Talk:Susanna Hoffs

General
I think the "forthcoming solo album" listed in her discography could be the covers album she recorded with Matthew Sweet (Under the Covers, Vol. 1). Or does she have another one? -WordsAmp 11:40, 2 March 06 (EST)

Middle name
IMDB lists her middle name as "Lee". I haven't been able to verify this, but I still added it. "-- Madman332 18:56, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)"

Birth year
According to IMDB, NNDB, Allmusic.com, Susanna is born in 1959. However, various other sites lists her as born in 1957. A google search for "Susanna Hoffs 1959" returns the same amount of hits as "Susanna Hoffs 1957". www.anybirthday.com doesn't list her at all. I don't know where to get this verified, but I'm going with 1959 for now because at least Allmusic.com and IMDB has some credibility. "-- Madman332 18:56, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)"

It is amazing however: She likes very youthful on the 2003 promo photograph: Is it an older photograph? Or does she really looks like this in this days? On the other hand: some people can keep more fresh than others. Most peope would think of me as twenty five, although i am more than ten years older...

At least one source has Susanna Hoffs listed for a 1957 birthday. In interviews, Hoffs has given rather unconvincing, convoluted explanations for how the 1957 birthdate came into circulation. Perhaps, it's the approach of the "big 5-0" that is the reason for the lack of clarity on the birthdate. By the way, has she had a facelift?
 * According to Ancestry.com birth records, she was born in 1959. Mad Jack 07:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

That said, since Susanna is one of the most beautiful women ever to have existed, it is entirely possible that we mere mortals judge her chronological age cynically. Few people had the same problem with Sofia Loren in "The Cassandra Crossing", during the filming of which she was 103, yet still had a 24 inch waist.

Hoffs a "rhythm guitarist" inaccurate
Describing Susanna Hoffs as a "rhythm guitarist" is inaccurate. Despite playing mostly rhythm guitar she also played a few (simple) lead parts while with The Bangles. (The Bangles: Return to Bangleonia, DVD, 2007)

The term "rhythm guitarist" applied as an adjective to any person should be avoided. The term describes a "role" a guitarist might fill at any given time. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_guitar)

Rico402 (talk) 08:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Many guitarists are only comfortable in a rhythm role, even if they are able to play as a lead. However, many lead guitarists are unsuited to playing a rhythm part. It is a similar distinction to first and second violins, i.e. same instrument, different technique. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.107.183.201 (talk) 20:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Additional citations
Why and where does this article need additional citations for verification? What references does it need and how should they be added? Hyacinth (talk) 20:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Info box
I suggest removing "Height". Would any article about a MALE rock/pop musician includes his body dimensions? (Plus, we ALL get shorter as we, especially in our inter-vetebrae discs, age.) Acwilson9 (talk) 20:14, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Place of birth

 * AllMusic has "Hoffs was born in Newport Beach, California"
 * LA Times has "Newport Beach-native Susanna Hoffs"
 * ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music.. has "Susanna Hoffs (b. 17 January 1959, Newport Beach, California"
 * Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 21:49, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * We are not supposed to use the California Birth Index for the personal information of living people, but it says she was born in Los Angeles County. Newport Beach is in Orange County. Perhaps her parents moved to Newport Beach when she was an infant. Binksternet (talk) 23:15, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, the 2004 book Complete UK Hit Singles 1952-2006 says she was born in Los Angeles, the Peterson sisters also born in L.A., and bass player Annette born in Van Nuys. Of course I can see all the sources saying Newport Beach, so we have contradiction in the literature. Binksternet (talk) 23:27, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll look for some more sources. Whichever loation is used in the article text, seems like we should add a footnote about the conflicting info in sources. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 23:33, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Some more sources below very inconsistent in year of birth! BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:09, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Newport Beach
 * Brennan, Luann; McConnell, Stacy A (1998) Contemporary musicians. : profiles of the people in music (has 1957 as year of birth)
 * The New Rolling Stone encyclopedia of rock & roll (1995) (has 1957 as year of birth)
 * Cline, Camille People entertainment almanac, 1998 (1997) (has 1957 as year of birth)
 * Strong, M. C. The great alternative & indie discography (1999) (has 1957 as year of birth)
 * Q rock stars encyclopedia (1999) (has 1957 as year of birth)
 * Baker's biographical dictionary of musicians (2001) (has 1959 as year of birth!)
 * Oseary, Guy Jews who rock (2001) (has 1961 as year of birth)
 * The Guinness who's who of Indie and new wave (1995) (has 1962 as year of birth)
 * Larkin, Colin The encyclopedia of popular music (1998) (has 1962 as year of birth)

Los Angeles
 * Betts, Graham Collins complete British hit albums (2005) (has 1957 as year of birth)
 * The Rolling stone encyclopedia of rock & roll (2001) (hs 1959 as year of birth!); 2005 edition has the same.


 * I'm thinking Newport Beach is fiction, and that Hoffs grew up solely in Los Angeles. After college she returned to her parents house and answered an ad for bandmates. Vicki Peterson showed up and they rehearsed in the Hoffs parents' garage which had been converted into Susanna's bachelor pad. That garage is described as being in Brentwood which is an upscale L.A. neighborhood a little bit east of the beach city Santa Monica. The Los Angeles Times wrote that Hoffs and David Roback both grew up in Brentwood and went to the same schools. They both went to Palisades High School. There's nothing in the literature about her growing up in Newport Beach, going to schools there, having childhood friends there. There's nothing about a Newport Beach hospital being the place of birth. Binksternet (talk) 03:33, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Lead
I don't think that your recent edits to the lead of the article are in line with Manual of Style/Lead section, which states that "In Wikipedia, the lead section is an introduction to an article and a summary of its most important contents." The information that you placed in the lead could be added to the article body, but putting it in the lead doesn't seem appropriate: the one-off performances are quite incidental IMO, and we don't usually single out particular reviews in the lead. I'm minded to revert the lead back to the previous version and add some of the additional info into the body, but I'm opening the discussion here first, for you or any other interested editor to reply/comment before I go ahead. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:35, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I share your view on the matter. Binksternet (talk) 01:05, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your feedback.
 * I've pared it down as you suggested. Does this work?
 * Susanna Hoffs is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actress and author. She co-founded the musical group, The Bangles, who had multiple top-10 hits in the 1980s including Manic Monday, Walk Like an Egyptian, a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's, A Hazy Shade of Winter, In Your Room and #1 charting Eternal Flame, the latter two co-written by Hoffs.  The band released three studio albums and split in 1989.
 * She has released five solo studio albums which yielded two charting singles, the top-40 hit, My Side of the Bed and All I Want which charted in the top-100.
 * Hoffs released her debut novel, This Bird Has Flown: A Novel, (published by Little Brown) in 2023, which received favorable reviews. Universal Pictures purchased the rights to the novel for a screen adaptation.
 * Landplane123 (talk) 01:49, 24 August 2023 (UTC)Landplane123 Landplane123 (talk) 01:49, 24 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I've expanded the lead, whilst retaining the information that you added to it there. I've also added that to the body, and slightly expanded on it, e.g. to specify where some of the good reviews for her book came from in the text. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 21:40, 1 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you Landplane123 (talk) 21:07, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Recent edits
I had nominated this as a good article after doing quite a lot of work on it, but I've de-nominated as there are too many issues now.


 * You seem to have attempted to add a second, uncited, lead into the Career section, and it's all short paragraphs. You've added at least one claim that is not supported by the source cited. Solo career has been converted to almost a list rather than prose. I've not been through all the changes, but you seem to have been removing negative commentary and adding positive commentary, which would likely be in violation of Neutral point of view. I'd suggest you read the Manual of Style. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 11:02, 10 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your feedback, I really appreciate it. I will revert the list of albums back to prose.  With some of the edits, I changed the language is some instances to "mixed reviews" rather than just negative reviews as I added some positive reviews in with the negative ones.  I didn't remove any of the negative reviews, I alternated them to reflect both positive and negative reviews.
 * For the career section, would it be acceptable to move some of the more detailed content in the lead in to the career section? I didn't include all of the detailed content to the career section as I wanted to see if it would be acceptable at all to add that section.  Also, I will provide the requested citation.
 * Thank you so much for nominating this as a good article. I hope that after I make your suggested edits, you will consider nominating it again.  I'm a huge fan of Susanna's work and have really enjoyed learning so much more about her career and documenting it in her article.
 * Landplane123 (talk) 17:03, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Landplane123
 * Thanks for your reply. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 23:49, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I truly appreciate your expertise and guidance!
 * Best wishes, Landplane123 (talk) 00:13, 12 October 2023 (UTC)Landplane123

Issues with the article
Have you read Neutral point of view and Biographies of living persons?

When You're a Boy: the text previously read "The album received a negative critical reception", cited to Zeck (1995) which describes the album as " rather poorly received". You have changed this to "The album received mixed reviews" using the same source which is a misrepresentation.

The Allnighter: the text previously read "which was a commercial and critical failure" (in the lead). The body had three negative reviews cited as well as a source for text that it was commercially unsuccessful. You have changed the text to say that it "received mixed reviews". A somewhat positive comment on Hoffs's performance from the LA Times is included. That review also uses phrases such as "utterly lacking in any irreverence or insight", "woefully short on fresh ideas" and " a total snooze, a failed beach-bunny comedy that misses the perfect wave--by a mile". From the comments I've seen about the movie (including at at Rotten Tomatoes), I don't see how the reviews for the film can be described as mixed rather than poor.

Why remove Larkin's comment "The Bangles folded in 1989 partly because Susanna Hoffs was being touted as the 'star' in a previously egalitarian band. It is ironic, therefore, that her solo career failed to come close to the success enjoyed by her old band."? Admittedly it should be paraphrased but he's a significant commentator and I though this was an interesting view.

There are numerous style issues. Why have you added repetition at the start of the career section? Quotes should be in quotation marks, not italics. See MOS:QUOTATIONS (and MOS:CURLY.) Titles of publications should be in italics. (MOS:ITALICTITLE.)

I really don't have the will to go through the whole article and look for more issues. These ones just jumped out at me. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:27, 19 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I will revert the reviews and correct the quotations.
 * Landplane123 (talk) 02:47, 19 October 2023 (UTC)Landplane123


 * I agree with the views expressed by BennyOnTheLoose. Let's not make this into a puff-piece and ignore neutrality. Binksternet (talk) 03:24, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Reverted reviews and original content as well as correcting quotations.  Thank you for your feedback. Landplane123 (talk) 04:24, 19 October 2023 (UTC)Landplane123
 * Made the corrections that you suggested. Thank you for your feedback and support. It's always greatly appreciated! Landplane123 (talk) 04:31, 19 October 2023 (UTC)Landplane123

Career section
I really don't understand why there should be a summary of the career in that section, before the individual subheadings. I don't think that this level of repetition is useful for readers, or is in the spirit of WP:LEAD. In the Career section, I'd like to remove any unrepeated information fom the the text above "The Psychiatrists and the Unconscious" to the relevant sections below, and delete the rest. Any opinions? Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I agree that the redundancy added in October by is not good. Remove the heading "Career" along with the summary, and upgrade the subsections by one level.
 * We should reorganize her career chronologically, making a pre-Bangs section followed by a Bangs/Bangles section. Binksternet (talk) 17:52, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Please feel free to remove content as you see fit. Landplane123 (talk) 23:19, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the input. I'll take this as consensus to proceed. Ping me if you have any concerns. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:22, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * There are three paragraphs commented out at the moment - I think these have some info not already in the later text so will work on these later. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 01:20, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I've removed that. Placing some of the text here that I didnt go through so closely. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:41, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

In 1990, Hoffs began a solo music career and has released five studio albums. Her first solo album, When You're a Boy (1991), yielded two charting singles in the US, the Top 40 hit "My Side of the Bed", and also "Unconditional Love". Her second solo album, Susanna Hoffs (1996), includes the charting single, "All I Want". In 2014, Hoffs self-released her third solo album, Someday, on her Baroque Folk label on July 17, 2012. American Songwriter gave Someday a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars and described it as "easily and undeniably Hoffs' most definitive musical statement to date". In 2021, she released, Bright Lights, produced by Paul Bryan and features versions of songs by Nick Drake, Michael Nesmith, Richard Thompson, Pete Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger, and other canonical songwriters. The album includes "Name of the Game" featuring Aimee Mann. In 2023, Hoffs released, The Deep End, produced by Peter Asher and includes performances by musicians such as Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar, Russell Kunkel, Waddy Wachtel, and singer, Ledisi. She has toured with Don Henley, Aimee Mann, and Matthew Sweet, among others.

Notable solo performances include the Lilith Fair, the Academy Awards (duet with Randy Newman), Grammy Salute to Prince (duet with Chris Martin), and Grammy Salute to Paul Simon, among others. On Hoffs Grammy Salute to Prince performance with Martin, Entertainment Weekly wrote, "This was the night's tenderest moment and certainly one of the most still, particularly in a catalog full of uptempo delights. Hoffs and Martin intertwined their voices, stripping the sweet lament to a gorgeously elegiac place". In 2019, Hoffs inducted the Zombies into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as well as performing as part of the All the Young Dudes All-Star Jam with Queen's Brian May, the Zombies' Colin Blunstone, Rod Argent, Steven Van Zandt and, Ian Hunter.