Wikipedia:Peer review/FM (No Static at All)/archive1

FM (No Static at All)

I've listed this article for peer review because after a fair amount of work a while back, it has remained stable and could easily be a GA.

Thanks, Daniel Case (talk) 23:00, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I'll be looking this over soon.100cellsman (talk) 07:00, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

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Hi Daniel Case, so I just about read most of what I could from the article and here are my thoughts.

@100cellsman: OK. I am reading it through and responding. If you wish to further respond let me know; otherwise I will be archiving this soon as the requisite month has passed. Daniel Case (talk) 00:38, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

It while it nearly has what would be acceptable for a song to reach GA, a couple key components to the song are missing. Like critical reception from say Rolling Stones and how many copies the single has sold. Perhaps you could list some of the awards the song received. (If any more besides the Grammy awards.)

There weren't any.

Looking at the sources, they mostly seem fine to me. I’m uncertain about Something Else Reviews and the section about the empire state building is trivial to me.

The About page at Something Else says that a) Aaron was the founder and b) that a lot of other reliable sources (like the NYT) have relied on the site, although I suppose we'll have to see how deep those citations go.

Some parts of the Versions section are unsourced and has possibly unnecessary detail that could be removed or moved to other sections.

That seems to be due to people (as too often happens) editing for what they feel paragraph length should be and not replacing the sources when they do. When I finished my original expansion that wasn't a problem.

I don’t think that the part about the band debating how the song would be successful because of the movie and eventually going to see it is worth having.

Well, I think that documents their creative process. To me that suggests that they might have passed on the assignment completely if they'd had a chance to see the movie first. I can imagine almost any artist with a track record of hit singles would want a song from a movie to be another hit, and thus they would want to see the movie first to make sure that the movie itself had a reasonable chance of being a box-office success. I think artists with enough stature get this chance almost automatically.

I recall reading that the producers of Say Anything... sent Peter Gabriel a tape of the movie as a condition of him approving the use of "In Your Eyes" in the movie. Apparently by accident he got sent the tape of [Wired (film)|Wired]] and called back after watching it asking why they wanted to use his song over a scene where someone overdoses on drugs.

The writing could really use some improvement:

• “It made the US Top Forty” Forty should be numerical.

Alright, I checked this and yes, apparently, we do use the figure there. Fixed.

• “leading some listeners to assume, incorrectly,” switch the positions of assume and incorrectly.

 Fixed

• “Several things make "FM" distinct among the band's work.” I’m not sure if the statement is totally necessary in the lead.

I was going to just reword it, but then yes, I took it out. I think I may have put it in so potential DYK reviewers knew where to look for the hook fact.

• Remove “35 years later” and rather from “was rather straightforward”

 Done

• The quote about that call in the Background and Recording section is too much and should be converted to prose, and I’m not certain who was taking the call, Fagen or Becker.
• “that featured another of the coming decade's stars, Richard Pryor, in a small role.” This does not benefit the article.
• “But they knew what was expected of them.” Awkward and vague statement.
• Shorten or rewrite the quote about them writing the song.
• “who had then also recently helped form Toto,” Trivial.
• “Studio veteran Jeff Porcaro” remove veteran.

All done.

• “According to Canadian studio musician Don Breithaupt, who included a chapter on the song in his book on Aja for Bloomsbury Publishing's 33⅓ series due to its contemporaneous recording,” this should be shortened and contemporaneous doesn't feel universally acceptable.

I split that sentence up.

• I’m having trouble understanding what exactly the lyrics section is trying to say. Perhaps it could be shortened or rewritten.

I'll see what I can do. Breithaupt's point is that while the movie celebrates 1970s FM radio as some sort of anti-commercial subversive force, the song's lyrics are at odds with that viewpoint. But you're right that not discussing the lyrics right away may lose some viewers.

• The music section to me reads too much like a music journal magazine, though I’m not totally sure how wiki pages for individual songs work.

A lot of our articles on songs, popular or not, include this sort of music theory thing if someone's found it. Cf. the "Composition" section that I added a lot to for the article about Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream", sourced to a Slate article about the musical tricks that make the song memorable.

• Replace “‘FM (the lyric) is” with “[The lyrics are]” and “‘FM (the music” with “[the music]”
• “The song reached #22 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.[7] In the UK, it reached #49.[8] In Canada[9] and New Zealand it reached #19.[10]” This seems repetitive to me.

We seem to have that in a lot of our song articles, though. But I was able to recast it.

• Stick with Aaron saying that the song is “a shining gem of a tune” and leave off the rest of his quote.

 Done

To me, its mostly just the writing and overly detailed info. I think it's best to work these along with the rest of the problems I stated before you nominate it as a GA.100cellsman (talk) 07:58, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks. I will be reading this over and responding soon. Daniel Case (talk) 22:20, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Done. Daniel Case (talk) 00:38, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Once you've addressed what I mentioned about the lyrics, it should be smooth sailing for this article's GA journey. 100cellsman (talk) 10:06, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@100cellsman: I have addressed that (basically tying the discussion of the lyrics into the first graf more and trimming it a bit) as well as other issues we noticed and some more (added cites for its chart success). If you don't have any more suggestions within a few days I will archive this review. Daniel Case (talk) 02:06, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah it seems fine to me now. You have my OK to nominate it for GA. 100cellsman (talk) 12:19, 17 January 2019 (UTC)