Talk:Master of Reality

Professional ratings
Does this article benefit in any way from two rather negative reviews from Robert Christgau? I removed one but it was quickly restored. Aside from the multiple Christgau reviews, the "Professional ratings" section contains six other reviews, more than enough in my opinion. Why do we need two almost identical reviews from the same reviewer? One is enough. SolarFlash (talk) 14:16, 22 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Does this article suffer in any way from a second score, revised in retrospect? Last time I checked, the limit was 10 scores (MOS:ALBUM). Dan56 (talk) 02:48, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * First of all, neither review devotes even a single word to discussing or reviewing Master of Reality. Does the article suffer? It certainly doesn't benefit from having two separate negative revues, virtually IDENTICAL, from the same source, with neither of which even devoting a single word to its subject. In both reviews Christgau dedicates much more attention to Grand Funk Railroad, and literally only even mentions Black sabbath when he's insulting them. How is any of this improving the article in any way? SolarFlash (talk) 15:46, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Our responsibility is to report information from prominent sources, not protect subjects near and dear to our hearts. Christgau is a prominent voice in the area that section of the article is dedicated to, the Voice is a prominent source for reviews during that era, and the book is too. The ratings template really just is decoration, a visual supplement, as described in MOS:ALBUM. And another negative score visually reinforces the claim (according to the section) that the album was originally panned by critics. And the visual that the Voice score offers is not illustrating "Robert Christgau". So let's not get started on the merits of things there. Dan56 (talk) 21:17, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with a lot of what you're saying. But one review from Christgau is quite enough. I'm not trying to remove them both, just one of them. Christgau was not such a prominent source that two almost identical reviews from him should be what we decide our "responsibility" is. I view that as lazy editing. It's irrelevant that one review was featured in the Village Voice and the other wasn't, the source is ultimately the very same writer with the very same opinion. Let's assume that you’re correct in your stance that we need to keep both reviews for the purpose of illustrating how negatively Black Sabbath's music was viewed by the critics of the day: we’re still ultimately only hearing from ONE source, Robert Christgau, and no other voices from that period. So I don’t believe your standpoint on this is convincing, as it fails to illustrate that any critic other than Christgau gave an unfavorable review. If you are correct and every critic of the day panned Sabbath’s music, surely you shouldn’t need to rely on multiple reviews from the same author. That’s cheating. Surely other reviews exist. If you can’t find any, then you understand the rules.  SolarFlash (talk) 22:25, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Bangs of Rolling Stone is also a negative appraisal being heard from that time period. Dan56 (talk) 22:33, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Good, we can use that one then and remove one of the Christgau reviews. SolarFlash (talk) 22:57, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Bangs' review has no score to include in the ratings template. His appraisal is just negative. It even compares the band negatively to Grand Funk (hmm) Dan56 (talk) 23:12, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I found another from the Arizona Republic dated 12 Sep 1971 . If there's no rating to include in the template then just incorporate it into the prose. But I'm still not hearing any reasonable argument for keeping the second Christgau review in said template. SolarFlash (talk) 23:20, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It's not a review that is in the template but a score. And I'm not hearing a reasonable argument to remove the score. Dan56 (talk) 23:28, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Then re-read the discussion we've just had. The reasonable argument to remove the score has been made, my friend. The reality is that you have failed to make a reasonable argument for not removing the score. SolarFlash (talk) 23:44, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I re-read it. The only thing I'm hearing now is you being patronizing. Dan56 (talk) 23:49, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Re-read the articles you've edited in the recent past. Both Nevermind and Weezer (Green Album) have two positive scores from a Rolling Stone publication; the latter album's article has two reviews written by Rob Sheffield. Wonder why you didn't object there... Dan56 (talk) 23:52, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Any other articles I've edited in the past are irrelevant and have nothing to do with this discussion or this article. Let me ask you this: were either of the two Christgau ratings originally added to the ratings template of this article by you personally? This can be verified so be honest. SolarFlash (talk) 23:58, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Then why are you asking me? Dan56 (talk) 00:08, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
 * They are relevant to your motives here, which I believe you're misrepresenting. Dan56 (talk) 00:09, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The ratings template shows readers that The Village Voice gave it a grade of "D". And it shows that Christgau's book gave it a C-minus. In lieu of a score for Bangs' review (or even the Arizona Republic), it's a fair representation as is, which is what the ratings template should strive for (MOS:ALBUM). Since you have offered no argument based in guideline or policy, I'll abstain from responding anymore. Dan56 (talk) 00:15, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
 * C- or a D.... not much difference, and one of the cited sources even mentions clearly that he later changed the rating slightly. So that's more reason not to keep both ratings. Please explain how I am misrepresenting my motives. You're moving farther away from actually discussing this with every response and just getting angry. Perhaps some fresh opinions here might help if you're choosing to end the discussion. And regarding the guidelines, I don't believe there's anything in the guidelines that covers this exact topic, if there were you would have quoted them already. The guidelines only specify that the ratings template is to be "an overview of the critical reception of the album" but as I've already said several times, multiple virtually identical reviews from the same critic do not constitute an overview. It's just one man's opinion, and one man's opinion is not an overview by any stretch, no matter how many times we get to read it. SolarFlash (talk) 00:38, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

August release
The August 1971 release is supported by the 1994 book The Great Rock Discography. That book is immune to the Woozle effect because it was printed before Wikipedia, and is considered more reliable than modern digital sources.

The very first version of this Wikipedia page was posted in March 2003, and it said August 1971. In June 2005, an IP editor changed August to July without any supporting source. A year later, some dude named added "21" to make July 21, 1971, without a supporting source. So the page has been wrong for that length of time.

The Woozle effect is proved by AllMusic who said August 1971 up until the second half of 2016 when they changed it to July 21. So AllMusic is shown to contradict itself, and is shown to be unreliable in this case. See WP:CONTEXTMATTERS.

Note that RIAA also says August 1971. (Don't put too much trust in the August 1 specific day, which was a Sunday that year, a day when nobody releases albums.)

So let's not go down the rabbit hole of false dates, and stick with books printed before Wikipedia. Binksternet (talk) 17:01, 26 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Most sources have July 21 as the release date - I doubt that all of them have copied a random date entered on Wikipedia by a troll. It is not uncommon for an album to have different release dates in different parts of the world. I suspect that what has happened here is that it was released in the US on July 21st as the band were on tour in the US at the time, and released on August 6th in the UK.

Well, if we look at chart data for Billboard, the Master of Reality LP entered the US charts on 4 September 1971, which would mean it took the album a whopping six weeks to even enter the charts. For a band that had its previous album (Paranoid) hit No. 12 in March 1971, that is very unlikely. Looking at the 4 Sept debut date, it is more likely the LP was released in the US some 2 weeks later after its UK release, and certainly not before

Release date content dispute
Edit warring isn't okay. It's time to discuss the disagreement and try to work things out. If you're unable to come to consensus or find a policy-based compromise about what the article should say, please seek out dispute resolution help. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 04:26, 19 July 2024 (UTC)


 * There is no discussion, as far as I'm concerned. I added a link to an tiny article from a UK-based Music magazine from the times, which clearly states the LP will be released on 6 August, 1971
 * OK, so how do we know we can trust this? If we look at the Official UK charts site, the LP entered on Saturday 21 August.
 * Charts reflect the sales (and now airplay), from the previous week. They are compiled after the weekend (Monday-Tuesday), and then published on the next Saturday.
 * Which means the LP had not yet gathered enough sales on 6 and 7 August to break into the charts for the 14th edition, but plenty for the week after, the 21st.
 * And why Friday 6 August? Because Friday back in the 1970s (and early 1980s) was the default release date in that era for the UK. That's why this whole "21 July"- business (a Wednesday) doesn't make any sense, and was added with no further backing.
 * Open up any UK magazine from those days, and you'll see New albums announced for the next Friday. The BPI-site (the UK industry) does contain errors here and there, but you'll see release dates on Fridays from those years cited Ray1983a (talk) 05:35, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Got it, thank you so much for the clarification! N-Devil (talk) 08:39, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * But - I just searched for more info - please check the discussion at Discogs website:
 * "It is quite a common knowledge that most of the Vertigo inner sleeves do have the year & month printed at the bottom corner and that date/month (usually) goes hand-in-hand with the release month of the related album. Here’s a bit more info:
 * https://vertigoswirl.com/vertigouk.html"
 * "For what it's worth, I have two copies of this and both have 27 0671." N-Devil (talk) 08:48, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, forgot to attach a link to the Discogs discussion: https://www.discogs.com/release/590773-Master-Of-Reality/history#latest N-Devil (talk) 08:48, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Official Rhino YouTube channel who uploaded all of the band's music says: "Master of Reality is Black Sabbath’s third studio album, released on July 21st, 1971.": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8rj7dH5at4
 * Also, Apple Music release says "July 21, 1971" as well: https://music.apple.com/us/album/master-of-reality/785239139 N-Devil (talk) 09:38, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * well, 270671, if we translate that to 27 June 1971 is also impossible, as this was a Sunday. Now, we can be 100% sure that this does not concern the release date. So whatever those numbers mean, it can never be a release date for when the album hit the shops.
 * As for Rhino and Apple, they appeared to simply copy the date from wikipedia, without further questioning the validity of the claim. This happened to the Ozzy Osbourne- official channels as well, resulting in cases of Citogenesis here on wikipedia, where a false date was copied from here onto a site and then the site was used as source on wikipedia. Apps like Apple and Spotify are no good sources for these things Ray1983a (talk) 10:28, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Sounds legit! The only question - if possible please can you share some links with the proofs for "6 August, 1971"?
 * And maybe you have a screenshot from that UK-based Music magazine that has a proof for the release date? N-Devil (talk) 12:16, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Let me do it for them. Here's the link for August 6 date: https://images.45worlds.com/f/ab/black-sabbath-vertigo-39-ab.jpg 2804:14D:5CE3:864C:DC99:EB88:F436:8605 (talk) 13:42, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Great, thank you so much, not I beleive that Augus 6 is the correct release date! N-Devil (talk) 14:37, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Apple Music and Spotify aren't reliable sources for anything. We should trust what biographies and music magazines from that time say. Several online magazines, which are considered reliable sources, just copied the release date that has been used here on Wikipedia, which were wrong and later these same websites were used as sources for release dates here, the name of this is citogenesis. 2804:14D:5CE3:864C:DC99:EB88:F436:8605 (talk) 13:35, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Apple Music and Spotify aren't reliable sources for anything. We should trust what biographies and music magazines from that time say. Several online magazines, which are considered reliable sources, just copied the release date that has been used here on Wikipedia, which were wrong and later these same websites were used as sources for release dates here, the name of this is citogenesis. 2804:14D:5CE3:864C:DC99:EB88:F436:8605 (talk) 13:35, 19 July 2024 (UTC)