Talk:Among the Living/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Binksternet (talk · contribs) 00:37, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Beginning review. Binksternet (talk) 00

37, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

• First, some punctuation. Every mdy date must be followed by a comma or other punctiation, per MOS:DATE.

I think that I have corrected every date in the article. Lewismaster (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

• Second, the Gold certification level must be capitalized, because it is an award, not the elemental metal.

Done

• It's too much to say that "fans" love this album based on the two cited sources. Neither source specifies fans; they could be talking about critics. AllMusic says that it is "Generally considered the band's best album" while Konow says it is "one of the band's heaviest and best loved albums."

I am not sure about this. Moffitt explicitly writes "Often cited by fans as their favourite Anthrax album" and it's a reliable source. I don't think that it would be a good wiki-policy to search for fan polls on the net. Do you think that the statement should be cut? Lewismaster (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not insisting on anything here. Binksternet (talk) 17:12, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I cut the sentence from the introduction, but kept the references in the Reception section. Moffitt wrote that it is cited and I don't want to contradict the BBC.Lewismaster (talk) 18:04, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• The sound sample of "Caught in a Mosh" slightly exceeds the allowable time limit. Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music samples, the sample should be 30 seconds or 10% of the song, whichever is shorter. The original song is 4:59 according to AllMusic and the printed LP label, so the longest the sample can be is 29.9 seconds, but it lasts 31 seconds.

I reduced the length of the track to the prescribed value, but it still indicates 30 seconds, instead of 29.9. Do I need to reduce it more? Lewismaster (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Good work. Binksternet (talk) 17:12, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• "Caught in a Mosh" should be listed as 4:59, and "Imitation of Life" should be listed as 4:10, both according to AllMusic and the LP printed label.

Done

• The photos are properly public domain, and the cover art is covered by fair-use rationale.

OK

• Interesting new development is the graphic novel based on the album; one song per chapter.

I expanded the paragraph a little. The graphic novel is still not available and I don't want it to appear as an ad. Lewismaster (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

• Benante's skill at the double-kick drum is called out by Martin Popoff in the 2004 book The Top 500 Heavy Metal Albums of All Time. Popoff lists the album at number 49 of 500[1] and describes the sound as "thick as boulders, but the band remains this compact fighting machine, driven by the legendary, get-in-the-ring double-bass skills of Charlie Benante..." The now-classic double-kick of thrash (see Heavy metal drumming) had already been used by Benante in Spreading the Disease, so it isn't a new thing here.

I changed the sentence and added the reference among the accolades. Lewismaster (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

• Popoff published in 2003 a book listing 500 of the best heavy metal songs, and four tracks from this album made the list. Of the four, "Among the Living" scored the highest at number 161. The rankings are calculated from polls he conducted.

Let's not get too Popoff-oriented, shall we? Lewismaster (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Binksternet (talk) 17:12, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• Side note: Blue Öyster Cult and Dokken concert soundman George Geranios joined Anthrax for the Among the Living Tour, and stayed with them for the next 16 years of touring. Boy, does he have some road stories. He says that Anthrax's set at Donington in 1987 was limited in volume by an inaccessible dbx compressor in the system drive rack; its purpose was to make headliner Bon Jovi louder than all the previous bands. It would have been bypassed or re-adjusted for 12 more decibels of SPL right as Bon Jovi hit the stage. The URL is disallowed on Wikipedia. Connect the two URL sections: http://www.ho trails.co.uk/blueskybag/georgegeranios/810822_donington.htm

George and Tony Geranios are two unsung heroes of the rock world. These men's hard work and incredible feats to give the performers they helped the best equipment and setup possible every single night is more than commendable. If I remember correctly, Bon Jovi's show at Donington was not a great success and the press was very critical about his voice (or lack of it). Lewismaster (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

• Cover artist Don Brautigam also painted the Metallica Master of Puppets album cover, released a couple of weeks earlier.[2] His earlier work included the hookers-and-blow album cover for James Brown, and other good stuff for the Troggs, Chuck Berry, Johnny Guitar Watson, etc.[3] Brautigam continued with Anthrax to paint State of Euphoria.

I added more about Brautigam, following your suggestions. Lewismaster (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

• More review to come. Binksternet (talk) 05:00, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
• Wow, big changes from Zmbro with some moderation by Lewismaster and Muhandes. At Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Album article style advice, the question of singles charts in an album article is not addressed for or against, so my take is that the original small table of two singles and their chart results is allowable. The archived URLs is not part of GA criteria, or even FA criteria, but I can imagine it helps prevent problems from linkrot.

Zmbro worked a lot and I don't want to change what he did, just have an explanation for future reference. The two singles have their separate articles and the charts info is not lost. Lewismaster (talk) 18:04, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

• The new URL from whymakeamusicvideo.com is self-published and less authoritative than simply taking the credits from the published video collection Anthrology: No Hit Wonders (1985–1991). A citation to the liner notes of that collection would be based on {{cite AV media}} and contain no URL. Something like the following:
  • {{cite AV media |title=[[Anthrology: No Hit Wonders (1985–1991)]] |type=DVD liner notes |publisher=[[Island Records]] |date=2005 |id=B0004997-09 |ref={{SfnRef|Island|2005}}}}

Thank you, you are a saviour!

• The article is looking very good, almost there. Binksternet (talk) 17:12, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
• The date range written "October – December" should have no spaces per MOS:DASH and MOS:DATERANGE: October–December.

Done

• I would remove Zazula from the producer parameter of the infobox per WP:NOEXEC. Binksternet (talk) 17:48, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I love new rules! Removed. Lewismaster (talk) 18:04, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Input from zmbro

Hey guys. Was browsing the GAN page and thought I'd make some general improvements throughout. One thing I'd thought I'd point out is both songfacts and IMDb are used, both of which are considered unreliable sources so those will have to be replaced. Good luck with the rest of the review! – zmbro _(talk) 01:10, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Good point. Thanks for the note! Binksternet (talk) 03:49, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I changed the IMDb with a more reliable source and removed the two user-generated Songfacts sources. Two other Songfacts sources are interviews by rock journalist Greg Prato and I think that they are reliable and not urser-generated. Lewismaster (talk) 09:02, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

By the way, I have not been working on GA articles for a while. Is it a common practice now to archive all the sources? If it is so, thank you very much to zmbro for all the work! Lewismaster (talk) 09:06, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Archived URLs are not part of GA or FA criteria. Binksternet (talk) 17:12, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Finally, dear zmbro, I'd like to know why you deemed singles charts unnecessary. Charts positions are not cited in the article and I thought that it could be important to give that information in one form or another. Is it another little style twist introduced when I was away form Wikipedia? I added the chart results to every song article anyway. Lewismaster (talk) 09:42, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I think a table of singles charts is acceptable even though it is not mentioned at Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Album article style advice. It's not specifically disallowed. If the two singles articles did not exist, that chart would certainly be wanted here, to represent the nonexistent articles. Binksternet (talk) 17:12, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I've been seeing other editors remove singles charts from album articles for awhile now so I've been removing them as well. You can obviously go ahead and add them back I'm not going to stop you. And like Binksternet said, archive urls aren't required but imo it's nice to have them in case a url becomes dead in the future (which I've found to be the case with urls older than 2010). – zmbro _(talk) 17:44, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. I have been away from active editing for more than a year and a few things have changed. I am not sure if it is for the best... Lewismaster (talk) 18:04, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

•  Done. Everything's good. Congrats! Binksternet (talk) 22:49, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much. It was fun! Lewismaster (talk) 11:53, 9 July 2021 (UTC)