Talk:Random Access Memories/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Sasuke Sarutobi (talk · contribs) 08:19, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello! I shall be reviewing this page as my second GA review, with the support of Khazar, who is showing me the ropes. I am a long-time fan of Daft Punk - I have been listening to the album all this morning to get into it - so I hope I can do it justice.

I've already had a quick read through the history of revisions and the talk page, but will be spending the next couple of days looking over the page, and aim to post a review within about 2-3 days. Thank you in advance to all the contributors on this article for creating what is on first impression a very good article, with what I think is a good chance to move quickly to A-class or Featured Article review if it passes Good Article review. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 08:19, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Looking forward to it--thanks to everybody here for their work. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:18, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid that external pressures have meant that I've not been able to spend as much time as I was planning, so there are still a few things I need to check before I'm in a position to post a comprehensive review of the article, which I'll be going through over the next couple of days. Everything I've seen has been promising; going through the history and talk page, I can definitely see the commitment of the contributors to the article, with any debate being clearly focussed on improving the article's quality, so thank you again.

As an aside, I've been listening to the album whenever I have the chance (as I write this, 'Touch' has just started playing), and have fallen in love with it all over again, so you can rest assured that the article has a sympathetic ear. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 10:09, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Again, I've had an unusually hectic few days, so although I've been keeping an eye on the progress of the article, I've not been able to fully check through what has been done. I have some notes prepared already, but I'll be going through the article tomorrow evening (GMT), after which I'll be consulting with Khazar2 (talk · contribs) on the final review of the article. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 00:04, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Review

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

---

The below is the present position of my review, but I'm about a third of the way through a "deep read" of the article, and have a few further checks to make before I complete the review. The sections not yet marked are those that I will complete following this, the others I am comfortable providing after a relatively quicker check. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 18:17, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is clear and concise, without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   The 'Structure' section needs clarification as to whether the 'd' in de Homem-Christo's surname is capitalised at the start of a sentence, as it appears in both upper and lower cases within adjacent paragraphs.

    Done - Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 19:30, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

   The above all check out to me.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   In-line citations and references are provided.

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   'The track begins with an orchestral string section and timpani before settling into a segment that is said to resemble Michael McDonald's song "I Keep Forgettin'".' — said by whom? This does not appear in citations at the end of the following sentence.

   '... was later identified as "We Ride Tonight" by The Sherbs.' — Do we have a citation for this? I've heard the song, and it is indisputable, but I still feel that it needs citing.

    Done - Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 19:30, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

   C. No original research:

   A couple of uncited statements are present (see above).

    Done - Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 19:30, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   Attention has been paid to the album from its conception to its release, as well as critical and commercial reception, and includes referenced track listing (including Japanese bonus track) and personnel.

   B. Focused:

   The article remains focussed throughout on the subject of the album, with all information relevant to the subject.

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   All opinions expressed in the article are cited and those of contributors or professional critics; all other comments are presented in an appropriately encyclopaedic tone.

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

   There appears to be some contention over the choice of genres for the album. This ideally could do with settling on an agreed list.

    Done Now appears to be settled on a stable list. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 23:35, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   Album cover is tagged for fair use, and other images are tagged for free use.

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   Images are of the album cover, two locations at which the album was recorded, and artists who collaborated on the album.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Everything raised here has now been addressed, so I am passing this. Thank you to all involved for your hard work! — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 20:14, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I've now completed an initial review, though there are a few things that I am continuing to check through (e.g. copyvio sneaking in, or accuracy of sources). I would suggest a few further additions for potentially FA review, but I honestly cannot see anything besides the above in which I feel it needs elaboration, so congratulations and thank you all for a great piece of work. @Khazar2: what do you think? — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 01:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Will give it a read tomorrow--looking forward to it, Khazar2 (talk) 01:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Regarding point #2, I went ahead and cited the liner notes for the Sherbs sample (when that info had first been added to the article, the album had not been released yet). As for the "I Keep Forgettin" part, the Mixmag review citation states that the song "sounds a lot like the sample used in Nate Dogg and Warren G’s ‘Regulate’" which happens to be "I Keep Forgettin". I'm sure there's a way to convey this in a more elegant manner, though. jhsounds (talk) 02:08, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Just a minor update - I tackled the "I Keep Forgettin" part to make it clear who and what is being cited. jhsounds (talk) 20:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Khazar2 comments

This looks basically solid to me; thanks to everybody involved in getting this recent release to a high-quality article already. I've made some copyediting and clarity tweaks as I went, but please feel free to revert anything with which you disagree. Here are the remaining issues that I see, most of which will need to be addressed in some fashion before the article is GA-ready:

• "Random Access Memories is the duo's most critically and commercially successful album to date," -- this doesn't appear to be mentioned in the body. It's well established that the album was hugely successful on both fronts, but no sources comparing the previous albums that I saw. (unless I overlooked it?) So this big statement both needs citation, and needs to be established in the body per WP:LEAD.

To qualify critical success, Metacritic does list the album as their highest-rated by metascore on their artist page. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 11:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that would work. Presumably another source could be found for commercial figures. Do we have any active participants in the review still? -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:40, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm still here (submitted some copy-editing on the article this morning after reading through last night), and I've seen @Jhsounds last copy-edited some info on the new single a few days a ago, so things are progressing, albeit more slowly than I would prefer. I will be putting work into the article again in a few hours, so things should be coming to a conclusion within the next few days. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 14:44, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Cool. Ideally you shouldn't have to do too much work here yourself as reviewer, but this is an odd situation with the driveby nominator. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:00, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done, sort of. I added the Metacritic info indicating it's the Daft Punk album that has been their greatest critical success but I can find no sources to corroborate a claim of "bestselling". Should we just remove that claim?

• "The multitude of styles and science fiction aesthetics on the track is believed to be an homage to musical films" -- I've fixed a few of these already, but there's problems with weasely phrasing in several sentences in this section; one critic does not equal a general belief. It would be better to just say that "Joe Critic believed that the multitude of styles was..."  Done Seems to have been dealt with before I got here.
• "that is said to resemble Michael McDonald's song "I Keep Forgettin'"." -- this one is particularly problematic as it's followed by two citations, neither of which appear to mention McDonald at first glance.  Done Found an RS that referenced the song as the sample in the context of the song.
• " "Contact" begins with a sample of "an Australian rock record"[1] that was later identified as "We Ride Tonight" by The Sherbs" -- couldn't we just say, "'Contact' begins with a sample of "We Ride Tonight" by The Sherbs"? It seems trivial to mention that the sample wasn't named in an early discussion with Rolling Stone.  Done Seems to have been done by the time I got here.
• "Consisting of eight episodes so far," -- this should be fixed in time per WP:REALTIME (e.g., "As of November 2013, eight episodes have been released"). Or is it safe to say that the series is done?  Done Seems safe to me.
• "took note of a perceptively incongruous critical reaction with the album" -- I'm not clear what this sentence means, specifically how something can be "perceptively incongruous", and why this says "with the album" instead of "to the album". Can this wording be clarified?  Done Cropped several lines from the review, including these, to give due weight.
• It seems like the reviewer for Paste gets a surprising amount of space (6-7 sentences) compared to established publications like Rolling Stone (1 sentence). I would suggest trimming the summary of this review to just a point or two for balance, unless there's a reason I'm overlooking that he deserves particular attention from us.  Done Trimmed out the confusing bit from above, shortened to explicit critique of the album.
• "as well as the fastest-selling album of 2013 so far" -- "so far" should be replaced with the current date, assuming this still holds true. Or replace with the date of the source ("as of...")  Done Clarified that it's been the fastest selling artist album of the year as of two days ago (source included) because apparently Now That's What I Call Music! 85 (which is a compilation album) has it beat by some 160,000 units in the first-week sales department. Who knew?

Cheers, Khazar2 (talk) 19:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

*The nominator has had mostly failed GA nominations, because they're usually far from ready. I'll try to see what I can do for him here. 和DITOREtails 16:12, 20 November 2013 (UTC) You know what, I've been just busy, so I'll let the review keep going and suggest that somebody else take over. 和DITOREtails 23:41, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

• Hey, this doesn't seem like to much of a task so I'll give it a shot. The big ol' "done" checkmarks are mine...feel free to contest them if you don't think I've actually done what you're looking for. BobAmnertiopsis∴_ChatMe! 03:57, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Conclusion of review

Looking through the above, it would seem that thanks to the @Khazar2's comments and work, and the work of @Jhsounds and @Bobamnertiopsis, I think all of the above points have been addressed. About the only thing I haven't cleared as addressed yet is the issue of the genres listed; I think the list that we have ("Disco, electronic, funk") seems pretty fair as stable, but I want to check consensus and see if we are agreed that the review is complete. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 19:30, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to both jhsounds and Bob for stepping in on this one. I think the sales part of "Random Access Memories is the duo's most critically and commercially successful album to date" still needs sourcing; surely this is true but we do need to verify it somewhere (and in any case, important info shouldn't be in the lead without being in the body.) Once that's resolved or removed, I think this is ready to pass. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:05, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I've done some looking and I'm not sure this is even the case now. The critical part is fine, but I have trouble with the commercial aspect. The ideal situation would be to have one source comparing worldwide sales of all Daft Punk's albums on a single page; this I cannot find. Next best might be four separate pages, each listing one of the duo's four albums and citing its worldwide sales; this too remains elusive as I've only found an RS for worldwide sales of their first album, Homework. Now, Daft Punk discography lists a worldwide number of RAM but it's not sourced but I did find a Sony press release suggesting that album sales were "almost 3 million". That said, a likely unreliable source put forth the idea that Daft Punk's second album, Discovery, sold 3.2 million copies. At this point, I'm not really comfortable saying that this is their most commercially successful album and that phrase should probably be removed. BobAmnertiopsis∴_ChatMe! 01:58, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

I've removed the 'commercial' part of the statement now; if a reliable source turns up later to support the statement, it can always be added then. If there are no further objections, I think the article is ready to pass. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 23:19, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Almost. It just needs sources for the new Accolades section mentioning all the Grammy nominations it's just received. BobAmnertiopsis∴_ChatMe! 00:56, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done I've added references and a table of nominations (including "Get Lucky", as it's the lead single from the album). Let me know what you think. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 20:32, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I think it looks great, though ultimately, you're the reviewer so your word goes! @Khazar2, are you happy with it? BobAmnertiopsis∴_ChatMe! 21:11, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Khazar has since retired. Quadell offered assistance with the review following Khazar's departure, so I've left a request for a second opinion. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 23:35, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the issues you raised were very appropriate, and I'm pleased to see that they were all dealt with. I don't see any remaining problems, so feel free to promote this to GA status, Sasuke Sarutobi! (If you need any technical assistance, feel free to ask me.) – Quadell ^(talk) 23:42, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, done! — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 20:14, 11 December 2013 (UTC)