Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London (heavy metal band)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: consensus is keep for the band article to be retained, and no consensus regarding the three album articles. This closure will be properly reflected on the respective article talk pages with the Old AfD multi template, denoting a keep result occurrent for the band article and no consensus for the album articles. Furthermore, there is no prejudice against speedy renomination for the album articles. North America1000 07:23, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

London (heavy metal band)

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Poorly referenced article about a band, whose only properly verifiable claim of notability is the number of albums they released. But there are no properly footnoted reliable source references here at all, and instead there's just a contextless linkfarm of external links to primary sources and Q&A interviews in which band members are talking about themselves. These are not notability-supporting sources for the purposes of properly referencing a WP:NMUSIC pass, but all I can find anywhere else is a short biographical blurb on AllMusic, which isn't very substantive and fails to verify large chunks of this article's content — so it certainly gets them off the starting blocks, but isn't enough to get them past the finish line all by itself as the only valid source in play. I'm also bundling their three albums, as none of them has a strong enough notability claim to survive WP:NALBUMS even if the band fails NMUSIC. And for an example of the reason why much better referencing than this is required, consider that the infobox, the "band members" section of the article body and the navbox are making three wildly different and sometimes contradictory sets of claims about who is or was ever actually a member of the band in the first place — so we would need much stronger verification of who is or was really a band member, as opposed to merely a guest or session musician, before we could deem them as passing NMUSIC #6 for having two or more independently notable members. As always, NMUSIC does not exempt a band from having to have reliable source coverage just because of what the article says — passing NMUSIC also depends on how well the article references what it says, but none of the "references" here are cutting it at all and I can't find nearly enough better ones. Bearcat (talk) 17:47, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Bands and musicians-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 19:23, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 19:23, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Albums and songs-related deletion discussions. ---  DOOMSDAYER 520 (Talk&#124;Contribs) 14:35, 12 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep. Six notable members satisfies WP:NMUSIC criterion 6, album releases satisfy criterion 5, and there's enough coverage in books such as Thierry Aznar's Hard rock & Heavy metal : 40 années de purgatoire Tome 2, Martin Popoff's The Big Book of Hair Metal, plus the Allmusic coverage, and, The Guardian, LA Weekly, etc. to satisfy criterion 1 and the GNG. --Michig (talk) 08:29, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
 * GNG, as always, does not just uncritically accept every source that exists, but still evaluates the range, depth and quality of a source before it counts. The new links you've provided are (1) an unbylined piece, which reads suspiciously more like a press release from the band's management company than it does like journalism, on an unreliable source, (2) a short blurb in a listicle, in which everything it says about the band is a direct quote from the band leader himself, and (3) local coverage in the local alt-weekly — and The Big Book of Hair Metal just briefly namechecks their existence a couple of times while failing to have any substantive content about them at all, while the sole appearance of the word "London" anywhere in Hard rock & Heavy metal : 40 années de purgatoire Tome 2 is "London Boys" as a Johnny Thunders song title, not a mention of any glam rock band from Los Angeles. That doesn't add up to a GNG pass. As for the "six notable members", one of those six (Chris Sanders) is up for deletion as not being genuinely notable at all, and we still don't have satisfactory reliable source verification that four of the other five were ever really band members at all — the only source which actually says anything at all about any of those four is the one that just soundbites the current bandleader's own self-published claims without fact-checking them, even the AllMusic profile still doesn't mention most of them at all, and none of them actually appear on even one of the band's albums. So no, we still don't have adequate verification of "notable band members" for the purposes of criterion 6 — we merely have unverified claims that this band had a revolving door of notable members doing very brief stints in the band before they had ever accomplished anything that would pass any other NMUSIC criterion. Lizzie Grey remains the only member whose role in the band is properly verified as substantive. Which still leaves us with just "the number of albums they released" — and even that criterion requires reliable source coverage, such as album reviews, about the albums, and is not automatically passed just because two or more album titles have been listed. Even the AllMusic profile, which is still the only GNG-worthy source that has been found here so far, fails to verify two of the three albums — it includes only Non-Stop Rock in the band's discography, not either of the other two. Bearcat (talk) 16:01, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Here's the Google Books results for London in Aznar's book: . Clearly not just a mention of an unrelated Johnny Thunders song. Non-Stop Rock was released on Roadrunner Records, Playa Del Rock was released on Noise International, and The Metal Years was released on Cleopatra Records imprint Deadline - these are easily verifiable, and are sufficient to satisfy WP:NMUSIC. Regarding the members, the Aznar book confirms the membership of Lizzie Grey, Izzy Stradlin (as does this), Nikki Six, and even Slash. Here's an article from Spin confirming that members included Blackie Lawless, Fred Coury, Nikki Six, Izzy Stradlin, Slash, and Steve Adler. Here's another book source. --Michig (talk) 17:02, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The "number of albums" test still requires album reviews in real reliable sources, not just technical primary source verification of album existence. And even if you can verify the membership of notable musicians better than the article had verified them at the time, the fact still remains that all but Grey were already out of the band again by the time they ever actually accomplished anything — which makes their membership trivia, not substantive evidence of band notability. If a band didn't have two or more notable members while doing anything that passed any other notability criterion, then the fact that people who weren't yet notable at the time, but subsequently became notable for other reasons afterward, did brief stints in the band early in their careers but were already gone by the time the band accomplished anything at all, is not convincing evidence of the band's notability. Bearcat (talk) 17:12, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * We need to be able to verify that one or more criteria of a notability guideline is met, nothing more. --Michig (talk) 17:15, 12 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep the Band - I have great respect for the nominator, but his rationale in the nomination and previous comments shows undue dismissal of the WP:NEXIST and WP:NOTCLEANUP standards. The current article is indeed a sloppy unverified mess and it even has some internal contradictions. But those are reasons to improve, not delete. London is well-known in the metal world, because even though they accomplished little under their own name, they were an early stop for several musicians who became more famous in other bands later. They have attracted plenty of mainstream coverage for that reason, as a historical item, and that bestows notability just as much as number of albums and the other things being argued above. Michig has delivered plenty of reliable and significant sources to indicate the band's historical importance. Here are some more:, , , , . They were also profiled quite prominently in the film The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, as can be verified in many reliable sources that discuss the film or several of the sources about the band that have already been linked by Michig and myself. ---  DOOMSDAYER 520 (Talk&#124;Contribs) 18:51, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Wait on the Albums - Meanwhile I am undecided on the albums that have been included in the nomination, and recommend that those AfDs be split out and considered separately. I have found reviews for each of them, but whether those are reliable/significant should be the topic of separate discussions. ---  DOOMSDAYER 520 (Talk&#124;Contribs) 18:54, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep the band: plenty of sources mentioned by the two editors above. Nikki Sixx talks in the Motley Crue autobiography The Dirt about forming London with Lizzie Grey, Dane Rage and Nigel Benjamin after he and Grey had been kicked out of Sister. The albums are another matter and should be considered separately. Richard3120 (talk) 19:07, 12 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.