Talk:God's Son (album)

Honestly
i understand there's a lot of Nastans out there, and that approach is probably appropriate for an album widely viewed as a classic like Illmatic, but not every Nas album needs the stan treatment. this needs to be seriously slimmed down. 75.26.171.73 05:09, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * This album is very significant to Nas' career and has enough information to be covered in a large entry. Your argument would hold a little bit stronger if you didn't call Nas fans "stans," a term that Nas popularized on "Ether." Before Nas, "Stan" was just some suicidal fan in an Eminem song. Noahdabomb3 03:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

GAN on hold
*Woah, half of the lead's second para is a quote...best to minimise quoting in lead (and incidentally, the last statement needs a source) *Reception section seems very short for an album... And leave me a note when done. Cheers, dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 02:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "God's Son is the sixth studio album by East Coast hip hop artist Nas" - the album cover has a full name (not Nas)...what's going on?
 * Say the exact release date in the lead
 * Check italics in professional reviews section of infobox
 * "In less than a year, Nas soon responded with "Ether," a response to Jay-Z's "Takeover," - overly wordy...
 * What's the image in the lyrics section got to do with anything?
 * "Its not just concept songs" - "it's" shouldn't be in an encyclopedia (contraction)

More GA comments
I think this is well on its way to GA-status, but I have some concerns about the neutrality of the article, and a few other quibbles.

*It's rarely, if ever, appropriate to include a lengthy, gushing and laudatory quote in the lead of an article. "Like many publications, All Music Guide gave God's Son a solid rating of four stars." - this sentence is uncited and is obviously meant to give the reader the impression that the album was very well-received by many critics. This may very well be true, but it's not encyclopedic to imply it. State it outright, with support from references. Don't characterize a review, like calling this four-star rating "solid" (for all you know, it was almost a three star album, but they decided it was just barely good enough, so it might not have been solid). *"Nas' 1994 debut album, Illmatic received much acclaim, but his next few releases were considered to be watered down and commercialized" - I am well aware that this is true, but this comes across as weasel-wordy. This should be more detailed. This is, I think, just as important a part of the album's background as the Jay-Z thing, but it only gets one sentence. *"Its not just concept songs that make critics praise this album's lyrical content, it is the album's consistency" - this is also reading the mind's of reviewers, unless all or most of the reviews say that the concept songs make them like the lyrics, but that the consistency is the ultimate selling point for the album. Reviewers don't generally say that kind of thing, and it doesn't seem like a very useful sentence anyway. *The Berliner quote should be pared down, or moved elsewhere. It doesn't really describe the lyrics, just says they're good, which is properly part of "reception". The "lyrics" section should only describe the lyrics. *"God's Son was produced by various producers including Salaam Remi, Eminem and Alchemist" - this is a very bad sentence for a variety of reasons *"This diversity also allows for a wide array of sounds." - This is filler and can be removed. Albums with one producer are capable of having just as wide an array of sounds as albums with more than one producer. *"Additionally, the wide array of producers allow for a different use of samples" - ditto *"sample lacking production" - is there a word missing here? That's a jarring wording *"Although there is no determined band for God's Son, various musicians" also bad wording - "determined band" is, to me, a band that is dedicating to improving their craft *"God's Son reached #12 on the Billboard 200,[1] a chart position that Nas had not fell to since his first album, Illmatic" - "had not fell to" is really hard to parse... and I still don't get it. "reached" implies it went up (i.e. a good thing), but then "fell to" implies that it was a terrible showing. *"Nas gained acclaim as the king of the New York hip hop scene" - this is inherently unencyclopedic language, and that Jones quote does not support the claim, if that's what's supposed to support it.
 * Extremely positive quotes are sprinkled liberally throughout the article, but the entirety of negative criticism is in a very brief "Critical" section. The critical reception of an album is both positive and negative, and both sides need to be covered in that section. If you're going to cite positive reviews in other sections, you need to also cite negative reviews in other sections when relevant. As an example, there is a long, very positive quote in the Lyrics section, even though it doesn't really describe the lyrics at all, but there is no discussion of the negative reviews of the production in the "Production" section, despite those very same negative reviews being covered in the "Critical" section. I'd suggest leaving the descriptions to the Lyrics and Production sections, and putting the review-oriented information in the reception section, but if you really want to cover reviews in those sections, it needs to be consistent.
 * "In less than a year, Nas soon responded"
 * "referring to God's Son release and Jay's The Blueprint 2 release." - don't repeat "release"
 * "Although guest appearances are made by Tupac Shakur, Kelis, Alicia Keys, and others, God's Son is considered to be a personal album" - what does this mean? Is it really necessary to list Tupac? Just Kelis and Keys would seem sufficient. In any case, saying that Tupac made a guest appearance is poor wording considering that he had been dead for years.
 * "Nas' lyrics also deal with religion as the album's title curtails" - I don't think "curtails" is the word you're looking for here
 * The idea of a concept track, and then a concept song is not explained
 * "Serena Kim of VIBE supports Nas' use of a variety of commercially "risk[y]" producers saying" - this is confusing. "Risky" doesn't need to be in quotes, and you need to explain what makes these people "commercially risky", and why the Neptunes are not. When a quote requires a lot of context like this one, it might be better to summarize it in your own words, then put the exact quote in a footnote.
 * If you have a section titled "Feud with Jay-Z", it needs to talk about Jay-Z's responses, not just Nas'.

Tuf-Kat (talk) 06:32, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I've taken care of most of the concerns, although I think some of areas which you have requested be improved are for FA status, rather than GA. Btw, do you want me to get rid of the promotional image in the lyrics section or move it to somewhere else in the article ? - Guerilla In Tha Mist (talk) 18:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That was dihydrogen monoxide's concern, not mine. I think it might be better off in the "Commercial" reception section, and that it isn't really necessary anywhere. But I'm not personally too concerned about it. BTW, it's generally considered inappropriate to strike out somebody else's comments. I agree some of my points aren't necessary for GAing, but the neutrality concerns were significant (I haven't looked over them to be sure they are addressed sufficiently) and I thought I might as well leave notes about anything else I saw while I was looking it over. Tuf-Kat (talk) 21:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I only put a strike-through the points I had completed so I could easily see which things I still had to do. I appreciate the comments as they will help the article progress to FA. Thanks for the review. - Guerilla In Tha Mist (talk) 21:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Are there still any GA concerns? dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 01:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I still have one significant concern: neutrality in the feud section. The first sentence is badly worded and far too sweeping of a claim to presented as fact, and the entire section discusses only Nas' views on the subject. Obviously, it's a Nas article, not a Jay-Z article, but this doesn't represent viewpoints fairly and without bias, since Jay-Z's viewpoint is not mentioned. Once that's fixed, I'd support it being a GA, though I note it does need a major copyedit to survive FAC. Tuf-Kat (talk) 02:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I've added Jay-Z's part in the feud, I think it now passes the GA criteria. - Guerilla In Tha Mist (talk) 16:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, I no longer have any GA concerns. Good work! Tuf-Kat (talk) 22:32, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Awesome, passed. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 09:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

USA Today review
Transcription using Google News Advanced News Archive Search. USA Today (Jones, Steve. D.05. December 17, 2002) review of God's Son (2002):

"Rap: Nas, God's Son ( * * * 1/2) Nas has always been a keen observer, whether reflecting on the world around him or taking an inward look at himself. He does both here to great effect, capping what has already been a strong year with another high-quality effort. The blistering Made You Look is a street-ready jam, while Last Real Nigga Alive is an incisive history lesson on the long- simmering rhymes wars of several camps, including himself, the Notorious BIG, Puff Daddy, Raekwon, Jay-Z and others. Thugz Mansion finds him and the late Tupac Shakur ruminating on a heavenly place for fallen artists, while Warrior Song with Alicia Keys urges those who have suffered a loss to stay strong. Dance is a poignant ode to his late mother."

- Steve Jones

Dan56 (talk) 23:59, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned references in God's Son
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of God's Son's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Metacritic": From Hip Hop Is Dead: Hip Hop Is Dead (2007): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2009-10-27. From Street's Disciple: Street's Disciple (2004): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2009-11-24. From Stillmatic: Stillmatic (2001): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2010-10-16. 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 07:57, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

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