Talk:Body Count (album)/Archive 1

Album title
This album was originally called 'Cop Killer'. I know this because I owned the original (on cassette.) This was in the UK.


 * I don't know about the UK, but in the US it was always shipped and sold as "Body Count."St. Jimmy 23:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * huh? where do you think this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Body_Count_Album_Cover.jpg is from? man get ice t's book and then come back and talk shit --80.134.161.156 00:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The only source I can find that refers to the album as Cop Killer is Charlton Heston's biography. And that doesn't count because his opinions on the song's lyrics clearly show he doesn't know what he's talking about. He also claimed that they changed the cover artwork without removing the song. (68.223.197.100 06:39, 26 September 2007 (UTC))
 * Any citations with important or notable information should be used. It shouldn't matter if the original source is biased, as long as the text remains neutral. (70.156.170.102 (talk) 20:36, 15 August 2008 (UTC))

To User:80.134.161.156
This issue has already been settled. Your information has been contradicted by several editors, including myself, who owned the original CD or cassette. I'm not sure if you were even born at the time of its release. If you continue to revert, I will have to take action with the admins. Instead of that, please turn your attention to something constructive. St. Jimmy 20:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * And I would also add to the anon 80.134... user that there are enough people watching this page that your changes will be reverted every time you add spurious "Cop Killer" album information here or at Body Count. You are absolutely wasting your time.--Isotope23 00:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

and youre an idiot --80.134.163.20 18:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ha ha ha... I would remind you of WP:CIVIL if you were not so precious...--Isotope23 19:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

+semi
I have semiprotected this article temporarily as requested on AN/I. Please discuss the edits, and let me know when you all have it worked out so I can light the protection. Thanks. --Improv 19:36, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Lifted. By current policy, we're discouraged to semiprotect indefinitely. --Improv 14:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

GA pass
Just some notes. &mdash; H 2O &mdash;  01:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * There should be no refs in the infobox, put them in the lead instead.
 * Image fair use notices should have a link to the article
 * "and is believed to have helped pave the way for the mainstream success of the rapcore genre,[3][4][5]" - Don't need that many refs for one sentence.
 * Track listings need sources
 * Personnel section needs a source (even the album sleeve will do)

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question. You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, &mdash; H 2O &mdash;  01:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Please expand the lead to conform with guidelines at Lead. The article should have an appropriate number of paragraphs as is shown on WP:LEAD, and should adequately summarize the article.[?]
 * Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.[?]
 * Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]

Two Things
One: Should the altered/reissue cover be moved to the info box int an "Alternative cover" thing at the bottom? and Two: If it's a part of Wiki project:Punk. shouldn't punk be listed as a genre? Jasper420 03:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

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The album was originally set to be distributed under the title Cop Killer
IT WAS distributed under the title Cop Killer.

Copyediting
I just wanted to go over the changes I had made here with bullet points explaining each change, since the edit summaries on the revert are misrepresenting each change:


 * and is believed to have helped pave the way for the mainstream success of the rap metal genre deleted from lead: I felt that the text was seeming to say that the album wasn't rap metal but impacted rap metal, whereas sources such as this one identify it as a rap metal album ("Slowly but surely, the group developed what arguably became the first rap-metal album"), which contradicts the implication given here.
 * Ice-T formed Body Count out of this interest: this sentence had been tagged as needing clarification since December 2022, so I slightly rewrote it to explain what the text meant (Body Count was co-founded by rapper Ice-T and guitarist Ernie C, and the band's first line-up was entirely comprised of musicians they had known from Crenshaw High School
 * The lyrical themes section contained several unsourced statements about the album's lyrical themes and music video imagery that I had removed because the citations given are not from reliable third party sources or given undue weight due to lack of reliable third party coverage:
 * The spoken introduction, "Smoked Pork" features Ice-T taking on the roles of a gangster pretending to be seemingly stranded motorist and a police officer who refuses to aid. The track begins with Mooseman and Ice-T driving their car towards a police car, and then Ice-T asks for the gun Mooseman has and tells Mooseman to stay in the car, much to Mooseman's chagrin, as Mooseman wanted to kill the cop in this round. Ice-T then walks up to the policeman, pretending to be a stranded motorist, asking for help, but the policeman refuses, saying: "Nah, that's not my job! My job's not to help your fuckin' ass out!", then telling him that "my job is eatin' these doughnuts". When the officer recognizes Ice-T, gunshots are heard. The final voice on the track is Ice-T confirming his identity. Citation given is the track itself. If a member of the band or a journalist an encyclopedic analysis discussed this skit as being important to understanding the album's lyrical themes, then there would be reliable sources available to justify writing an entire sentence about a sketch on an album. Otherwise, what is even the point of including this text?
 * In the lyrics of "KKK Bitch", Ice-T describes a sexual encounter with a woman who he soon learns is the daughter of the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The lyrics go on to describe a scenario in which members of Body Count "crash" a Klan meeting to "get buck wild with the white freaks". Ice-T makes humorous reference to "[falling] in love with Tipper Gore's two 12-year-old nieces", and ponders the possibility of the Grand Wizard coming after him "when his grandson's named little Ice-T. This is just a description of the entirety of the lyrics with the song itself given as a citation. Ice-T's book has an explanation of the song lyrics which makes this entire sentence redundant, given that the book by Ice-T has an actual official explanation, whereas the sentence citing the track on the album is simply an overtly detailed description of the song which isn't necessary to understanding the context that the words printed in Ice-T's book explains better.
 * "Voodoo" describes a fictional encounter between Ice-T and an old woman with a voodoo doll. and "The Winner Loses" describes the downfall of a crack cocaine user. Both cited to the lyrics sheet. Doesn't establish relevance of discussing these song's lyrics. Unless covered by reliable third party sources, not every song on the album needs to be analyzed.
 * The music video ends with a black musician implanting an electric guitar into the ground and setting it on fire. The final image is similar to that of a burning cross: Citation given is the music video. Fails verification. Needs a reliable third party source such as an interview with a member of the band saying that the image is meant to resemble cross burning or a journalist or scholar interpreting the image as resembling cross burning. Otherwise, this is original research.
 * I rewrote the following sentence: "Cop Killer" was replaced by a new version of "Freedom of Speech", a song from Ice-T's 1989 solo album 'The Iceberg/"Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say. The song was re-edited and remixed to give it a more rock-oriented sound, using a looped sample from the Jimi Hendrix song "Foxy Lady.'': This is not cited in the source given. The citation is the AllMusic review which says that the reissue contained a "bland version" of the song. It doesn't list the original album, it being a remix or sampling Jimi Hendrix. So the entirety of the original sentence was original research as it made claims not backed up by the citation given. (AllMusic says "After "Cop Killer" was pulled from the album, it was replaced with a bland version of Ice-T's rap classic "The Iceberg" recorded with Jello Biafra.")

Overall, the rewrites I had made were minor and did not constitute "rewriting an entire article", when, in fact, only two sentences were rewritten. RockabillyRaccoon (talk) 01:59, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * merging two sections into one very large one is not just rewriting two sentences .. --FMSky (talk) 02:05, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, it looked like there were two sentences about the album's lyrics, and without the unsourced content cited to the tracks, there isn't enough for a single section, given that discussion of the album's musical styles can be summarized in brief quotes from the sources cited. A source calling the album crossover thrash still hasn't been provided. RockabillyRaccoon (talk) 02:10, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

The justification given for the removal of the changes I had made, "this is a featured article", makes no sense, as the article was reviewed and passed 16 years ago, and it may not meet current featured quality standards as is. Surely the points I made about the article having a chunk of unsourced content or content cited to sources that don't back up the claims being made are valid. RockabillyRaccoon (talk) 02:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Another sentence I wanted to bring up:
 * Body Count has since been credited for pioneering the rap metal genre popularized by groups such as Rage Against the Machine and Limp Bizkit

I don't see the relevance in referring to Rage Against the Machine and Limp Bizkit here. Have either of these bands said that they were influenced by this album? It feels like name dropping. Also, I'm really not seeing the sources backing up the album having a significantly notable influence on n rap metal as a genre. There are sources classifying the album as rap metal, but the sources given here don't back up the undue weight the sentence is giving to other rap metal bands, especially in discussion of an album, with citations that refer to the band specifically more than the album. RockabillyRaccoon (talk) 02:13, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Here's another one:
 * "Body Count's in the House" was featured in the film Universal Soldier

No reliable source is given. Citation given is IMDb which is user edited. I'm also not seeing the relevance of songs from the album being used in movies, unless there's reliable third party sources discussing the use of the songs in soundtracks as being significant to discussion of this album, as opposed to the movies themselves. RockabillyRaccoon (talk) 02:25, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

And I had an issue with the sentence "the album itself does not feature rapping in any of its songs" in the lead, as there are multiple sources calling this a rap metal album, and the citation given is a chapter in Ice-T's book saying that he doesn't consider the album rap metal. There was an interview he did where he was saying that his reasoning for not calling his band rap metal was because they didn't use funk, soul or hip hop elements in the music, which has nothing to do with numerous third party sources describing either this album or the band itself as rap metal. The sentence was deleted for consistency with the rest of the sources. So unless there was a consensus that there's concrete evidence that Body Count is not a rap metal band or their albums shouldn't be classified as rap metal, I'm not seeing why this is here. I also don't understand why rap metal was deleted from the infobox. RockabillyRaccoon (talk) 02:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Metal Storm citation given here states "This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff." Which means it's not a reliable source for citing Body Count as a crossover thrash album. RockabillyRaccoon (talk) 02:38, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * the part about there not being any rapping was indeed nonsense, i just looked at the first song and its entirely rapped https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvaILIaqHqo — Preceding unsigned comment added by FMSky (talk • contribs)

There still hasn't been a source provided for this being a crossover thrash album, and what about the unsourced commentary cited to the lyrics sheet? RockabillyRaccoon (talk) 22:27, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
 * i will look one up. but i noticed a problem with one of your changes: "Body Count was founded by rapper Ice-T and guitarist Ernie C" contradicts the text in the main band article, which says: Ice-T attended Crenshaw High School, where a few classmates shared his interest in the genre, including musicians Ernie C, D-Roc the Executioner, Beatmaster V, and Mooseman. Ice-T began a solo career as a rapper, and later decided to form Body Count with these friends.[6][7]" --FMSky (talk) 22:56, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

What about merging "music and lyrics" with "lyrical themes"? Why is there two sections on the album's lyrics? RockabillyRaccoon (talk) 03:12, 15 February 2023 (UTC)


 * cause i guess it would make it too long and more difficult to read --FMSky (talk) 03:53, 15 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Trimming the fancruft would slim it down. RockabillyRaccoon (talk) 05:24, 15 February 2023 (UTC)