 15:22, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

We really don't seem to understand each other. What does the discussion about parental genre selection of individual articles have to do with quick access to information in the infobox? Here we're not even talking about some endless grouping of sub-genres and the like, on which the categorisation of wikipedia is based, but literally about moving the biggest established branches on which no one has any disputes. How does your argument even correlate with the existing genre categoristion on wikipedia?

What you are talking about is the subject of discussions of some individual articles content. At the moment we don't describe rock music genres in premise as "something debatable" or "music genre without context". We explicitly write in the premise that things like hard rock is a subgenre of rock. What possible argument could there be with that? I'm talking about summarizing content, and you're talking about writing content and debating sources. Also, if you look at all the other parameters in the infobox (stylystic/cultural origins, subgenres/derivations/fusion genres) - the Direction field is actually the least controversial of them all. So here too, your arguments look like you are trying to override this infobox altogether.

I insist that crossing out and not using that information would be just a deterioration of the wikipedia. And btw, if you want my assessment - 95% of articles using the infobox would have no problem writing out one or two or three directions for the genre by article content and category. Even in controversial cases such as New wave music, we could write "Direction: Pop music or rock music". And where the situation is completely insoluble, just don't fill in this field. There will be maximum 2-3 such cases on the whole wikipedia. Solidest (talk) 16:07, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose: I don't see what about this isn't already covered by "stylistic_origins". Having two parameters serving the same/a too-similar purpose could get even more confusing for readers than the color scheme. QuietHere (talk) 18:58, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

  I as a reader would be much more confused by the fact that one genre can be equally attributed to 5 different genres, when in fact it is just electronic music. "influenced by" and "subgenre of" is not the same thing. House music doesn't even has anything that says that it's electronic dance music genre in stylistic origins now. Solidest (talk) 19:06, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

  Or how can you say that hyperpop is just experimental electronic pop with that kind of stylistic origins row? Solidest (talk) 19:19, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per both of the above, and because it's entirely unclear what "Direction", "Branch", or "Division" could even mean in a music-genre context.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:15, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC for Cuepoint started

An RfC has been started to determine the reliability of the Medium publication Cuepoint. Your participation is welcomed. TheSandDoctor ^Talk 17:34, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

RfC for how we refer to the nationalities of bands with mixed line-ups

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No consensus to take any particular option. But there is some general advice salvageable from the discussion:

• If sources generally agree on the group's overall nationality, the sources' designation may be used in articles.
• But if the overall group nationality cannot be confidently sourced, leave it out; don't war to change one nationality to another.

(non-admin closure) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 23:47, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

---

This RfC is in response to a recent edit war regarding Supertramp, a band that formed in London and had a mix of English, Scottish, and American members. What default position should we take when a band is formed in one country, but contains members who are from elsewhere?

1. Band nationality determined by place of formation ("Supertramp was an Englsh rock band formed in London [...]")
2. Band nationality determined by nationalities of members ("Supertramp was an Anglo-American rock band formed in London [...]")
3. as above, but limited to nationalities of core or founding members (in the Supertramp example, we would be accounting just Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies, who are both English)
4. Band nationality ignored ("Supertramp was a rock band formed in London [...]")

Some other bands to consider are the Velvet Underground (American, even though John Cale is Welsh), the Monkees (no nationality given), and Fleetwood Mac (British-American). ili (talk) 20:33, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, but how does 1. above differ from 4. above? Do we need an option that takes account only of how sources describe them? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:10, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I assume you mean never describe any band as having a "nationality". Martinevans123 (talk) 12:39, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Survey

• Nationalities of members. "Place of formation" would be weird if we were covering a group of Americans who formed a band in Denmark. "Ignored" feels like a cop-out. "Nationalities of core or founding members" might be ideal, perhaps not as a default, but for bands with an unwieldy number of past/current members like Supertramp. ili (talk) 21:02, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I believe this is already somewhat covered here in the MoS. Is this RfC seeking to amend this - which I think is a perfectly good set of guidelines? I don't see why this topic should differ from the wider practice of looking at the description in RS and, where there is disagreement in individual articles, let editors form consensus. I don't think a one-size fits all rule would work and would cause havoc in articles where this issue has already been settled. Vladimir.copic (talk) 01:08, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
• Simply follow sources.....no need for editor guess work.Moxy- 01:14, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

  That's generally good advice, but I'm willing to bet that for most such edge cases, especially when band members come from different countries, sources will also disagree wildly and the whole debate will just start again. This also happens for many hyphenated identities of individuals. PraiseVivec (talk) 10:29, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

  So the idea is that the Bee Gees' article should start "The Bee Gees were a Manx music group formed in 1958..." (if option 2 or 3 were chosen) just because it will make things easier for edge cases? In edge cases, editors should look at sources and guidelines then come to consensus accordingly. We do it for every other topic. Vladimir.copic (talk) 10:56, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

  Is "a band is formed in one country, but contains members who are from elsewhere" really an edge case? I would have thought it was quite common. Is this RFC only about edge cases? It's not clear to me. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:37, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

  I think it's quite common too – U2, the Police, and the Pretenders are three more major bands that spring immediately to mind. A quick search on the Police seems to indicate that the majority of sources describe them as British or English, even though one-third of them was American. And good luck to anyone trying to get a definitive description for Boney M. – I've found at least two reliable sources describe the group as German, even though none of the four publicly visible members were from Germany. Wikipedia currently describes them as "Euro-Caribbean", even though that doesn't describe any nationality at all... I think Escape Orbit below is right, it's unlikely that any uniform rule will be satisfactory to everyone or stop edit warring. Richard3120 (talk) 14:12, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

  Just to clarify, I don't think it is uncommon. I more meant the edge cases to be where there is dispute in sources or amongst editors. Implementing a one-size-fits-all rule for this has the potential to force things like calling The Police an Franco-Anglo-American band when no sources would describe them this way. Vladimir.copic (talk) 12:30, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

• There is no uniform rule for this that has any hope of working. Each individual case needs to treated as a unique case. In this particular case, I'm not convinced that there is a strong case for changing. Band was formed in England by English people. The Scottish member joined after formation, and this member was not one of the band's leads. But I'm fine if consensus is for change. I'm sure sources can be found that say both. (Also worth pointing out that the IP editor that prompted this by edit warring is very likely the same editor who was already banned for edit warring on this topic over a number of articles.) --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 10:53, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4, generally. Explain it in the article prose. Infoboxes and lead sentences are very blunt intruments.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:27, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - I doubt there will be a one size fits all approach that ever works. What would AC/DC be? Any source will tell you Australian, but the Young bros. and Bon Scott were born in Scotland, and Brian Johnson in England. What about Heart? The Wilson sisters were American, but their husbands considered themselves Canadian. Or the band that led to the discussion, Supertramp, formed in England but with members from Scotland and America... Are they English, British, British-American, English-Scottish-American? We should go by the majority of what sources say, weighted by official-ness, notability, or the opinion of the members themselves in interviews. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 21:13, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4 (Assuming there is no RS consensus for a band's nationality) With this option, readers are able to discover the complex reality of the multiple interpretations of nationality for themselves. By seeing that the band is formed in London, and visiting the pages of the band members and viewing their nationalities, one can reasonably assume that the band has no set nationality, but could be called both English and American. — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 22:48, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, I suspect that many, if not most, bands don't consider themselves to be any particular "nationality". It's really not what they are about, is it. The most useful format might be along the lines of: "are / were a band formed in x-town, in y-country, by musicians a, b and c..." I think that the existing section of the MoS, linked above, is really about individual people and cannot be easily applied to bands at all. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:28, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be better to adjust the word choice and use "originating" rather than "formed." I think it will solve some of the granular issues editors are having regarding the literal location of the band's "formation."Writethisway (talk) 15:53, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

• Option 4 Can a nationality be ascribed to a grouping of individuals from different countries? Suppose I start a club made up of a Bolivian, a Greenlander, a Kenyan, and a Singaporean. Does the club itself have a nationality? The members can have nationalities, of course, but as I see it, a club, band, or group is an inanimate association of people rather than a living being that can claim national identity. I think we should stick to the objective facts: stating where the band was founded, who the members are, and (in their respective articles) where each of them is from. I think specifying a nationality here would be making a subjective assessment of the personal identity of a non-person entity. Sarbz (talk) 00:04, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Silent Running (band)

Could we please have some eyes on this (Silent Running (band)) article? It looks like a potentially inexperienced editor has consolidated content from sources unknown in this article, so there my be some attribution issues and a handful of other style and categorization issues. Dawnseeker2000 03:42, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this would be far better splitting the albums off as separate articles – there's enough there to have each album as a stand-alone article, and it would make this article a lot more readable if it just concentrated on the band's biography. Richard3120 (talk) 02:34, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal

There is a proposal to merge Just Sam with List of American Idol finalists. If you are interestexd, you may join the discussion here. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:51, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Should band navboxes list members that don't have their own articles or which redirect to their bands?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a reasonable consensus here that despite the navbox being for navigation, the listing of band members should have all of the members listed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:30, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

---

A recently closed RfC here at WikiProject Music established consensus that navboxes of musician articles should not include discographical entries (albums, songs) that do not have their own articles, as these are not navigable links and so are outside the functional purview of the navbox. It was pointed out in this discussion that many band/ensemble navboxes also include names of bandmembers, even when those bandmembers are not linked to their own independent articles, and WP:EXISTING currently has a single exception for bandmembers. (I was unable to find any discussion on the insertion of this guideline, only this discussion challenging it in 2012.) Should unlinked or redirect bandmembers be included in navboxes (keeping WP:EXISTING as is), or should the consensus on discographical materials be extended to cover bandmembers as well, and WP:EXISTING be updated? Chubbles (talk) 02:05, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

• This strikes me as a false dichotomy to an extent. We should keep links to bandmembers that go to a section/anchor in another article; but we should not keep those navbox entries that don't exist (unless as redlinks to targets that clearly are notable and should be articles); and we should not keep links that just go back to the top of the band article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:12, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
• As I mentioned earlier, the prior discussion didn't particularly indicate that editors were bothered by having band members be an exception to WP:WTAF on templates. If nobody really cares, then neither do I. Sergecross73 msg me 15:08, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
• As I said before, I support updating EXISTING to remove the band members exception and make the rules apply consistently for all types of items. A navbox should be focused on navigating between topics, not deeper encyclopedic information which can be found elsewhere in the relevant articles. QuietHere (talk) 19:35, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
• (invited by the bot) I don't have the experience in this area to make a fully informed comment. But anything that is explicitly or implicitly a statement of who the band members are should include all of them. Otherwise such would be making a false statement. North8000 (talk) 22:45, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - With respect to musical compositions, only links to actual albums and songs (and perhaps similar entities) should be in a navbox about musicians or musical ensembles. This means that redirects, links to sections of another article and listings of compositions with no actual article should not be in the navbox at all, because it is not an infobox. For a musical ensemble comprised of multiple individuals, a complete list of members should probably be in the navbox to prevent the misconception that the entity is a solo act. If the number of individuals is enormous, such listing can be discussed on a case-by-case basis. --Jax 0677 (talk) 23:50, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

What is the rationale for treating the two types of information differently - that albums should be links-only, but bandmembers should be everyone? In both cases, there is a possibility of misconception, but as consensus has established, navboxes are for navigation, not full informational lists. Chubbles (talk) 04:54, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

• Reply - The number of non notable songs and non notable albums, in some cases, has more potential to flood the navbox than non notable musicians in a musical ensemble. --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:10, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

But less flood potential still isn't zero flood potential so this excuse can really only go so far. QuietHere (talk) 13:35, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, that doesn't seem to hold water at all. One look at the navbox for Molly Hatchet, for instance, illustrates how much worse the flooding can be with musicians than with albums. Chubbles (talk) 21:56, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

• Comment (Summoned by bot) Like North8000, I'm botted here, but this is outside my area of experience. However I echo his statement anything that is explicitly or implicitly a statement of who the band members are should include all of them. Otherwise such would be making a false statement. This would to a lesser degree apply to other infobox content - unless heading make it clear that the content is 'partial'.Pincrete (talk) 05:51, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Note that this is in reference to navboxes, rather than infoboxes. I agree that infoboxes should have complete memberlists. It's worth noting that band member information often shows up in four different places on many musician articles: the infobox, the prose history of the band, the memberlist, and the navbox. As with discographies - as was argued repeatedly in the navbox/discography RfC - there is no reason to think the navbox ought to be the principal locus for comprehensive information about band membership, and so there is no reason to read the navbox as making a false statement. Chubbles (talk) 06:25, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Usage of asterisks in K-pop discog tables/articles

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Discographies § Usage of asterisks in K-pop discog tables/articles

 – Carlobunnie (talk) 21:23, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Some time ago, editors began inserting asterisks in chart position cols of various K-pop discography tables and articles to indicate releases did not enter a particular cited region due to the chart not existing at the time, either due to it being long defunct, recently discontinued, or newly created. I thought all this time that the greyed out N/A is what is supposed to be used for entries where something like this might occur, as I've seen in other discogs on WP. Another editor voiced their concern about this back in April on the Music Project talk page, but no one responded and it was archived. I tried on the Discogs talk page a week ago, but no one commented, so I'm asking here now in the hopes that someone can provide insight on whether this is appropriate or not. As an example, see the Scotland col in singer Jungkook's discog section. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 21:23, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

@Carlobunnie This is likely added by the same user, which I have manual reverted with {{N/A|N/A}} (Why N/A twice ... some "genius" RfC updated N/A template to em-dash template [with background-color] lol because N/A template is more commonly piped with em-dash) from some K-pop articles I encountered such, the * is just there without even a single explanation hence what does it even supposed to means even though I know what it means because I encountered such various times, unlike on Jungkook one in which it carries explanation. N/A on the other hand is more universally understand (well this varies depending on multiple factors but that's for another day) as "Not Applicable" but also carries other meaning for instance "Not Available". Should we use em-dash, maybe yes, maybe no, because em-dash "denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory" which imo is pretty vague and take into account what you mentioned above for defunct chart, new chart, etc. Imo, there isn't really a solution at the current moment hence we're seeing such makeshift salad solution of * or N/A (yes I manual reverted * to N/A but I'm not saying my solution is perfect either) or N/A piped with * or N/A template piped with Efn with some notes. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 15:18, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Quick question

In the music infobox template, what is the difference between sub genre and fusion genre please? 10Trix.Never (talk) 20:43, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

It probably would have been better to ask this question on the talk page of that template, but Music genre#Subtypes has an explanation. Richard3120 (talk) 20:56, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Billboard.com falters yet again

This might be better suited to another WP, but Billboard is one of the most commonly used music sources (chart numbers etc.), so I figured here would be alright.

As of the past few months, Billboard's website has deteriorated greatly. Many artists no longer have individual pages (it used to be either billboard.com/artist/NAME or billboard.com/music/NAME, but now it redirects to their homepage). These individual pages are sometimes saved on Archive, but due to Billboard utilizing a half-arsed menu system (which sometimes duplicated entries), very few sections are archived. Also, the Search Charts function no longer works whatsoever. At one point, only Pro members were able to use it, but then it became free for everyone, but now it seems to be broken for everyone. Searching anything at all will give a "No Results Found" page. In addition, as usual, only Pro members can view full charts online, so linking to one of those pages won't suffice either (they recently forced members to pay annually instead of monthly).

I just wanted to give a heads up, since a lot of people may cite Billboard's website on instinct, but now most of those URLs are dead, with no sufficient archive. The only other alternative is to cite or link to the physical component of Billboard (worldradiohistory.com has various issues but it's not complete). Xanarki (talk) 01:45, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this was mentioned recently on either WP:SONGS or WP:ALBUMS. Even a link to World Radio History isn't an ideal solution as apart from missing many issues (including almost all of the last three years), this is still ultimately one man's blog with illegally uploaded scans, and could go offline at any time. Richard3120 (talk) 02:31, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Need another opinion at Talk:Howie Weinberg

There is currently an ongoing dispute at Talk:Howie Weinberg#Clean up of table and removal of unreliably sourced information about a table of Grammy nominations and wins for a mastering engineer. It would be appreciated if others would please stop by and provide their thoughts on this dispute. McMatter ^(talk)/_(contrib) 14:03, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

RfC at List of best-selling music artists

There is an RfC currently open at Talk:List of best-selling music artists that would benefit from members of this WikiProject. Vladimir.copic (talk) 03:02, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Odd things happening with vocal groups

FYI, some odd things have been happening with Vocal group (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and List of vocal groups (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) this September 2022. First List of vocal groups was blanked to being a dicdef, then that dicdef was cut-and-pasted to vocal group, previously a redirect to the list, and the list at list of vocal groups was then rebuilt without the extensive intro section it had prior to blanking, leaving no intro at all.

So currently, we have a bare list without an intro, and a dicdef article.

IMHO, the dicdef located at vocal group cannot support an article as it is, and should either redirect back to the list again, or some of the content that was deleted from the list that used to be the intro should be pasted into the current dicdef. Though that has the problem of lacking sourcing, as that was the reason provided for blanking the intro into being a sourced dicdef. The dicdef would serve as a start for an intro into the list article, but is still insufficient for a list intro.

As it stands, the dicdef vocal group article is liable to be deleted because it is a dicdef. I previously recommended to the person who blanked the list article that they should just revert and send the list to WP:Articles for deletion, if they didn't like the list, as the dicdef article cannot stand as it is, as a dicdef because it is deletable for that reason.

-- 64.229.88.43 (talk) 04:12, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

RfC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music

There is an RfC currently open at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music#Lists of Repertoire/Compositions on Wikipedia. Please come share your thoughts! Why? I Ask (talk) 22:07, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Sex Pistols

I started the following discussion earlier this year: Talk:Sex Pistols#FA review needed? George Ho (talk) 06:39, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

New draft, suggestions welcome

Hey everybody, it's my first time creating an article. Here it is: Draft:Goblins_from_Mars. Please feel free to tell me what you think about it. Have a good one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirk0dex (talk • contribs) 19:11, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

@Mirk0dex: I can tell you right off the bat that this won't pass. Every source you have on the page is from Twitter, Soundcloud, or YouTube. None of those are considered reliable sources on Wikipedia. What you need is coverage that is independent of the artist, like from a magazine or website article. For music articles, it's always a good bet to start with the sites listed at WP:RSMUSIC, and any others that have coverage of this duo. Try sorting that table by genre to find the electronic-/EDM-focused sites and the all-genre ones, those are where you'd most likely find coverage if there is any. QuietHere (talk) 20:02, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Seconded. Sergecross73 msg me 20:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

@QuietHere: Thanks for your answer. I will work on the issues described ASAP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirk0dex (talk • contribs) 17:18, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Update: looks like Goblins from Mars aren't suitable for Wikipedia, yet. This is sad. I have found no coverage of the topic on independent magazines and websites. Well, guess I'll have to wait... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirk0dex (talk • contribs) 19:20, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

That's the problem - they appear to have no coverage at all outside of their own social media. Unless one of their tracks goes viral in the near future, you could be waiting a very long time. Richard3120 (talk) 20:05, 22 October 2022 (UTC)