Talk:The OF Tape Vol. 2

Content Section

The content section seems unnecessary and badly written. Most of it is just copy pasted from the articles referenced or just made up on the spot. Some of the claims seem just completely out of left field, like for example claiming that "White" is in the style of Stevie Wonder or that 50 and Lean are parodies. I think removal or a severe edit of this section is in order, however I'm not much of a writer so I'll just leave it as be for now. --Helgado (talk) 02:13, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The OF Tape Vol. 2/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: LazyBastardGuy (talk · contribs) 20:53, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll get to this one soon. I should have something here by the end of the day.

Good Luck. It may take a bit for me to respond, since I'm doing expansion of the article Hold Your Fire, but I promise I'll fix em as soon as possible. Thank you for your participation. 和DITOREtails 21:04, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Lead

• "expresses the tropes"
  •  Done 和DITOREtails 22:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• "over-the-top" Is this word okay for an encyclopedia?
  • I'm not sure, but I've changed it to overly. 和DITOREtails 22:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• "The album spawned four singles, all of which received music videos:…"
  • Rewrite 和DITOREtails 22:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• "…during their promotional tours" This statement is unnecessary.
  • Removed 和DITOREtails 22:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Background

• I know some people refer to groups with singular verbs, others (like myself) with plural (funny considering that, to my knowledge, is the traditional British usage and I've never even been to Britain). However, I notice the group "is known for their frequent collaborations" but "have released mixtapes together". I think the plural verbs would work best here given the use of the word "their".
  •  Fixed 和DITOREtails 22:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Also, I'm prepared for this section to remain brief, but could you possibly add anything else? It won't hurt the possible GA status if you don't, but it couldn't hurt either.
  • I think it would be too much if I added more background info on their formation and development of mixtakes, so I'll leave it alone. 和DITOREtails 22:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Content

• …uh oh. This section reads like a review. Unless some of these are direct quotations from the given sources (in which case some will need quote marks, others will need to be paraphrased) here are some words and phrases I found that must be replaced:
  • "boastful scorcher"
  • "hammering"
  • Could live with this one, but if there's a more formal equivalent to "off-kilter", please use it.
  • "stark, unnerving"
  • "The streak of rap songs is broken up" --> "All the songs up to "NY (Ned Flander)" are rap songs, but the one that follows, "Ya Know", is not, as it is more reminiscent of the band N.E.R.D. with its sonic shifts and "hazy" atmosphere." If someone specifically wrote that the song was "hazy", it might be worth mentioning who it was by name and for which publication they wrote.
  • "lurching banger with a creepy, hypnotic beat"
  • "atmospheric production, a sultry swirl of synths…"
  • "muses about moonlight kisses…"
  • "bass-heavy" should probably be… something else, something more formal.
  • "shows up again" --> "reappears"
  • "tension-ridden beat"
  • "an ideal woman"
  • "atmospheric" right before "slow jam" (remove the hyphen)
  • "post-grunge assisted beat" --> "beat influenced by post-grunge"
  • "in the vein of the Wu-Tang Clan"
  • "Ocean gently singing…" I suppose I could live with this one, but if at all possible, we should probably find a different way to say "gently". Avoid subjective terms when describing the contents of an album.
  • "spits a contemplative poem" "Spits" is not appropriate for any context outside of a direct quote in an encyclopedia.
  • "heavy synths blaring"
  • "show up" --> "appear"
  • "The album closer, "Oldie", features Earl Sweatshirt's first appearance in a rap song in over a year."
  • "10 minute long" --> "10-minute"
  • "cipher" This doesn't appear to be defined outside of rap as it is inside rap. Perhaps a synonym expressing the same thought?
  • Semicolon right before "Taco" in that sentence should just be a comma.
  • Again, another take-or-leave, but "eccentricity" sounds kind of subjective.
    • Fixed and redid stuff 和DITOREtails 22:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Promotion

• "The third single, "Oldie", received a music video directed by Lance Bangs on March 20."
• "play hypeman" What does this mean? Is there a way to rewrite this?
• "Sam Is Dead" capitalize the "i" in "is"
• "war-themed"
• I'm not entirely sure what value is added to the article by mentioning that the group performed several of the album's songs on tour. Then again, that could just be my cynical side saying it's obvious, at least to me, that the artist would promote songs from the album on tour. But I digress.
  • On the other hand, perhaps they undertook a specific tour to promote the album? As a group or individually? You could say either, "The album was promoted by an Odd Future tour", or "Members of Odd Future promoted the album by performing songs from it on their own tours." Depending, of course, on what the sources say; you may even need both.
• "topped" kind of implies that the album reached number one on those charts. One or the other is fine, you don't need both descriptors.
• "due to the fact that" --> "because"
• "shows marked improvement here" It might be worth saying what they've done in the past that is being compared to this album. The review does say "mixtapes past", and a past accomplishment of Tyler's is cited, but if any other specific examples are cited, could you maybe include them here?
• "all impressed" --> "were all impressive"
• "summarizing that "hype warranted…"" Something appears to be missing here.
• "criminally underuse" If this is what the source said verbatim, you can use either {{sic}} to indicate this or you can fix it by taking a d onto the end of the last word, as this would be the kind of typo in a direct quotation Wikipedia would allow us to fix.
  • Fixed and redid stuff 和DITOREtails 22:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Track listing

The table is a bit of an eyesore to look at. Try one of the tracklisting templates; I'll help if you want.

• • This is typical for Rap Album Wikipedia articles to have this. Its fine. 和DITOREtails 22:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Now, for sourcing, images and article history:

• Sourcing: Everything seems okay here.
• Images: The rationale for the album cover contains two fields marked only "n.a.". Not okay.
  •  Fixed 和DITOREtails 00:40, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I'll get to it. 和DITOREtails 22:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Everything else seems fine here.
• Article history: Lots of different people chipping in (I corrected a typo as well), but no bloodshed. Looks peaceful.

On hold, and sorry it took so long for this article to get reviewed. I must say, it's actually very well done - in particular I like the "Content" section and how it takes a form of album-article writing I would normally advise against because it can be monotonous and boring, but it's very vivid and keeps the reader going here. It might require further cleanup for FA if that's what you're going for, but for now it'll be fine as long as you correct the POV and wording issues I mentioned above.

UPDATE 18:42, 13 October 2013 (UTC): I tweaked a couple of things, and now I'm concerned about the lead. Just a couple of things: first, it could be a bit longer (in particular the bit about the singles that I corrected was good, but it doesn't seem to be there even though I recommended keeping it but amending it), and the lyrical themes as written there do not seem to actually be present on the album given the information in the article. The lead's only a few steps away now, and I will help as needed. We can have this done by the end of the day!

• To be honest, I think the lead covers all its main points. Yes, it could be longer, but that doesn't mean its not long enough. Second, could we just cite a source about the lyrical content in the lead, and let the Content take care of explaining it? 和DITOREtails 19:05, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Perhaps it is long enough as is, but if we're going to leave it as is we need to either rewrite much of the Content section to reflect the three predominant themes as mentioned in the lead, or redo just that one sentence as I didn't see any reference to "teen angst, social disillusionment or social commentary" in the Content section. I think the latter would be an easier option, as you've already given a very thorough breakdown of the album's contents in that section, and we won't need anything new if you sum it up in the lead. Remember, the lead doesn't introduce any new information that you can't find elsewhere in the article; it summarizes only what the rest of the article already has. I'll put this up for a second opinion (I'm sorry if this means it takes even longer, I'll put a note that'll hopefully encourage some input) and we'll see what others have to say. Besides, I've made more than a few tweaks at this point and I'm a bit closer to evaluating my own work than I'm comfortable with. We're almost there - hang in there. LazyBastardGuy 21:22, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Second opinion on the lead The prose comes to 11K, so 1 - 2 paragraphs for the lead is about right per WP:LEADLENGTH. The major facets of the article are mentioned, including background, that all members feature on the album (which seems like an odd thing to say but the body does state it) and a summary of its critical reception. One problem is that the lead says the album debuted at number 5 on the Billboard chart, but the article states that #5 was its peak position. The two can be the same, but not necessarily. Also the "Track Listing" section is completely unreferenced (presumably a single cite to the sleeve notes would fix that). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:17, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your input. I have simply seen more-detailed leads and I suppose I am only still learning what "satisfactory" means insofar as a good article is concerned. I'll fix the chart position bit, and I'll leave it to EditorE or someone else to cite the tracklisting. Again, thank you! LazyBastardGuy 19:27, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• Is Allmusic a fine source for tracklisting? 和DITOREtails 21:51, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
  • It's fine by me, and now the article has passed. Well done! LazyBastardGuy 22:11, 15 October 2013 (UTC)