Talk:"Heroes" (David Bowie album)

Requested move 9 September 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Despite a few odd comments by the supporters, there is a pretty clear consensus that the current title is ambiguous, both with the song of the same title and other articles that can be written as "Heroes". Jenks24 (talk) 16:19, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

"Heroes" → "Heroes" (David Bowie album) – In the previous RM, consensus opposed replacing quotations with parenthetical disambiguation. Over time, the album (last month) looks more viewed than the song (last month). However, I'm not convinced that the stats accurately make the album more popular than the song. Also, neither is more significant than the other. But if we can't remove the quotation marks, we can concurrently keep them and add parenthetical disambiguation for clarity. George Ho (talk) 07:52, 9 September 2015 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 10:11, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ I wonder how many of those extra visits to the album page are in fact looking for the song, but land here because this is the non disambiguated page.--Gorpik (talk) 07:57, 9 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I just Googled for "Heroes song".  The first WP article listed was the article about the song.  This article about the album was not even listed on the first page.  If I type "Heroes" in the WP search box I see first the album (undisambiguated) and then the disambiguated title for the song.  This is perfect.  Folks, nothing is broken here.  Nothing to see here. Disambiguating this title further (the quotes are natural disambiguation) is completely unnecessary.  A few editors like George seem to think ambiguous titles are inherently problematic, but can never explain why.  Let's not pretend that titles have more purpose and meaning than they do.  First and foremost they are unique identifiers.  It's important to understand and appreciate that if all of our titles were random totally meaningless strings, WP would work just as well as it currently does.  Meaningful titles are of much more value to editors than to readers.  Much like Gangsta. (which George also tried to recently change), this title meets all applicable requirements and follows all applicable conventions.  --В²C ☎ 15:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Umm... forgetting Heroes (TV series), B2C? --George Ho (talk) 16:51, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What about it? It is disambiguated, just as this article is by the way of the quotes.  08:10, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see how WP:SMALLDETAILS helps a lot. We have Baby One More Time, Like a Virgin, and Like a Prayer disambiguated because neither songs nor album is primary topic anymore. Both are equally significant. But we still have Hotel California as song and Fly Like an Eagle as album. --George Ho (talk) 09:14, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERSTUFF is not very persuasive. Besides, those are mostly rare examples of particularly well-known albums and songs.  Let's find something broken to fix. --В²C ☎ 00:25, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If you are going to use this shortcut very often, B2C, I'm going to propose a retarget soon. That way, it is no longer restricted or limited to deletion discussions. --George Ho (talk) 00:52, 15 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Support, and redirect "Heroes" to Heroes. Page Heroes shows many items that could be referred to as '"Heroes"' in quotes. Among that lot I see no reason for "Heroes" (David Bowie album) to be dominant and not merely another routine ephemeral pop music album. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:44, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * , you should know that the relative standard in title decision-making is not "what could be referred to as ...", but "what is referred to as in reliable sources...". --В²C ☎ 16:24, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Didn't you know that, per WP:COMMONNAMES, an ambiguous title cannot be used for one topic, even when commonly used? --George Ho (talk) 22:09, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That's not true when one of the ambiguous uses is the primary topic. This is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of "Heroes", achieving about twice as many views as the song use does. No other use has been shown to be referred to as "Heroes" in reliable sources.  --В²C ☎ 02:02, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You got the stats wrong. It can include everybody, including readers who either read just the lead and then leave or don't read the whole article but then go to the song article instead. Sources mentioning both album and song: . Just the album: . Just the song: --George Ho (talk) 03:59, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You misunderstood my point. No other uses besides the album and song are referred to as "Heroes" (in quotes) in reliable sources. This is a WP:TWODABS case, in contrast to Anthony's claim: "many items could be referred to as "'Heroes"' in quotes."  Between those two, the album is primary per page view stats. --В²C ☎ 16:37, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Have you listened to the album before? If not, why justifying primacy with misleading stats? --George Ho (talk) 00:52, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What does listening to the album have to do with anything? Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 01:45, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It has a bearing on why someone would make finding the album difficult for those that have In ictu oculi (talk) 02:06, 18 September 2015 (UTC)


 * "primary topic": how long for? Most pop music is ephemeral. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:30, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This song and album are still considered classics forty years after their release. We can safely assume that they will continue to be so for a few years more.--Gorpik (talk) 13:26, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As long as it's the primary topic. No WP:CRYSTAL ball.  --В²C ☎ 16:37, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Support - the current title only serves to waste users' time, some books uses quotes, some don't, all use David Bowie, good grief. Keep relisting until enough common sense votes have accumulated to outweigh B2C's obsession with unrecognizable titles. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:47, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Support. Both the album and the song are relatively equal and the proposed titles are clearer. older ≠ wiser 12:26, 23 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Requested move 11 January 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. ToThAc (talk) 19:51, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Quite frankly, I do not understand after all this time why the album and the song are stylized in quotation marks. I feel like this is just a way of stylizing the album and the song, and the proper title for both articles should be Heroes without the quotation marks. JE98 (talk) 04:11, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * "Heroes" (David Bowie album) → Heroes (David Bowie album)
 * "Heroes" (David Bowie song) → Heroes (David Bowie song)


 * Oppose Undoubtedly the name of both album and song is "Heroes", with the double quotation marks, e.g. per Pegg, Nicholas, The Complete David Bowie (7th edn.), Titan, 2016, pp. 389–92. (ISBN 9781785653650) Note also Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray, in their David Bowie: An Illustrated Record, Eel Pie, 1981, p. 92 (ISBN 0-906008-25-5), about the song in particular: "the quotation marks around the title [provide] an element of compassionate irony to what is essentially the purest love song that [Bowie had] written since the Young Americans album."  Then there's the fact that the name "Heroes" is visible in the infobox photo of the album's cover ... Nortonius (talk) 10:44, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Support annoying stylism. However the redirect works either way so not losing sleep about it. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:04, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I'm not sure that it is "stylism", in the same way as upper and lower case letters might be. It seems to be a valid part of the intended artistic expression. Wikipedia really isn't good with the niceties of punctuation and diacritics, is it, no matter how "annoyed" we might be. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:14, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Support . It’s just styling. An image search of “We can be "heroes" just for one day" shows no use of quotes, indicating that quotes are not essential for any purpose. Sometimes, another method of emphasis is applied, sometimes no emphasis at all. Some argue a nuanced meaning of “heroes”, but this is not supported by reliable sources. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:24, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, I think we may have some tension here between the intended artistic meaning and the way it's been reported in media sources, even reliable ones. All media organsitions try to impose a consistent house-style, don't they? I think even some encyclopedias do that too. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:36, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * It does “feel” like more than styling. If the title had more words, we could be sure. But what about the lyrics. Why no quotation marks in the lyrics? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:12, 11 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I would suggest that there are no quotation marks in the lyrics because they are the lyrics; whereas this discussion is about the name of the album and the song. Nortonius (talk) 19:26, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems possible that the lyrics are sung from the perspective of the people within the story, but the title is from a different, outside observer's perspective. (A description of the origin of the song can be found in the interview here.) While the characters inside the story are inspired to think of themselves as (temporary) heroes, the observer doesn't necessarily endorse that idea. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:47, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * That's exactly what I had in mind, thanks for putting it into words. Nortonius (talk) 12:52, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose, BarrelProof and his citation show that it is not just styling: NME interviews Bowie in 1977:
 * Charles Shaar Murray: Why does Heroes - or more accurately "Heroes" come in quotes? Are the inverted commas actually part of the title.
 * DB: Yeah. Firstly - it was quite a silly point really - I thought I'd pick on the only narrative song to use as the title. It was arbitrary, really, because there's no concept to the album.
 * CSM: I'd felt that the use of quotes indicate a dimension of irony about the word "Heroes" or about the whole concept of heroism.
 * DB: Well, in that example they were ...
 * As identified by Charles Shaar Murray, and confirmed by Bowie, they are indeed scare quote indicating the characters' non-standard use of the term. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:58, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose per comments above. The title styling seems to accurately reflect the intended emphasis and use of the quotation marks in the name of a work of art. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:28, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The scare quotes convey a meaning here. Given that we can reproduce them easily in Wikipedia, I don't see why we should lose that meaning.--Gorpik (talk) 12:48, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Scare quotes, yes. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:15, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I've never heard of the term 'Scare quotes', which seems a bit more scary than intended. Learn something new every day (or every minute). To make up a "thing", "Visible air quotes", or maybe "yeah, right", seem closer to the meaning implied by the title. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:21, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment: Note that the article includes a citation to an interview in which the interviewer comments about the quote marks specifically, saying "I'd felt that the use of quotes indicate a dimension of irony about the word 'Heroes' or about the whole concept of heroism." Bowie then confirms this, saying the title of the album came from the title track, and "The situation that sparked off the whole thing was - I thought - highly ironic." In most such cases of Wikipedia title discussions, we don't have the artist themselves commenting about the question. Note also that this song is included as an example on the policy page WP:AT, saying that in this case the quote marks are part of the title. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:38, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes indeed: this. Nortonius (talk) 14:53, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Funny, it seems only this week that we are connecting the decision to a sourced justification. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:51, 13 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Apart from here in the article, you mean, adapting a quotation from Bowie that was added in 2008? Nortonius (talk) 14:45, 13 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I suggest these two proposals are both rapidly closed as "no move". Martinevans123 (talk) 15:01, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * You mean per WP:SNOW? Alternatively, there is no reason to rush this process and decision, and non-rushed decisions tend to be better respected.  —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:51, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, pretty much. I see that you have struck your own support. The only other "vote for support was from User:In ictu oculi, so perhaps he might like to reconsider too. But I agree there is certainly no rush. The current article title looks like the correct one to me. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:59, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * No thanks. But by all means close. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:05, 13 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The title of Damn (Kendrick Lamar album) is "Damn." (with the period) but was moved to the current title to remove the stylization per consensus. Why should this be treated any different? — Za  wl  16:18, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I've just read the section that explains the album title and it looks like Lamar has talked about why Damn, but has given no especial significance to the period at the end. Here we have sources where Bowie provides a meaning for the quotes.--Gorpik (talk) 16:49, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * This should be different because this is a totally different article and because the consensus is completely opposite? Martinevans123 (talk) 17:00, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
 * ... besides mention twice already of WP:AT ... Nortonius (talk) 17:14, 18 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Followup discussion
The album Damn., with a dot (and several other such cases, e.g. Gangsta., at Gangsta (manga)) are just marketing stylization. The quotation marks in "Heroes" and the song Heroes whence the album gets its name are semantically meaningful (like "!" or "?" in most titles of works that include one), in this case indicating irony/sarcasm. Don't confuse punctuation being present with whether the punctuation is encyclopedically meaningful. If I make an album and call it >>Chicken<< you can expect the title here, were it notable, to be Chicken (SMcCandlish album). If a song on it is called "Wanna Play 'Chicken'?" the interior quotation marks and the question mark would be retained as meaningful. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:27, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Heroes.. the inspiration
I heard Brian Eno in an interview the other day say that the inspiration for the song came from an elderly couple of alcoholics, certainly the lyrics would suggest that ? When Tony walked back into Hansa after the kiss, Bowie said, you’re in the song... Tony was slightly alarmed as he was married at the time.. Pdrm3r (talk) 21:40, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Got a link for the interview? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:47, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

February 2018
In my edit summary for this edit, there's a redlink: I intended the link to point to the move discussion concerning the quotation marks, "Requested move 11 January 2018", which at the time of writing is still here on this talk page. Just so you know. Nortonius (talk) 17:58, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

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 * David Bowie Ron Frazier 1977.jpg