Talk:Apple Venus Volume 1/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: CelestialWeevil (talk · contribs) 03:38, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi. I'll try my best to do a prompt and thorough review for this album.


 * Infobox and lead


 * "It was the first on the band's own Idea Records label through Cooking Vinyl and distributed in the United States by TVT Records." This reads jaggedly to me. I think readability would be improved with this change: "...Vinyl and was distributed..." Though not strictly necessary, it seems to improve flow.


 * The third sentence begins with "It relies heavily...", and the next sentence begins "The album was met...". To diversify sentence beginnings, I think starting the third sentence with "The album relies heavily..." and starting the fourth with "Apple Venus Volume 1 was met with..." would work better. This both makes it clearer what "it" is by sooner reestablishing "album", and it removes two sentences in a row starting with "it". Plus, the word "album" is later said in the fourth sentence, so limiting it to just one instance is nice.


 * Wikilink portmanteau


 * "It was originally planned as a double..." in paragraph 2 would be improved by reestablishing the album title instead of "it".


 * "...but because the group did not have enough money to record all the material they had stockpiled, elected to split the more..." I think "they elected" is necessary to grammatically follow.


 * "It was the last album to include guitarist Dave Gregory, who departed XTC..." This seems like odd wording. It makes it sound like this is Gregory's last album ever. I would change it to "It was XTC's last album to include guitarist Dave Gregory, who departed the group..."


 * Wikilink demo


 * Anticlockwise might be more technical than "rotated left" under the cover's caption. Not sure, though.


 * Background


 * In the first sentence, you may want to set off Nonsuch with commas for readability.


 * The first sentence ends with a comma, but I think it's supposed to be a period. If not, it's a run-on, and "The" shouldn't be capitalized.


 * "There was a song called "Lolly (Suck It and See),' ..." The quotation mark before "Lolly" should be an apostrophe since it's a quote within a quote. It's already followed by an apostrophe. Also, the comma should probably come after the closing apostrophe.


 * Same as the bullet point above, but for "Visit to the Doctor'


 * That whole quoted sentence should probably be framed, like: "About the fabricated compilation, Partridge said, 'And..."


 * "Virgin after "making some heavy concessions"." Please add an in-line citation for this, as it's a quote.


 * "working- men's..." I don't think that space should be there.


 * Composition


 * Good music sample. For extra copyright clarity, I would copy the format of this and adapt it for yours. It needs rationale for all articles it appears in (yours appears in two).


 * "...most of which were written by Partridge." If you want to remove two instances of Partridge's name from this first sentence, you could change the last part to "were written by the former". Just a style choice, though, no big deal.


 * "tracks "Omnibus", "Wrapped in Grey", and "Rook"." Remove the comma before "and" to conform with British English standards.


 * "he had purchased an E-mu Proteus "and really..." I really think this should either be framed and attributed to Partridge, or, preferably, be paraphrased.


 * "lyric content of..." I normally see "lyrical content". Doesn't matter much.


 * "Partridge thought the new material was "some of the best stuff..." You may want to specify whether he's talking about some of the best music ever, or just some of XTC's best music. It's ambiguous just from this.


 * " "Greenman", and "Harvest Festival"." Remove the comma before "and".


 * Production


 * Add a year tag to 3D EP


 * "Moulding, Bendall, and guitarist..." Remove the comma before "and"


 * "Moulding: "To cut a..." Seems stiff. Doesn't matter if it stays or changes, but "Mould said, ..." seems more natural.


 * There are a lot of quotes throughout. This is a long-term goal, but it may be preferable to paraphrase many of these quotes into your own prose. Feels more cohesive, more curated.


 * "rushed, and had " no comma necessary


 * Wikilink ostinato


 * Gregory's departure


 * What does "about a few weeks" mean? "Few" is already an ambiguator, I don't think "about" is necessary.


 * I assume the first sentence of paragraph 2 is covered in reference 26. But, because it's an audio thing that isn't immediately cross-checkable, please use an in-line after that sentence.


 * The last paragraph is almost wholly quotations with minimal prose / framing / commentary. Please expand the prose and paraphrase some of these longer quotes.


 * Title and packaging


 * I see that these first few sentences are supported by reference 28, but adding a few more in-lines (especially after quoted material) is probably in order. Also, you could cite the liner notes of Nonsuch for the lyric sentence with Template:Cite AV media notes.


 * Please add a year tag to Oranges & Lemons


 * On the first sentence of the second paragraph, you may want to indicate who the quote is from. I get that it's a safe assumption it's from Partridge, but it's better to be explicit when dealing with quoted material.


 * "Written underneath the track listing on the back of the album cover..." An ideal place to cite liner notes.


 * Release


 * Oranges & Lemons has already been wikilinked


 * "AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine notes:..." Previously past-tense words like "wrote" were used. So this should probably be "noted".


 * There's not a lot of organization to this section. I don't know why the last paragraph isn't part of the one before it. After the first part, it just seems like a bunch of publication, author name, and quote templates. Please replace one or two quotes with paraphrasing summarizing that author's thoughts, or at least expand upon the quotes.


 * Track listing


 * I see nothing wrong here. Everything matches with the album's liner notes.


 * Personnel


 * Please cite the album's liner notes for personnel with Template:Cite AV media notes.


 * Batt's entry says "for" and Barker's says "on" followed by songs. Please choose one and keep it consistent.


 * The second instance of "keyboards" is Wikilinked while the first isn't.


 * Wikilink Haydn Bendall


 * Wikilink Nick Davis (record producer)


 * Wikilink Alan Douglas (record producer)


 * In British English, I don't think you capitalize "The" in a title when it's in the middle of the sentence, seen in the last point under "Additional musicians". But you may want to verify somewhere for that.


 * Please change "mix" to "mixing"


 * Please change "engineer" to "engineering" for consistency and to fit the MOS in the next point below this.


 * As per here, listing something like "A&R Coordination" is unnecessary. But if you do want to keep it, please replace "-" with "–"


 * Charts


 * I don't see anything wrong here, but I'm no chart expert!


 * References


 * As per Help:Citation Style 1, please use either title or sentence case consistently. Reference 1 is title case, while 4 is sentence case, for instance.


 * Also as per that Wikilink in the point above, reference 38 shouldn't be titled in all-caps.


 * Please replace "--" in reference 22 with "–" and "-" in reference 10 also with "–"


 * AllMusic shouldn't be italicized in reference 17. Also, that isn't the complete title of the page it links to.


 * External links


 * Maybe specify what Chalkhills is.


 * End comments

This is certainly good article material once the issues above are addressed.


 * 1) Well-written: Yes
 * 2) Verifiable with no original research: Mostly (more in-lines needed where mentioned above)
 * 3) Broad in its coverage: Mostly. Did XTC tour with this album? If so, that may be a valuable section to write.
 * 4) Neutral: Yes
 * 5) Stable: Yes
 * 6) Illustrated: Yes

After my points are responded to / fixed / explained, this will be a promotion. Good work! CelestialWeevil (talk) 02:25, 6 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks to User:Ilovetopaint, this article has been improved significantly. Continue to input some of these later changes when you get the chance, but for now the article is definitely good. Great job! CelestialWeevil (talk) 15:34, 28 August 2018 (UTC)