Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fôrça Bruta/archive1
- The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 14:33, 30 November 2018 [1].
Fôrça Bruta edit
This article is about a 1970 album by the Brazilian singer-songwriter Jorge Ben, accompanied by the Trio Mocotó band. It was a musical and thematic departure from Ben's previous work, a successful work in the contemporaneous Tropicália artistic movement, and pioneering of what later became known as samba-rock. It received retrospective critical acclaim and attention from North American publications after a re-release in 2007. I exhausted both English and Portuguese-language sources online, including GoogleBooks and searches with alternate spellings of the album title ("o" and "c" with and without the accents), so I am confident the article is comprehensive of its topic. Dan56 (talk) 03:58, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
Support from Aoba47 edit
| Review by Aoba47 |
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*The following is more of a clarification question, rather than a suggestion. Is there any information on the exact release date (i.e. day) or is the month and the year the only things that can be sourced? Just want to make sure.
Wonderful work with the article. Once this is addressed, I will be more than happy to support. If you have time, I would greatly appreciate any comments for my current FAC. Either way, good luck with the nomination. Aoba47 (talk) 05:02, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
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Image review edit
| Image review by Nikkimaria |
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*File:Jorge_Ben_e_o_Trio_Mocotó_no_Teatro_da_Lagoa,_1971.tif: why is this believed to be a government work?
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_09633u.jpg){kind=link}
Support from magiciandude edit
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First let me say, thank you very much for putting so much effort into this article. I can tell a lot of thought was put into this and it's not very often a Latin album will be nominated for FA. I'm not an expert on prose, but there's nothing that stands out that needs major copy editing to me. There are only a few things I want to point out: The first one, , to echo on Aoba47, is that the sample could use a source. At least, I would use a critical commentary on the sample to help justify its usage (see Romance (Luis Miguel album), an article I worked on as an example). The second being that one of the links is dead. This is a more suggestion, but for the durations, there's a {{duration}} template. Erick (talk) 16:51, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
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Coordinator notes edit
I've added this to the urgents list—looks like we've stalled a bit and need help pushing it the rest of the way up the hill. --Laser brain (talk) 16:01, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
Comments from Brandt Luke Zorn edit
Dan56 requested that I review this article. I'm going to start reading it now, although there's a good chance I'll be interrupted by some real life events today. If I'm unable to leave comments today, I should be able to get started at some point this weekend or, at the latest, by this coming Monday, Nov. 12 (I'm on PST). Just wanted to give some notice to watchers on my intention to review and my timing, given the stagnation in comments and coordination attention. —BLZ · talk 23:17, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
Explaining myself: I started my review by making edits to the page itself, many of which have been reverted by Dan56. That's completely fine. If anything, I apologize for not explaining those edits here or in edit summaries. I originally intended to provide my in-depth comments here only after I'd combed through the whole article once, but I'll go back and start doing that now. For reviews, I prefer to edit the page itself because it forces me to carefully consider the text line-by-line and as a whole. I know that method probably feels a bit like an affront, like I'm barging in and bulldozing something you've worked hard on without even explaining myself—I know the feeling, believe me—but please don't take it that way. I'm making these edits more for my own sake because I find it's an easier way to engage with the text, not because I mean to insist absolutely on my changes. If anything, part of the reason I like making radical revisions is that it helps me to return later and reconsider the original text with fresh eyes to see its merits, to see where it's superior to a rewritten alternative that I'd considered. Consider my edits as temporary alt drafts and feel free to revert or push back on literally any of it at all. It's just part of the process. I will bring up substantive comments here as I go. I'm still gonna edit the page too, for my own sake, but feel free to revert immediately (or heck, I'll even revert myself).
Something else I should clear up: the reason I'm popping in and out, then disappearing for long stretches, is that a family member has been in the hospital for an emergency surgery since Friday. They're fine now and I'm not the only family member with them, but I'm spending a lot of time driving, waiting on results, communicating with nurses, etc. Reviewing this article is a welcome distraction during the long periods of waiting and downtime, but (naturally) it keeps me from being as responsive as I'd like to be if I'd had this weekend off like I planned. I'm gonna keep plugging along, but it won't necessarily be super fast.
Comments that have been resolved
- Infobox
- The alt text for the album cover mentions the color of Ben's skin, which is not germane. Wikipedia's alt text for images policy doesn't offer specific guidance on this, but if you search online for the subject of alt text for images and race/ethnicity/skin color, many advise to avoid describing it unless skin color itself is the subject matter of the image/what the image is primarily intended to convey. For example, it would be appropriate to describe skin color/race in the alt text for most of the images at human skin color or the painting The Problem We All Live With. By analogy, the same principle is generally observed by editors in journalism w/r/t mentioning race in photo captions.
- Okay. I've removed it.
- Genres seem fine. I'd consider adding "samba rock", since it's mentioned in the lead (and everything in Category:Jorge Ben albums is included in Category:Samba rock albums). I don't see any issue with listing both "samba rock" and "samba soul" together, they seem distinct enough to merit including separately. Música popular brasileira is another option, but as a parent genre of samba rock and Tropicália it's probably fine to omit.
- "Samba rock" and "samba soul" are synonymous, according to what I researched for the samba rock article; I chose "samba soul" for this article's infobox because it outnumbers "samba rock" in reference to the album.
- I'll defer to your judgment.
- "Samba rock" and "samba soul" are synonymous, according to what I researched for the samba rock article; I chose "samba soul" for this article's infobox because it outnumbers "samba rock" in reference to the album.
- I wondered whether it should be Negro É Lindo or Negro é Lindo, since the title of the article differs from the capitalization in that article's lead. "É" is "Is," which is typically capitalized in title case in English, and most external sources (and Portuguese Wikipedia) capitalize "É". So this seems correct; I've fixed the capitalization in that album's article and in the infobox of the album that follows it.
- Yes, this makes sense.
- Lead
- For reference, here's the original draft, my edit, and Dan56's modified reversion.
- I think the first paragraph in your latest version is much better than the original and my edit. It's more simply stated.
- "Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist Jorge Ben": why "singer-songwriter and guitarist"? Compare The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde, all of which introduce Bob Dylan as "singer-songwriter" even though he also played guitar on those albums.
- Ben's guitar playing (two different guitars) is given some nuanced discussion in the article, which in my mind makes it a more independent and complex role than how singer-songwriters like Dylan use the guitar. Which merited defining him as a guitarist, in my mind. Also, some singer-songwriters use the piano instead as an accompaniment for composing/singing; Dylan has, for instance; Ben does not, just guitar.
- That's reasonable enough.
- Ben's guitar playing (two different guitars) is given some nuanced discussion in the article, which in my mind makes it a more independent and complex role than how singer-songwriters like Dylan use the guitar. Which merited defining him as a guitarist, in my mind. Also, some singer-songwriters use the piano instead as an accompaniment for composing/singing; Dylan has, for instance; Ben does not, just guitar.
- "groove-oriented"; I know the word "groovy" is somewhat tainted by its association with the worst tie-dye cliches of hippiedom, but this sentence is a rare example of when it can and should be used. Using "groove-oriented" instead of "groovy" is an awkward dodge, it's like saying "speed-oriented" instead of "speedy" or "fast". The piped link to "Groove (music)" clears up any ambiguity.
- The dictionary definition of this word is trendy/exiciting; yes, hippiedom too. I found it a little awkward at first too, but looked up some expert usages of the phrase and found it, including in our own (Wikipedia) article on "groove (music)" and in the accompanying source, an academic article. Its use elsewhere justified using it here, for me.
- Thanks for finding this, you're right. I felt "groove-oriented" might be a bit awkward but since it pops up elsewhere (and "groovy" has its own issues) I'm OK with it.
- The dictionary definition of this word is trendy/exiciting; yes, hippiedom too. I found it a little awkward at first too, but looked up some expert usages of the phrase and found it, including in our own (Wikipedia) article on "groove (music)" and in the accompanying source, an academic article. Its use elsewhere justified using it here, for me.
- I think you should mention in the lead that Ben and the band finished their recording for the album in a single night. It's an interesting and notable fact. I was working on a rewrite of my own edit before I saw you'd reverted and had caught the same error you had, that technically the strings and horns were recorded later. I was going to revise it to "Ben and Trio Mocotó recorded their performances in a single nighttime session."
- I added "nighttime"; I think "Its largely unrehearsed, nighttime recording session" suggests this to the reader without getting technical about extra session(s) for the strings and horns.
- At first I thought the first two sentences of the second paragraph needed revising. I thought it would be more logical to link the genre ideas together within the same sentence, and I thought the second sentence was probably overlong. At second glance, I think it's probably fine. While the second sentence is a tad long, it does flow well.
- "His lyrics explored themes of romantic passion, melancholy, sensuality, and to a lesser extent postmodern and political values, also a departure from the carefree sensibility of past releases." — I found this sentence very confusing, even after comparing it to the "Themes" section it summarizes. Part of the problem is ambiguity and wording, and the other part is structure (which I think is more easily resolved).
- Part of the problem I had when trying to revise it is that the source for some of its important ideas, the Sanches book, does not seem to be accessible online (and it's in Portuguese, a language I don't speak, although I'd at least be able to use machine translation together with my rudimentary Spanish to get a sense of it). The Sanches book is only available in "snippet" view from Google Books, which is virtually unsearchable, and it's not available to preview on Amazon. How did you access this book? If you still have access to the book (or can quickly regain access), would you mind sending me a link or scans/photos of the pages cited in the article? To be clear, I don't doubt that your citations to the book are accurate, and the book is certainly acceptable as a good-faith offline source by any normal standard; it's just hard to evaluate the writing without comparing it to the source, and it'll help when I get to the later sections. If you need to send scans, you can send it to me by enabling email in preferences, then sending me an email with any content at all. I'll reply back, and after that you can send attachments.
- It was occasionally burdensome and tedious, but I mostly used the Google Books search engine previews, manipulating them to show me sections of text further along past the original searched piece of quoted sentence(s); guessing Portuguese words and phrases or song titles in my search, for instance. I pasted large sections of quoted material from such search previews onto the Typepad app on my computer, before running them through Google's translator, or another translator to double check trickier sentences. Example --> [2], followed by [3]. I used this same process for the Veja magazine source.
- Your reversion edit summary provided some clarity and gave me a better idea of what you meant to convey: "'postmodernism' is not a theme here, romantic and sensuality themes were present on his less moodier previous releases and not departures." First, "postmodern and political values". For now, I'll set that phrase aside and accept it as is. I quibble with it because it seems nonspecific. "Postmodern" is of course a notoriously slippery word and "values" doesn't harmoniously link "postmodern" and "political". I can sorta see now that you mean to distinguish these elements from the "themes," but the difference between "themes" and "values" is not intuitive here; I didn't even understand that they were intended to convey a categorically different aspect of the lyrics, let alone what that difference might be. But this is an issue that will probably be better evaluated while I'm reviewing the "Themes" section in-depth, since similar phrasing pops up there as well, plus I'll need to look over the pages from Sanches to better understand what the source says vs. how it's being conveyed.
- Here is one of Sanches' discussions of "valores pos-modernos" (postmodern values) on the album, regarding the self-referential element of "Charles Jr.". Another, as I recall, is the sense of irony on some songs, which is a value in postmodern art, as I understand.
- The structure of the sentence is confusing. The final clause ("also a departure from the carefree sensibility of past releases") seems to be describing all of the themes and "values", rather than just the "values". It seems to say the lyrics were all one big departure, not that just the postmodern and political elements are a departure. Your edit summary was very clarifying here; it's obvious in retrospect that themes of love and sensuality would have been found in his earlier releases as well, but that's not obvious from the sentence itself. After all, "romantic passion" and "sensuality" are themes that can be discussed in dark or sad moods that would be a departure from an earlier "carefree" mood. Now that I understand this part at least, I'd suggest restructuring it into something like this: "His lyrics explored themes of romantic passion, melancholy, sensuality, and—in a departure from the carefree sensibility of past releases–postmodern and political values."
- Yes, your suggestion is an improvement; I will add this change to the sentence.
- Now to the third paragraph. "while pioneering" —> "and pioneered" seems like a straightforward change and it looks like you've retained it. It simplifies the sentence structure and improves readability.
- I understand what you meant in the edit summary when you said you prefer for the album to be "referred to directly as the main clause of sentences". The problem is that this can result in a lot of passive voice and tends to remove agency from the human beings involved. I'm not absolutely anti-passive voice here though because, as you said, sometimes it is better to center the album itself as the subject rather than bend over backwards to avoid passive voice. For example, I left in the passive "It was recorded with ... and released by", because that's the simplest way to express those actions and it makes perfect sense to center the album in terms of its recording and release. I also left in the (active-tense) "Fôrça Bruta ... pioneered a unique sound later known as samba rock," even though it's a little strange to say an album "pioneered" a sound, rather than the musicians.
- That said, the last two sentences of the lead are where the use of passive voice is the least necessary. "[I]t was ranked" and "the album was released" are not very exciting subject-verb constructions. Since we've moved onto the album's long-term legacy by this point, it's not as necessary or compelling to center it. The album is no longer "doing" things in the present tense, and it's more interesting to center the actions of the entities that have honored and revived the album. I'd recommend: "In 2007, Rolling Stone Brazil named it the 61st greatest Brazilian album. That same year, the specialty label Dusty Groove America released the album in the United States for the first time, attracting further critical recognition." (My draft used the ambiguous/confusing "released for the first time in the United States" rather than the clearer "released the album in the United States for the first time". My mistake.) It could also improve readability if you split off the last clause into a sentence like "The reissue attracted further critical recognition."
- You make a good point. I've revised the Rolling Stone sentence to your version. The reissue sentence, however, stresses the record label in releasing the album in the US for the first time, which rubs me the wrong way; as if it was a first for the label to do this rather than a first for the album to experience this (release in the US). If you catch my drift.
- Rolling Stone Brazil or Rolling Stone Brasil? Why? (I don't know the right answer, just wondering.)
- With "s"; I've corrected it.
I'm saving my review progress for now so you can get started on responding to what I've written so far. Preparing notes on the "Recording and production" section in the meantime. —BLZ · talk 00:53, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- Recording and production
- the original draft, my edit, and Dan56's modified reversion
- Alt text accompanying File:Jorge Ben e o Trio Mocotó no Teatro da Lagoa, 1971.tif is good.
- "Fôrça Bruta was recorded by Jorge Ben in 1970 with Trio Mocotó, a band who had accompanied the singer on his self-titled 1969 album." —> "Jorge Ben recorded Fôrça Bruta in 1970 with the backing band Trio Mocotó, who had first accompanied the singer on his self-titled 1969 album."
- This is a situation where active voice/centering humans makes more sense than passive voice/centering the album. We are arriving midstream in Ben's life; Fôrça Bruta as such does not exist yet. Why center it? Ben (and the band) took action to make Fôrça Bruta.
- Yes, but the article is not about Ben, and the section is not about Ben's life; we are arriving at the creation of the album.
- Good opportunity to introduce Trio Mocotó as a backing band, which is what they are.
- Done.
- Trio Mocotó did not just accompany Ben on his self-titled album; they accompanied him for the first time (am I mistaken?), in a creative collaboration that spanned many years and multiple albums. Say so! It's only one extra word but it does so much to set the scene and provide context.
- According to Sanches, they appeared on some of that album's songs. There was also an independent single called "Cosa Nostra" in 1969 that saw the two recording acts record together, according to Revive. Neither source says which was the first time.
- Fair point, thanks for checking that out. Is it worth noting that this is their first album-length collaboration? Up to you, if you think it's worth mentioning and can be easily cited/integrated into the text.
- According to Sanches, they appeared on some of that album's songs. There was also an independent single called "Cosa Nostra" in 1969 that saw the two recording acts record together, according to Revive. Neither source says which was the first time.
- You spelled "Parahyba" as "Parahybe" half the time.
- Fixed.
- How to introduce the members of Trio Mocotó? The original draft went "They were composed of"; I tried "The members of Trio Mocotó were"; and now it's "Their members were". I generally try to avoid "composed/comprised", and I'm not satisfied with the most recent draft which seems somewhat circular. Maybe "the band's members were" or "the band members were"?
- Yes, "the band's members were."
- I rearranged the order of the sentences a lot and added some new text. Right now, the order is a little all over the place. To give a partial example of the sequencing problems, here's the original draft's order for paragraph 1:
- Paragraph 1
- Background info [who the musicians are, noting they worked together before on 1969 album]
- Background info [who the musicians are — names]
- The recording [recording in one night, intention in doing so—"musical mood"]
- Background info, recording/musical content [jumping back in time to describe their previous "hectic" work promoting the 1969 album, then describing a critic's interpretation of how that "hectic" past influenced the "mellow" sound of the recording, which in the text has already commenced. this is all squished into one sentence]
- Here's my paragraph 1:
- Paragraph 1
- Background info [who the musicians are, noting they worked together before on 1969 album]
- Background info [who the musicians are — names]
- Background info ["hectic" work promoting 1969 album]
- Background info, recording/musical content [critic's interpretation of how that "hectic" pace influenced the "mellow" sound during the recording]
- Recording [recording in one night]
- Recording [intention in doing so—"musical mood"]
- My order is strictly chronological and splits several overly long sentences into shorter sentences. Background leads to present, and cause leads to effect, rather than zigzagging in time and causality.
- I also think it makes more sense to group all the notes on instrumentation into a single paragraph, too.
- I'd go more into the order, but at this point a lot of problems stem from interpretation of sources. I'll admit I became a little confused attempting to reconcile the article text with the source text; the edit I saved reflects my best attempt to understand what was described, and admittedly contains some inaccuracies. The most-cited source is "Uma Noite Ben Jor" ("One Night Ben Jor"), a one-paragraph recollection by Parahyba. To help reach consensus and clarify possible errors, I've prepared a translation of Parahyba's article below, with some [bracketed] notes on possible points of ambiguity or alternate translations. I used Google Translate, but went through the text word for word to check for ambiguities and to ensure it flows naturally in English.
"The legendary Força Bruta, by Jorge Ben, recorded in 1970, is a very special record ['disco', closer to 'record/LP' than 'album'] for most musicians and fans of Babulina (his nickname during that era). The LP was made all in just one night, in order to give an idea of the mood ['clima', lit. 'climate'] that was rolling ['que estava rolando']. [While 'the mood that was rolling' is the most literal translation, the phrase 'clima que estava rolando' could also be translated for connotative meaning as 'the energy of the moment' or even 'the vibe'.] The mix ['entrosamento,' lit. 'mesh'] of Ben’s trio (myself included) was so special that a majority of the songs ['músicas'] had not even been rehearsed. Jorge would sing ['cantava' – imperfect indicative tense] once and, after that, we would record on the improvisation ('e, em seguida, saíamos gravando no improviso', lit. 'and, then, we were recording on the improvisation'). The idea was to make a characteristic groove with a beat that combined ['combinasse', alt. translation 'matched'] with his guitar playing, [which was] considered more like rock music ['mais roqueira', lit. 'more rockstar'] or iê-iê-iê [Brazilian rock]. And it was from this fusion ['fusão'] that was born the trademark ['marca registrada', lit. 'registered mark'] of a Brazilian style, much later considered by critics and musicians as samba-rock. I feel privileged to have participated in that moment that, besides giving me much pleasure, also gave me the nickname Comanche, because of a joke ['brincadeira'] of Jorge’s — recorded ['registrada'] in the track "Charles Jr." Ahh, the train whistle that appears on the record was from a little train of my sister, which I destroyed ['destruí'] to use as an instrument.'"
If part of this translation seems inaccurate, please let me know and we can modify the translation if necessary.
- Using this translation as a guide, I found some errors in the text. The article originally said the lack of rehearsal was meant to give an "impression of Ben's musical mood at the time", but nothing in the text suggests that it was Ben's mood in particular. Your newest wording, "impression of the mood that developed as they played," works well.
- "For 'Charles Jr.' and other tracks, Parahybe [sic] used the whistle of his sister's electric toy train as a horn instrument, damaging it in the process." — does the other source ("O super-ritmo") provide more info here? Does the other source support saying he played it "as a horn instrument"? According to Parahyba's recollection, the toy was not merely damaged but destroyed.
- "Destroy", in its foremost definition, means put an end to something's existence; I don't see how he could have done that, so I have to believe he was exaggerating; either way, "damage" is a close alternative and more sensible an understanding. Yes, the Veja article says he played it as a horn instrument ([4])
- I understood his use of "destroy" not to mean that he completely obliterated the toy's physical form and left nothing behind, but rather, that he broke or ruined the toy as a toy. Whatever condition it was left in, his sister could no longer use it or enjoy it as a toy train. Maybe "break" would be a better word. "Damage" implies harming something without quite destroying it, while "break" can be harming or destroying, so it would be an accurate translation whether Parahyba meant to exaggerate or not. "Break" also feels closer to the word a child would use to describe the condition of a toy.
- Done
- I understood his use of "destroy" not to mean that he completely obliterated the toy's physical form and left nothing behind, but rather, that he broke or ruined the toy as a toy. Whatever condition it was left in, his sister could no longer use it or enjoy it as a toy train. Maybe "break" would be a better word. "Damage" implies harming something without quite destroying it, while "break" can be harming or destroying, so it would be an accurate translation whether Parahyba meant to exaggerate or not. "Break" also feels closer to the word a child would use to describe the condition of a toy.
- "Destroy", in its foremost definition, means put an end to something's existence; I don't see how he could have done that, so I have to believe he was exaggerating; either way, "damage" is a close alternative and more sensible an understanding. Yes, the Veja article says he played it as a horn instrument ([4])
- "This incident [Parahyba's using the train whistle] encouraged Ben to nickname the drummer "Comanche", and the singer can be heard throughout the album imploring him by this name." — Parahyba's article does not explicitly connect the "Comanche" nickname with the train whistle, he just says it was a "joke" of Jorge's that appeared on the album. Does the Sanches source connect the two? Is this a reference to the Comanche flute?
- My mistake; the sentences about the nickname and the electric train got jumbled together (missing characters, punctuation?) during the process, so I mistook them as being related. In the "Musical style" section's last sentences, I added further explanation of the nickname, according to Sanches.
- Thanks, this makes a lot more sense now.
- My mistake; the sentences about the nickname and the electric train got jumbled together (missing characters, punctuation?) during the process, so I mistook them as being related. In the "Musical style" section's last sentences, I added further explanation of the nickname, according to Sanches.
- I'm very of confused about how the album was recorded. This is an overarching concern, but here are a few puzzle pieces I'm trying to fit together.
- "Ben performed only one take of vocals for each song, which were recorded over the improvised instrumental." The jumbled order of this section have left me very confused about how, exactly, the album was recorded. Parahyba's article is the only source for this sentence, and the precise source seems to be the sentence that I've translated as
"Jorge would sing once and, after that, we would record on the improvisation."
Wait... Does Ben record his singing over the instrumental, or does the band record the instrumental over Ben's singing? According to Parahyba, Ben's singing seems to come first. Was the instrumental improvised, or is Ben's vocal improvised?
- "Ben performed only one take of vocals for each song, which were recorded over the improvised instrumental." The jumbled order of this section have left me very confused about how, exactly, the album was recorded. Parahyba's article is the only source for this sentence, and the precise source seems to be the sentence that I've translated as
- Yes, the singing appears to come first; Parahyba's description of "improvisation" originally had me believe it was an existing instrumental.
- "During the session, Trio Mocotó improvised with Ben on acoustic guitar; he played the viola caipira for the songs "Aparece Aparecida" and "Mulher Brasileira"." Obviously, my preference is to split this sentence and move the part about Ben's guitars into its own paragraph. But as for the first part of this disjunctive sentence: is it saying the same thing as the sentence above—which appears a paragraph later—or is it saying something else? Whether it's saying something new or something that's the same, why is it so far apart from the other, very closely related sentence? This sentence says "Trio Mocotó improvised with Ben," but the sentence I quoted above says "we would record on the improvisation [after Ben sang]". Was the band improvising, or was Ben's vocal the improvisation?
- I've gone back and restructured it a bit, rephrased it; more faithful to Parahyba's wording, more straightforward.
- "The band attempted to develop a distinctive groove with a rhythm that would harmonize with Ben's guitar, which had more of a rock feel, or 'iê-iê-iê' as Parahybe [sic] called it." Is it Ben's guitar playing that had a rock feel, or is it the band's collective groove that had a rock feel? Overall, it's not clear when Ben is playing before (or after?) Trio Mocotó, and when he's playing with Trio Mocotó. "Harmonize" is a poor choice of word here; you're using it metaphorically as a synonym for "combined with" or "matched," which may work in other contexts, but on a literal level "harmonize" is about harmony and the sentence is explicitly about rhythm. It'd a strange mixed metaphor. You don't have to say "'iê-iê-iê' as Parahybe [sic] called it" because "iê-iê-iê" is a well-known term for Brazilian rock. Here, it sounds like a phrase Parahyba came up with.
- Yes, I've rephrased it. There is nothing about when Ben played in the sources; I assume with the band. But I wrote it in a way that this is not touched on directly.
- "Estúdio C.B.D. in Rio de Janeiro and Scatena in São Paulo were credited as the recording locations for Fôrça Bruta, which was named after the Portuguese for the phrase 'brute force'." – How are these two ideas (studio locations and album title) related? Would it make more sense to say where the album was recorded closer to the top of this section? Do we know which studio Ben and Trio Mocotó used, and which the strings and horns used? —BLZ · talk 03:57, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
- No idea about the specifics of the recording locations; because of this, I handled the available information as an observation of the packaging credits/post-production/titling of the album, thus the third paragraph.
- Thanks for all your work on this section. The writing, ordering and clarity are much improved. I have a few follow-up comments above, but at this point I'm very satisfied with the overall quality of this section. I think adding the short "Background" section was a good idea, too. I'm about to move onto the next few sections. —BLZ · talk 21:31, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Musical style
- "Greg Caz ... wrote ... that Fôrça Bruta departed from the carefree, silly sensibility that had been the singer's trademark." – This is a paraphrase, primarily, of this segment from the review:
"[Forca Bruta] represented a bit of a departure from Jorge’s by-now-patented happy-go-lucky style. The music was the same, but had now taken on a slightly darker and moodier quality."
- Paraphrases of critics can be tough because we're trying to convey their opinion, which may depend very precisely on the words they selected. It's easy to imagine a critic reading even a close paraphrase of an adjective from their writing and saying "that's not what I meant, I meant the word I chose." The original source says "happy-go-lucky"; I feel like "carefree" can probably stand on its own as a paraphrase of Caz's description of the musical mood, since I see it as virtually synonymous with "happy-go-lucky" and I don't see much risk of misrepresentation or misunderstanding. You could also add "upbeat". I originally thought you should cut "silly" altogether, because I didn't see how "happy-go-lucky" in the quoted portion above would suggest Ben's earlier work was outright "silly". That word can also mean trivial or clownish and I thought it probably went too far; "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" is carefree, but "Bananaphone" is silly. However, after reading more into the Revive article—particularly, this bit below explaining Ben's earlier lyrics (and especially, their reception by the young Brazilian middle-class)—"silly" seems more apt. However, the word "silly" doesn't capture Caz's account of Ben's musical shift so much as his lyrical shift.
"No one denies that [Ben] belongs in that [MPB] establishment, but his style and MO have always set him apart. For starters, his lyrics have long come in for a bit of derision from the aforementioned earnest college-campus lyricists. For Jorge, it's not so much about the meaning of the words as it is about their sound. Instead of writing 20 lines, Jorge often preferred to write two that sound very cool and repeat them ten times. And his subject matter revolved around a handful of subjects: a woman whose name he would repeat constantly while singing her praises; soccer, or more specifically Rio's Flamengo team, the Yankees of Carioca football; or quirky observations of banal everyday life replete with made-up words."
- So it's not that Ben's early lyrics were intrinsically silly, or even that Caz thinks they were silly. Rather, the carefree nature of the lyrics, their light subject matters, and Ben's penchant for nonsense words led literate, middle-class MPB listeners to not take his words very seriously, to see them as silly or frivolous. But that changed with Fôrça Bruta.
- I think you should cut "silly" from the sentence it's currently in, but I'd like to see a bit more in the "Themes" section about Ben's earlier lyrics, the way they were derided by some MPB listeners, and the departure/step up in seriousness that Fôrça Bruta represents. Basically, an introductory portion that summarizes Ben's departure the same way the first paragraph of the "Musical style" section does.
- The passage you are citing is Caz in part describing "a devastatingly effective formula which, with the odd tweak here and there, was to carry [Ben] through a string of masterpiece albums over the next decade", including Forca Bruta, so this is not clear or significant enough to use as background, as it is not discussing Ben's earlier 1960s music. The change (Caz: "the lyrics at times"; not a major shift) was a political one evident on "Charles Jr" (and more in subsequent records); the rest of the songs on this album are still mostly about romance and women; only Sanches explicitly makes the connection that they are "serious", about romantic passion, pain.
- "Songs such as the drum-cadenced 'Zé Canjica'" — I was initially a little confused here, since drum cadence describes a work that's exclusively for percussion and "Zé Canjica" has more than percussion. In listening to the song again, I understand that this is meant to refer to the drum solo about 2/3 of the way through, but "drum-cadenced" as an adjective kinda makes it sound like the entire song is this way. I don't have any particular suggestion, but I'd consider rewording this.
- I reworded it.
- "resulting in contrasts between Trio Mocotó and Ben's instruments" — contrasting in what way, exactly?
- Rhythmically; I added "rhythmic".
- "the more uptempo rhythms of "Charles Jr." and "Pulo, Pulo" were given counterpoint by more relaxed string melodies" — The "counterpoint" article is about the formal term "counterpoint" in music theory about harmony, but Shapiro's review used the word "counterpoint" in a more general sense of "contrast". Rather than saying the strings provided a harmonic counterpoint in the formal sense, he says the strings' "languid" "swoon[ing]" "provide counterpoint" to otherwise "rhythmically upbeat" tracks–a contrast in pace and mood, not a complex relationship of harmonic development. To avoid misunderstanding, I'd paraphrase differently and avoid the word "counterpoint".
- I replaced it with "contrast"
- "Ben's singing provided further contrast and funk/soul qualities to the music." – this is a bit awkwardly phrased. Contrast with what? Why does it contrast?
- Textural contrast (wails, croons, raspy voice; different voices); rhythmic contrast (the vocalise/improvised phrases as rhythmic accompaniment)
- "typically languorous and nasal vocal" — "languid" is probably better than "languorous" to describe vocal quality.
- Replaced.
- "during parts of the song when there were no verses to be sung" — could probably be simplified to "during otherwise instrumental parts of these songs" (it should be "songs" not "song" since the sentence is about two tracks).
- Okay.
- Lots of repetition of the word "also" or close equivalents like "further", "additional", etc. In the current draft, "provided" is also used twice.
- I've reduced it a bit.
- Themes
- I'd consider retitling this section "Lyrics" or "Lyrical themes".
- The section isn't exclusive to lyrics; there are also titles of the songs and Ben's manner of singing (as on "Terezinha", expressing irony) that are suggestive of or related to the subject matter (themes).
- As I said above, this section would be well-served by a more general introductory paragraph on the shift in lyrical style. Right now, it dives right into
- "referring to the philosophical concept proposing a body that can submit to passionate chaos and suffering before overcoming itself" — Slightly awkward wording, in particular "proposing" isn't quite right. I see you cited an entirely different source for background on the phrase "Dionysian body". Are we sure Sanches meant to be so precise as to cite Nietzsche/Nietzschean scholarship? "Dionysian" is often used as a generic substitute for "passionate" or "sensual". We can probably leave it at using the word and linking to Apollonian and Dionysian.
- I removed "proposing". Sanches appears to, yes; he discusses the romantic disappointments and pain before concluding with it being overcome in "Aparecida Aparecida". He uses a very specific phrase ("corpo dionisíaco"), not by happenstance I believe. There are other references to philosophical ties in Ben's music elsewhere in Sanches' book.
- "this led Sanches to conclude that Ben sang of hedonism in a concentrated state." — should be reworded. Is the hedonism concentrated, or is Ben singing in a focused state?
- This is translated verbatim: "Jorge canta hedonismo em estado concentrado". He was quoting the lyrics before this sentence, so I chose to word it this way, as opposed to "Ben sang in a concentrated/focused state about hedonism".
- "Other songs feature expressions of postmodern and political values." – what does Sanches say in particular about postmodernism? You link to Sanches for support on the word "postmodern," but the word is not used in the other sources—which is a bit misleading, since "postmodern" is used as the first sentence of the paragraph, suggesting to a reader that everything that follows is on the same page about Ben's lyrics being "postmodern". Lemos, if anything, is calling Ben a modern, not postmodern, artist. I feel like these disparate sources are better united under a theme of "racial identity" or something similar.
- I've placed "political" ahead of "postmodern", to emphasize the political content of the paragraph, specifically Charles Jr. I think Ben's rejection of the narrative in his time, of Brazilian blacks as free people and still disenfranchised, might make him postmodern. But the postmodern values Sanches gives an example of is the self-referential element in Charles Jr. and irony, such as with "Terezinha". Earlier in Sanches' book, he discusses post-modernism when introducing the content of his book: "Scattered concepts of these authors will be kidnapped here, such as: a) the end of 'meta-narratives' (the great narratives that subordinate, organize and explain other narratives, the great centralizing and legitimating narratives of human knowledge) propounded by Lyotard; b) postmodern passion for pastiche, postmodern man's inability to relate to time and history..." The latter especially appears to be in the lyrics of Charles Jr.
- I'm still pretty unconvinced by the current uses of the word "postmodern" in the article lead and the beginning of this section. As it stands now, the use of this word in the lead suggests that the identification of "postmodern" themes is a point of general consensus among critics (as this section is written in summary style). I'm bothered by the repeated linking of "political", which is a point of broad critical agreement, and "postmodern", which is only a single critic's perspective. The current introductory sentence of the paragraph on Ben's political content—
"Other songs feature expressions of political and postmodern values"
—also suggests a consensus that doesn't exist on "postmodern" content. This isn't to say Sanches is wrong or that his insight on postmodernism isn't useful, but his thoughts are smuggled into declarative summary-style sentences, which is misleading. Another reason this choice of word is surprising is that Ben's emergent theme of racial consciousness is a point of fairly broad consensus, as most of the critics discuss Ben's more serious approach to racial issues on the album.- I've separated the two. But Sanches is not alone in interpreting Ben's music as post-modern. According to this academic paper, "Jorge Ben is something typical of the post-modern subject, since the hybrid character of his work as an artist of various identities which are even contradictory (HALL, 2006, p.12)." An example of this is the Charles character, originated as a Robin Hood character, then here as an embodiment of the black identity politics; an "angel too".
- I'm not unsympathetic to the idea of Ben as postmodernist, I'm just left wondering whether postmodern readings reflect broad consensus. That paper you just linked is interesting, although so far as I can tell it cites neither Fôrça Bruta nor any song on Fôrça Bruta. On the other hand, here's a paper that discusses the political call for racial equality in "Charles Jr." in more depth, while this paper discusses racial/political themes in "Mulher Brasileira" and "Charles Jr.".
- A single source + a single sentence puts "postmodernism" in the lead, while racial themes—which are discussed far more in "Themes" and even recur in "Release and reception" in terms of their relation to Ben's later work—are not mentioned in the lead. On the article's own terms, the album's racial themes are more significant and more frequently discussed than its postmodernism—and that's even if you don't incorporate those two academic papers I just found. —BLZ · talk 22:00, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
- Post-modern qualities are connected to that song and others. I have found a (reliable/cite-able) source to include commentary on "Mulher Brasileira"'s celebration of Brazilian women; this along with what is associated with "Charles Jr" convince me to specify in the lead "identity politics", as a theme.
- I've separated the two. But Sanches is not alone in interpreting Ben's music as post-modern. According to this academic paper, "Jorge Ben is something typical of the post-modern subject, since the hybrid character of his work as an artist of various identities which are even contradictory (HALL, 2006, p.12)." An example of this is the Charles character, originated as a Robin Hood character, then here as an embodiment of the black identity politics; an "angel too".
- It would be more fair to Sanches to attribute and elaborate on his critical perspective in its own sentence. Reading your response, it's now much more clear which are the specific qualities that Fôrça Bruta shares with literary postmodernism, such as techniques like irony and self-reference. I wouldn't exactly call these traits "values" in and of themselves, because "postmodern values" suggests a moral/ethical perspective. It's one thing to use postmodern literary techniques or to confront historical themes of postmodernity/the postmodern condition, as these are value-neutral tools that have been employed by many writers who confront postmodernity without themselves being "postmodernists". It's a different thing to advocate for postmodernism outright. As an adjective, "postmodern" can be understood to mean that a work is "about nihilism" or "about an era with nihilistic values," which is very different than saying a work is itself "nihilistic". The word "values" is at best imprecise and pushes us closer to the suggestion that Ben has a nihilistic outlook. "Postmodern qualities," "techniques associated with postmodernism", "elements of postmodernism", "perspectives on postmodernity", or another neutral phrasing would be more clear.
- For all the reasons above, I'd suggest a rewording something like this this:
Other songs feature expressions of political values, particularly Ben's perspective on issues of racial identity.
Unlike postmodernism, "politics" and "racial identity" are both subject to broad consensus, not just a single critic's interpretation. "Postmodern" should also be cut ffrom the lead; there is no justifiable reason to include a critical perspective like that in the lead without attribution, because it's not summary sstyle.According to Sanches, Ben's lyrics incorporated literary techniques associated with postmodernism such as irony and self-reference.
This, finally, would resolve the problem of "postmodern" being such a charged yet ambiguous term. We would know what it is about the album that is postmodern, what is meant by postmodern, who exactly has said that, and why they think that, rather than accepting "postmodern" as a conclusory word and then moving on without any further exploration.
- I'm still pretty unconvinced by the current uses of the word "postmodern" in the article lead and the beginning of this section. As it stands now, the use of this word in the lead suggests that the identification of "postmodern" themes is a point of general consensus among critics (as this section is written in summary style). I'm bothered by the repeated linking of "political", which is a point of broad critical agreement, and "postmodern", which is only a single critic's perspective. The current introductory sentence of the paragraph on Ben's political content—
- "Caz believed the lyrics on this album betrayed deeper concerns than the singer's previous recordings, shown most notably by the self-referential 'Charles Jr.', in which Ben explored his identity as an artist and as a black man." — the footnote here cites Caz and Sanches, so it's not clear what's being attributed to Caz and what's being synthesized from Sanches.
- Caz does not explicitly say the song is self-referential but touches on Ben's self-reference "obsession" in the article; the Sanches source only verifies "self-referential" (I've made a note of the quote in the footnote.
- I think this is also characteristic of the need to disentangle various critics' perspectives. The structure of the sentence leads us to believe that everything in it is Caz's thought. Even with a citation to both authors (which a passive reader shouldn't have to check to disentangle in-text attribution), it's not intuitive where Caz ends and Sanches begins. Was it Caz's idea to cite the example of "Charles Jr.", or is that where Sanches starts? It should be split and reworded like this:
"Caz said the lyrics on this album reveal deeper concerns than were found in the singer's previous recordings, shown most notably by the 'Charles Jr.'[CAZ] In that song, Ben explores his identity as an artist and as a black man.[SANCHES]"
I would omit "self-reference" unless you can explain what it means for "Charles Jr." to be "self-referential": does it mean that Ben sings from a first-person perspective, that he is the character "Charles Jr." in an allegorical sense, something else? Another change: throughout, any time a critic refers to the contents of the lyrics, we should describe those qualities in the present tense, because the text still exists so whatever qualities it has, or which it was once said to have, are still existent. For example, "in which Ben explored his identity" should be "in which Ben explores". You have correctly used the present tense elsewhere: "the song demonstrates", "the narrator proclaims". There are reasons for the other changes ("believed" —> "said", "than were found in", "betray" —> "reveal"), which I will explain if necessary. —BLZ · talk 04:00, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
- I think this is also characteristic of the need to disentangle various critics' perspectives. The structure of the sentence leads us to believe that everything in it is Caz's thought. Even with a citation to both authors (which a passive reader shouldn't have to check to disentangle in-text attribution), it's not intuitive where Caz ends and Sanches begins. Was it Caz's idea to cite the example of "Charles Jr.", or is that where Sanches starts? It should be split and reworded like this:
Too much to respond to; I've revised the text in question, though. Also, a writer expresses his belief in his writing. Unless I am saying "in the magazine/review, he believed..." (one believes in their mind, not in a piece of writing), I think it is an acceptable synonym for state, argue, claim, etc. We are attributing an opinion to the writer, under the assumption they believe what they express in the writing rather than lying about what their belief is.
- Now I see; if Sanches was only verifying a single word that has now been removed from the sentence, it can be merged back into a single sentence. I misunderstood and thought everything that followed "in which" was also borrowed from Sanches. The necessity of splitting into two sentences was to disentangle where one author's thought ended and the other began. My mistake, you can put them back together.
- I can't help but feel that the quoted song would be rendered better with line breaks, not slashes. I feel like the slashes are being used to disguise the length of the quoted passage, but they just make it harder to read. I'm actually OK with the length of the quote and I find its inclusion very defensible. It's not unusual for articles to quote copyrighted poems of similar length in their entirety. The fact that this song is originally in a different language gives even more reason to quote it in its entirety here; a complete translation gives readers a quick idea of Ben's lyrical "feel" that wouldn't be conveyed by shorter, out-of-context quotations from a translation. The song also doesn't have any obviously repetitive elements like a chorus that's repeated verbatim.
- Done.
- "The latter was sung by Ben" — passive voice that would be better as active, since Ben's vocals are the key focus of this sentence.
- Done.
That leaves just one main section left, which I will get to soon, hopefully later today. —BLZ · talk 23:23, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Release and reception
- The critical paraphrase problem returns.
"It was received favorably in Veja magazine, whose reviewer found it incredibly rhythmic, full of musical surprises and suspense, and comparable to a comic book in the way familiar fantasies and characters are reformulated in strange yet delightful directions."
Some of this needs specific justification, both because we're paraphrasing an opinion and because we need to check that the translation is faithful. What parts of the source text correspond to "incredibly", which means "extremely" or "unbelievably" or "preposterously", rather than another adverb like "remarkably", which just means the rhythm was prominent enough to remark upon?- "Como nos capítulos de uma mesma história em quadrinhos, os personagens se repetem e desdobra-se ainda o enrêdo original. Mas, abusiva ou irreverentemente, algumas figuras reaparecem traves- tidas, com o visível objetivo de manter o interesse despertado pelas primeiras sequências. Embora editado em disco, o cantor, compositor e violonista Jorge Ben parece objetivo de manter o interesse despertado pelas primeiras sequências. Embora editado em disco, o cantor, compositor e violonista Jorge Ben parece guiar-se musicalmente por algumas regras básicas das histórias em quadrinhos, apesar de alterar outras tantas. Em seu novo LP, "FÔRÇA BRUTA" (lançado esta semana), estranhos e agradáveis fatos acontecem, continuando ou reformulando fantasias de suas primeiras gravações." Further on, there is something about the rhythmic nature of the music, but Google is not behaving for me at the moment. From memory, the title of the review was "super ritmo", and the reviewer said something to the effect of, Ben's thirst for rhythm cannot be satiated, among other things.
- I don't see much difference between "rhythmic" and "incredibly rhythmic". If he's praising the album as "rhythmic", that implies by itself that it has a lot of rhythm. Especially because "incredibly" here is virtually the same as "very". No need for a modifying adverb. —BLZ · talk 22:00, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
- "rhythmic" does not capture the appraisal, and most popular music is rhythmic (which means it has a rhythm of some kind), so it is not anything special to mention this alone. He found it "super", which translates to "super", so I'll replace "incredibly" with "impressively".
- "it was a top-10 chart success in Brazil while producing the hit singles" — I'd recommend "and produced"
- Done.
- "the black identity politics of 'Charles Jr.'" — probably should be "the black identity politics present in 'Charles Jr.'" or "the black identity politics found in 'Charles Jr.'"
- "It was also one of recording artist Beck's favorite albums." — Passive voice. I understand that you prefer making the album the subject of sentences when possible, but doing so here hurts more than it helps. First, "Beck" is a more compelling subject than the pronoun "it". More importantly, "It was" suggests that the album used to be one of Beck's favorites, but no longer is. We don't know anything about Beck's current preferences, nor do we need to; what we do know is that Beck named the album among his favorites at one time in the past.
- Done.
- "This marked the first time the album had seen release in the United States." — "this" is usually a bad choice of pronoun for a subject, I'd go with "The reissue". Don't be afraid to repeat nouns!
- Okay.
- "Later that year, it was ranked 61st on Rolling Stone Brasil's list of the 100 greatest Brazilian albums;" — Another pronoun problem. This sentence directly follows two sentences about the reissue, not the album as such, so "it" is an ambiguous pronoun. Say "the album" or Fôrça Bruta.
- "In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Bush gave" — In most circumstances it's fine to refer to someone by just their last name after their first mention, but it can be confusing to do so for people who are not directly related to the historical narrative of the article subject. Remember that Wikipedia readers often jump to particular sections that they want to read. Even if they've read it straight through, I don't expect readers to recall who "Bush" is, the way they would recall (or could reasonably be expected to recall) "Ben" or the last name of a band member. You don't have to completely reintroduce John Bush, but you should use his first name here.
- Okay.
- "... and regarded it as one of Ben's best records; 'a wonderful album because it kept everyone's plentiful musical skills intact while simply sailing along on a wonderful acoustic groove that may have varied little but was all the better for its agreeable evenness.'" — Incorrect use of a semicolon, because the second part of the sentence is an incomplete sentences. Consider splitting it in two and starting the second sentence with "Bush called it 'a wonderful album because...'"
- Okay.
- "NOW Magazine's Tim Perlich called it a "samba-soul heater"; while Matthew Hickey from Turntable Kitchen deemed it 'one of the most buoyantly textured and warmly melodic LPs ever recorded', and 'Oba, Lá Vem Ela' among its 'loveliest tunes'." — Another misuse of a semicolon, this time for two reasons: first, the second part of the sentence can't stand by itself as a complete sentence (check it carefully, it's one long dependent clause), and second, there's no obvious reason to connect Perlich and Hickey. The syntactical connection suggests that there's some meaningful link between these critics and their reviews—suggesting that Hickey may have been directly responding to Perlich or something—or at least that their perspectives on the album are in opposition, but not even that is true since they both praised it.
- No semicolon; revised.
- Several issues with the sentences on the Impose review:
- "In Impose, McKean believed" — I touched on this earlier but since it's popped up twice, I'll explain. The word "believed" is not an appropriate substitute for "said". "Believed" is not a synonym or neutral substitute for "opined". Belief is a state of mind, not a statement. On a literal level, the verb-action a critic takes in a review isn't believing, but saying, stating, expressing something. It would be better to say "professed a belief that" or "expressed a belief that", but even those would be wedging in an unnecessary attempt to read the critics' mind. "Said" is fine.
- "... Trio Mocotó were incomparable in their backing performance for Ben and also highlighted" — Structural problem. By the time my eyes get to "and also", it's not obvious whether the next verb is going to be an action taken by the critic or by Trio Mocotó.
- "incomparable" — he said "matchless," so let's just say "'matchless'". Again, a brief but exact quotation is better than a paraphrase when you're conveying a written opinion.
- Done.
- Several words are redundant: "backing performance
for Ben" (surely we should already know their performance was for Ben by now), "found 'Zé Canjica'in particularto be" (if he's drawing our attention to an individual track, of course he's identifying that track "in particular")
- Several words are redundant: "backing performance
- Quote: "This album also starts off with a couple of winners in “Oba, La Vem Ela” and “Ze Canjica,” which set the somewhat crunchy, folksy tone; “Ze Canjica” especially is arrestingly gorgeous..." I think "in particular" is justified in this case.
- No compelling reason for a semicolon here. It forces the sentence to drag on far too long. You stuff in extra words that aren't ultimately necessary, other than to provide a reason for why these sentences should be linked by a semicolon.
- Okay.
- "most memorable" — Paraphrase problem. The critic said "catchiest". "Catchiness" is a quality that relates to and overlaps with memorability, but the two aren't synonymous. Some melodies are memorable, but would not be called "catchy" (think of the DUN-DUN-DUN-DUUUN DUN-DUN-DUN-DUUUN intro to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony: everyone knows it, but few people would get just that opening motif stuck in their head all day long). Some songs are catchy but not memorable (think of cheesy pop songs that worm their way into your head and torture you, but are instantly forgotten as soon as they're off the radio).
- Okay.
- "Overall, the album was an elegant and exquisite listen in his opinion" — Weird and unnecessary tense issue here, akin to the problem in the Beck sentence above. Sticking on "in his opinion" at the end is clumsy, and "was" is a boring passive verb and an inaccurate, confusing application of past tense. The past tense comes in because his opinion was something, not because the album was something in his opinion.
- "elegant and exquisite" — Paraphrase problem. A reader should be able to jump into a review and instantly find the textual support for excerpts or paraphrases from reviews. I don't find "elegant," and like most readers I don't have the time to read the whole review to find out if that's accurate. I do find "exquisite" in the word "exquisitely," except in context that word isn't describing the album overall, but rather the pacing of one of the individual songs he singled out for praise.
- "unusual singing on 'Terezinha'" — one of the paraphrases that jumps out at me as strange and non-obvious in its meaning. "Unusual", how? Did he have a sore throat that day? Did he inhale helium for that song? Is that song the only one on the album where Ben switches to Tuvan throat singing? I go to the source and find "oddly nasal". Let's go with that.
- "and what he deemed "Muhler Brasileira"'s slightly overused string section" — "deemed" is an awkward verb here. You usually "deem" something with a title or name, not a description or a partial quality. Also, "slightly overused" doesn't correlate with the source text, where he says that song "overplays the strings just a touch". Something can be overplayed when the actor is more confident in their powers than can be justified; something can be overused when it is repeated beyond reason or crammed into every part of something. You can overplay a hand in Poker, but it doesn't mean the same thing to say that you "overuse" a hand in Poker. If someone in a band is a terrible guitar player, they'd be overplaying their guitar abilities if they attempted a solo more difficult than they could credibly pull off, but they'd be overusing the guitar if they played it nonstop even during sections of a song when there's no guitar part.
- I don't want to risk this section becoming a quotefarm. I'll revise it.
- The risks described in WP:QUOTEFARM are not about critical opinion but rather descriptions. Remember that it's a guide for all of Wikipedia covering every possible topic, not just albums/works of art that have been critically reviewed. If a scientific paper says "Many species of cricket lack the ability to fly," the Wikipedia article Cricket (insect) shouldn't say "Although many crickets fly, some species 'lack the ability to fly'." That exact quote is not at all necessary, because the source's precise wording is not necessary to convey the underlying idea, which is mere reportage of a fact. In the words of WP:QUOTEFARM, it would be use of a quote "to explain a point that can also be paraphrased". Instead, Wikipedia should say "Some species of cricket are flightless," and then appropriately cite the source. On the other hand, in the "In human culture" section of Cricket (insect), let's imagine a notable scientist—just to make it clear that this scientist is so famous that his opinion would merit inclusion, let's say it's Darwin—said "Crickets are the most beautiful among all insects, surpassing even the majesty of butterflies". We shouldn't paraphrase that as "In Darwin's estimation, crickets are the prettiest bug and are even more nice-looking than butterflies." That doesn't convey the same idea! We can't paraphrase that thought because the language matters; even synonyms that are exact in many contexts ("bug" for "insect", "pretty" and "nice-looking" for "beautiful") are inadequate. Instead, Wikipedia should say "In Darwin's estimation, crickets 'are the most beautiful among all insects, surpassing even the majesty of butterflies'."
- Where would an album article become a WP:QUOTEFARM? Where we quote description, not opinion. For instance, Shapiro's review says
"Firmly grounded in samba (with backing from the great Trio Mocotó) but with tips of the hat to bossa nova and subtle touches of funk and soul, Força Bruta is emblematic of Brazil’s seemingly national gift for weaving beguiling syncretic music from practically any cloth."
It would be inappropriate to say, in the "Musical style" section,Forca Bruta contains "tips of the hat to bossa nova and subtle touches of funk and soul".
There's no reason not to paraphrase that description. We can just report the fact that Forca Bruta is influenced by funk and soul as a paraphrase, relying upon Shapiro's description as a factual report of musical content and citing his review accordingly. Although WP:QUOTEFARM warns against "quotes dominat[ing] the article or section", that's not the case where a "Reception" section incorporates multiple quotes, even if those quotes are a sentence or two in length. That would only happen if a "Reception" section were merely a bullet-point list of copy-pasted quotes. Remember that QUOTEFARM is cautioning against overuse, not use. Trust me, this article is far from becoming a QUOTEFARM; right now it's bordering on stingy with quotes, even where they would be helpful or necessary. Above all else: Readers are interested in what a critic said, not what a Wikipedia editor said they said. - On the other hand... Pretending to paraphrase when we are using a critic's exact language—even a single word, like "overplay"—risks appearing as plagiarism, even with attribution via a footnote, because we're representing their text as "our" text. Quotation marks signal where we're relying on a critic's exact language verbatim. I've edited the article to put quotation marks around McKean's exact language where we derive "overplay", since that is his exact word and we should show the reader that that is the case. Note that I did this even though the source article said "overplays" rather than "overplayed", which is the verb-form necessary for our mostly paraphrased sentence to be grammatically correct. Why did I do that? Because the word "overplay" was precisely chosen, we are taking it, and we can easily modify it with brackets to "overplay[ed]" so that it fits our sentence without stealing from McKean. I also added back in "'oddly nasal'", rather than the paraphrase "unusually," because we can't know that McKean meant "unusually". Unusually, compared to what? Ben's normal singing? Singing in the samba genre? The ideal human singing voice? When McKean said "oddly", did he mean that the nasal quality was unusual as in rare, or did he mean that it sounded weird, strange, uncomfortable—all of which it could have been, without being unusual? Rather than speculating, we should just accurately report McKean's language. —BLZ · talk 22:00, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
- For all those reasons, let's try something like this:
In Impose, McKean praised Trio Mocotó's "matchless" backing performance. Highlighting the opening two songs, McKean called "Zé Canjica" an "arrestingly gorgeous" song and said that "Apareceu Aparecida" featured the album's "catchiest hook". Although he criticized ""Muhler Brasileira"—which he said "overplays the strings just a touch"—and Ben's "oddly nasal" vocals on "Terezinha", McKean concluded that Fôrça Bruta is a "graceful, lovely album" overall.
- I revised it but think the negative points should be at the end, to transition to Shapiro's hypothetical.
- Sources
- Important!!! There's a misattribution. The Time article cited was not written by Richard Corliss. From what I can tell from Google Books—the only place this source appears online, as it was only published in print—it appears to be a guest column by the musician Andrew Bird titled "Andrew Bird's Short List". Check this Google Books snippet view with the title and intro, then this one with the blurb about Forca Bruta (another snippet in-between can be seen here).
- Okay. I've revised it.
- Is it possible to prove, with that snippet, that the "Andrew Bird's Short List" article was from the April 20, 2009 issue of Time?
- A section of the preceding page says vol. 173, no. 16, which is the April 20, 2009 issue.
- Since the Time excerpt is a musician's opinion of the record, not a critic's opinion of the reissue release in particular, it should be moved elsewhere, probably just after the Beck sentence.
- It's a critical opinion; he's being a critic here. Beck and Kallman are just naming favorites. The section isn't exclusive to the reissue, although it is more likely to have encountered Western/American critical opinion in light of the reissue.
- This strikes me as a distinction without a difference. Bird's not "being a critic" in the sense that he regularly evaluates quality of musical products, and we happen to quote him where his evaluation of a particular album is praise; he is literally "naming favorites" in various media, because he was asked to do so. On the other hand, if being a music critic means being an appreciator of music who can articulate their opinions, how is Beck not playing a music-critic role when he names a favorite album? There's no intuitive reason Bird is "being a critic" and Beck is not. How do we know Andrew Bird didn't first encounter the album before the reissue, and if we don't know, why should we speculate? Even if we could somehow know he encountered it after the reissue, that on its own doesn't strike me as a good reason not to move it up. —BLZ · talk 22:00, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
- He introduces the review (published in 2009) with "I'm just discovering this guy". Both Beck and Kallman (in interviews) had named it among their (all-time) favorites before it was released in the US (rare-record collectors); neither offered a critique. Naming it a personal favorite is not giving it a judgment of its merits, which is what a critic does, specifically in written form ([5]). More importantly, in my opinion, Bird's characterization reads better following Shapiro and his mention of Tropicalica, better than it would in the second paragraph.
- Check the Rolling Stone Brasil citation. The archival link goes to a webcitation.org link that never loads (for me at least), while the "Archived from the original" URL goes to... an Internet Archive link, which does work. The Internet Archive link should go in archive-url= and the regular, now-dead rollingstone.uol.com.br link should go in url=.
- Internet Archive capture will one day expire permanently. It is best to have it this way. WebCite is back up again, by the way.
- Is the Library of Congress citation there for the sole purpose of proving that the title of Fôrça Bruta is Fôrça Bruta? That's not necessary, for the same reason that formatted citations are not necessary for plot summaries of films. —BLZ · talk 04:00, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
- No. It verifies the studio locations.
- I see. Since the attribution is non-obvious, why not instead cite it like this:
"It credited Estúdio C.B.D. in Rio de Janeiro and Scatena in São Paulo as the recording locations for Fôrça Bruta,[LoC CITE] which was named after the Portuguese for the phrase "brute force".[SHETTY CITE]"
- That's a bit tacky, including a citation mid-sentence. I don't see how this instance is any more or less obvious than the other instances of combined citations.
- I see. Since the attribution is non-obvious, why not instead cite it like this:
- The Jorge Ben bio at WOMEX also appears at the website of Amoeba Music here. Unlike WOMEX, Amoeba identifies an author: Robert Leaver. Is the Amoeba bio the original? —BLZ · talk 04:10, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
- No idea.
- That seems worth following up on! Can you email WOMEX or Amoeba? Surely one of them or the other borrowed it, or maybe there's an underlying source not available/no longer available on the web which they both republished. Assuming Amoeba's attribution of an individual grauthor by name is accurate—and I don't see a reason not to do so—Amoeba is (at least provisionally) the superior source. We can't say "According to WOMEX (World Music Expo)" if we can't be 100% certain that WOMEX is the original author. —BLZ · talk 22:00, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
- I'll replace it with Leaver/Amoeba. The site appears to have a writing staff, not just Leaver (example). But I'll see if I can email Womex too, out of curiosity.
Comments from Mike Christie edit
I made a couple of minor copyedits as I read through; please revert if you don't agree with them.
- I don't think you need the wiktionary link for "brute force"; it's a common term. Similarly for "rolling stone", later in the article.
- Unlinked.
- Suggest "A largely unrehearsed..." in the lead; the current wording made me think for a moment that the whole album had been recorded in a single session.
- The bulk of it was recorded in that session; there were additional strings and horns recorded, presumably elsewhere but not enough information is available to make it clear. "Its largely unrehearsed, nighttime recording session..." does not necessarily imply there was only one session.
- Optional, but I think you could combine the "Background" and "Recording and production" sections; "Background" is introductory/scene setting material and there's a straightforward glide from that material to the first sentence of "Recording and production".
- I'd move Bush's comment to the reception section, though I'm not sure I understand it; why would a hectic period lead to a mellower sound?
- I think it connects well to the concluding sentence of the next short paragraph: that the session reflected their mood; perhaps an exhaustion from the workload encouraging them to take it easier. And it comments directly on the background.
- It's a pity about the markings on the 1971 photo. I can see it would be an ideal picture without the markings, but they make the picture look unprofessional. Is there any alternative? We do have the album cover, and this isn't the article about Ben himself, so I don't think it's necessary to have this.
- No alternative I know of. It is the only one of Trio Mocoto with the original members. I will add the original newspaper (and later Brazilian National Archives) credit to give the quality of the photo some context for readers.
He also repurposed a tuning fork; traditionally used by musicians to maintain musical tuning among instruments, the singer instead stimulated the device with his mouth to generate sounds that resembled a harmonica.
This isn't quite right -- the semicolon means that "traditionally used" modifies "singer" instead of "device". Suggest "He also repurposed a tuning fork, a device used by musicians to maintain musical tuning among instruments; the singer instead stimulated it with his mouth to generate sounds that resembled a harmonica".- Done.
- Since you only mention WOMEX once I wouldn't bother introducing the acronym.
- They appear to be known primarily by the acronym; Brandt above suggested the parenthetical note.
- Suggest "...considering the political tension [or "heightened political tension"] in dictatorial Brazil at the time, and the gentleness of Ben's music on the album"; "gentler" doesn't seem right, as the comparison isn't between two kinds of music, and "atmosphere" is vague.
- Revised.
- I don't know what a "devilish" guitar figure is; I would guess "difficult to play", but that doesn't seem to imply melancholy, which is the point of that sentence. If we keep devilish I think it should be clearer that it's in Sanches' voice.
- I put quotation marks around it; the first three sentences are already framed around Sanches' voice.
- What does the wiktionary link to "banzo" add? The noun definition is given as "deep depression" or "intense nostalgia", but the usage in the article seems to imply that a "banzo" is music in a particular style.
- I'll put quotation marks around it. From other literature commenting on samba, by Portuguese writers, it appears to be a linguistic quirk: "samba-lamento" "samba-banzo", "samba feliz" (samba-happy). "Samba-depression" or "samba-nostalgia" does not have a good ring to it, when translated.
- Do we need to mention Revive when giving Greg Caz's opinion? It's in the citation and doesn't help the reader. Or is Revive a major publication in this field? I'm also not keen on the phrasing of the second sentence cited to Caz; the "melancholic" comparison belongs with the first sentence and isn't related to the comment about his guitar playing that follows the "while". I assume "greater facility" means that Caz felt Ben's playing had improved? If so, how about: "According to Greg Caz, a disc jockey specializing in Brazilian music, Fôrça Bruta possessed a melancholic, mysterious quality that was a departure from the carefree sensibility that had been the singer's trademark. Caz also considered Ben's idiosyncratic guitar playing to have improved"?
- Revised.
Ben can be heard imploring the name "Comanche"
: I don't think you can implore a name; do you mean he sings it in an imploring tone?- Revised as "imploring the name of".
this led Sanches to conclude that Ben sang of hedonism in a concentrated state
: I don't know what this means.- I imagine it means Ben's hedonistic impulse is directed wholly at the romantic subject in the song.
Brazilian music academic Rafael Lemos believed the song demonstrated how Ben discovered a process to "place black heritage into modernity"
: the concatenated verbs ("believed/demonstrated/discovered/place") make this hard to read. How about 'Brazilian music academic Rafael Lemos believed the song demonstrates Ben placing "black heritage into modernity"'?- Revised.
- I can see why the extended quote is relevant to Lemos' commentary, but does Lemos specifically mention that song, even if he doesn't quote that translation? Some direct reference to those lyrics seems necessary to justify extended fair use.
- Yes; final sentences, page 42.
- I don't think "insatiably rhythmic" works; it's not the rhythm that is insatiable. If this is a direct translation of what the reviewer wrote, then I'd put it in quotes, even though it's a translation.
- Revised as "incredibly rhythmic".
- Do we care where Kallman was interviewed? Cutting the mention of the source from the text would let you combine that sentence with the next, about Beck.
- I think it establishes the credibility/notability of Kallman, since people in the business side of the music industry are less identifiable to the average reader than popular musicians like Beck. It also establishes some chronological context for what the paragraph covers (decades later, in the 2000s). Also, it would not be an easy combination; Kallman specifies "15 favorites", while the source for Beck does not indicate a ranking or degree of favoritism.
-- Generally the article is in excellent shape. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:26, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
- OK on most points now. The remaining issues:
- I'm still uncomfortable with using a scarred image in a featured article. I don't think a professional publication would do this without some evidence that it was the only available copy, and I don't think we should do it when the image does not directly illustrate the subject of the article, as it was taken the year after the album was released.
- @Mike Christie: @Dan56: Given that the image was originally published in a newspaper, and the version of the image uploaded to Commons is the same one found in The Brazilian National Archives, it's highly unlikely that a superior/unscarred image exists or is at all probable to be found. Most copies of that newspaper have long been destroyed, and I would imagine the Brazilian National Archives chose to scan the best-preserved possible version of that photo. In any case, the image is a very high quality scan, and although that scan replicates the scar on the photo, the scar does not mar any significant features: all the subjects' faces are clearly seen, for example.
- As to the image being a year later than the album: I thought about this myself, and I came to the following conclusion. For famous American or British artists from the same period, we would usually expect for photos have a fine grain of contemporaneousness with the article subject. This is especially true where either 1) there are many free photos to choose from, and/or 2) a small passage of time made a dramatic difference, such that the visual representation no longer accurately reflects the historical understanding of the musicians as they existed at that time. For example, major changes would include if an artist (say, David Bowie) completely reinvented their "look" in a short time period (it would be inappropriate to use a picture of Bowie as Ziggy Stardust (June 1972–1973) in the article for Hunky Dory (December 1971), even though that's only six months apart), or if the members of a band changed.
- Here, we've got a photo of all the same band members only a year apart. That isn't perfectly contemporaneous, but it's pretty close, and there's no reason that I know of to believe the Jorge Ben and Trio Mocotó of 1970 were radically different than the same of 1971. The only other image of Jorge Ben available at Commons is File:Jorge Ben, 1972.tif, which shows only Ben without the band and is even later in time. Most general readers in the English-speaking world are probably not already familiar with Jorge Ben, or if they did know Ben they may still be ignorant of Trio Mocotó (as I was). The caption gives the year, so the image is not misleading the readers, who will probably understand that this is the best-available image and appreciate the illustration. Given all of this, I think it's useful to include the image: there's no significant reason to believe it seriously misrepresents the band, and no major reason that excluding it would be more helpful than including it. —BLZ · talk 00:09, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
- I still don't understand "Ben sang of hedonism in a concentrated state". Your suggestion is not implausible but it sounds like you can't be certain of your interpretation either. Is there more context in the source that would clarify this?
- I wanna weigh in here to say that I share the same concern about that sentence. This perfectly sums up my feeling: "Your suggestion is not implausible but it sounds like you can't be certain of your interpretation either." Whatever was meant in the original text, and however close the translation is, the meaning of the "hedonism" sentence as it stands in English is confusing and imprecise. Is there any way to dig a little deeper into the context to arrive at a translation that is not just accurate in a literal sense, but also intuitively meaningful in English? —BLZ · talk 00:09, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
- My interpretation is not included in the article. Sanches is translated verbatim. And on further reflection, considering "hedonism" means pleasure-seeking and Ben directs this impulse exclusively at one woman (as in the song), I feel more confident in my previous elucidation of Sanches' opinion. But to answer your question: Sanches prefaces his conclusion by saying "it does not need to be explained". So, no. He does not expand on this idea beyond quoting the lyrics, explaining the story of the song, beforehand.
- The comment from Bush that the hectic period led to a mellower sound still makes no sense to me.
- This is the relevant source text from AllMusic:
"Ben's self-titled album of the year before had reeled off a succession of Brazilian hits, including "País Tropical" and "Cadê Teresa," and made the four musicians very busy as a result. Força Bruta was a slightly different album, a slice of mellow samba soul that may perhaps have been the result of such a hectic schedule during 1969."
Bush's obvious implication is that they were stressed out by their performing schedule and wanted to relax, so their music got mellower in turn. There is probably a better way to reflect that in the text. The words "stressed" and "relax" are between-the-lines, but barely. They're hardly misreads of Bush, and they would make the overall idea clearer in the article's paraphrasing. —BLZ · talk 00:09, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
- This is the relevant source text from AllMusic:
- I wouldn't oppose on any of these points, but I don't feel comfortable supporting. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:48, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
Coordinator comment - This has been open for a considerable amount of time and doesn't have consensus for promotion. Therefore, I will be archiving it shortly and it may be re-nominated after the customary two-week waiting period. In the mean time, please action feedback as appropriate. --Laser brain (talk) 14:33, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
- Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. --Laser brain (talk) 14:33, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
- Can you still keep it open? @Laser brain:. It is on the verge of a third support from @Brandt Luke Zorn:, whose last suggestions for improvement I have addressed in the past few days; his latest comments are just a few days old. Can you at least let them conclude their review, as they were doing? As they noted here, there was only one section of the article left to be reviewed, and I have resolved their actionable objections in the past few days. All is left is for the reviewer to return and respond to the nomination page; they've been pinged. This would be the most extensive review for this candidate. What is the point of closing it just as there has been renewed activity here, activity leading closer to a consensus? Dan56 (talk) 15:35, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Laser brain: just want to second Dan56's comment here. As he said, I'm close to finishing my review and also close to offering a support. I especially want to reinforce that latter point; although I've had a mountain of comments, I do want to make clear that his characterization is accurate and I'm much, much closer to a support than to an abstention or an oppose. It would help to have a modest extension of the candidacy if at all possible. I'm going to take another look at the article and his comments starting now. Dan56, if this candidacy gets closed anyway, I'll follow up with you on your talk page regardless. —BLZ · talk 19:41, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
- Can you still keep it open? @Laser brain:. It is on the verge of a third support from @Brandt Luke Zorn:, whose last suggestions for improvement I have addressed in the past few days; his latest comments are just a few days old. Can you at least let them conclude their review, as they were doing? As they noted here, there was only one section of the article left to be reviewed, and I have resolved their actionable objections in the past few days. All is left is for the reviewer to return and respond to the nomination page; they've been pinged. This would be the most extensive review for this candidate. What is the point of closing it just as there has been renewed activity here, activity leading closer to a consensus? Dan56 (talk) 15:35, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Brandt Luke Zorn:, I am trying to argue at WP:FAC's talk page for an exemption from the two-week wait after closing. Dan56 (talk) 20:57, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.