Wikipedia:Peer review/Shirt (song)/archive1

Shirt (song)


This article was taken to FAC a coupla days ago, with a decision to archive because of some prose issues and a suggestion to take it to peer review. So, here we are. Once this is wrapped up I plan to take this to FAC again. Constructive comments welcome.

Courtesy ping to @SchroCat and @Aoba47 who made the recommendations.

Thanks, PSA 🏕️🪐 (please make some noise...) 01:50, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Aoba47
Thank you for the ping. Once my comments from the FAC are addressed, I will take a look through the article. Best of luck with the peer review and the future FAC. Aoba47 (talk) 02:25, 3 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your response. I will attend to this come Sunday. PSA 🏕️🪐 (please make some noise...) 02:03, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for letting me know. Take as much time as you need as there is absolutely no rush. Aoba47 (talk) 17:45, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * @Aoba47: so, I have (hopefully) addressed your concerns from the FAC, sans one - re. live performances, I don't think I can find a way to seamlessly incorporate mentions of them in the lead, plus their coverage does not comprise a significant portion of the article [compare with Kill Bill (SZA song)]. with most of those out of the way, I look forward to more of your comments.
 * Thank you for the message. Unfortunately, I cannot continue my review as I plan on taking a break from reviews for a bit. Sorry for that. Aoba47 (talk) 14:01, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Joeyquism
Marking my territory; I'm here because I was previously requested to take a look at the FAC listing. Should get to this sometime this weekend. joeyquism (talk ) 05:30, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm just gonna get this done today, as I have a busier weekend than I had anticipated. Below are some comments regarding the prose:

Lead
 * "Co-produced by Darkchild, it is an R&B song, with elements of trap music, that is backed by synthesizers and 808 beats." - Unnecessary commas around "with elements of trap music"; additionally, "that is" can be replaced with "and".
 * "with elements of trap music" is meant to be an appositive, so I have kept the commas. I have removed "that is" altogether
 * "...despite its leaving her directionless and mentally exhausted." - I get the gerundical use of "leaving" here, though wouldn't omitting "its" provide the same meaning?
 * The grammar gets wonky - technically, with the current use of punctuation, the phrase becomes a participle (not a gerund, which refers to a form of noun) that describes "lyrics", not "relationship". I have rewritten the sentence to get around this predicament.
 * "'Shirt' was a top-20 song in a few countries..." - This is mostly nitpicking, though I would substitute "in a few" for "in multiple" here. "Few" sells its performance rather short (i.e. I'm inclined to contextualize its performance negatively upon hearing "few"), compared to "multiple", which is both true and more neutral.
 * Sometimes nitpicks make sense 🤷‍♂️

Background
 * "Primarily an R&B album that deals with themes like heartbreak" - Wikilink "heartbreak" to broken heart?
 * Seems like overlinking
 * "Regarding the fan-given names, SZA had posted on Twitter two months prior to say that she was fine with having "Shirt" as a title, and she eventually picked it as the song's official name." - Do you think this would be better placed after the first sentence of the paragraph it's in, albeit with different wording (perhaps "In a tweet posted in January 2021, SZA acknowledged the fan-given names and stated...")? A chronology should be maintained in order to tell a more engaging story.
 * Fixed

Music and production
 * "It was produced by Darkchild and Freaky Rob." - Wikilink Darkchild here, as it's far enough from the lead to warrant another link. Also, would it be worth it to explain who Freaky Rob is, given that he doesn't have a wiki page? The source cited describes him as "the producer/guitarist Freaky Rob."
 * Ummmm there's already a Darkchild link in Background. furthermore, there would be no need to introduce Freaky Rob as a producer/guitarist when the sentence already says he produced the song.
 * "...many commercially successful R&B singles from the 1990s had Darkchild as a producer..." - Another nitpick, but I feel that "featured" or "listed" would be more effective than "had" here.
 * Mm, I'm good

Lyrics
 * "Aisha Harris of NPR Music argued that "Shirt" contains lyrics that best represent the themes and messages of SOS" - I feel as if "argued" is not the right word here; the use of "said" or "wrote" (or something akin to either) here would be more applicable. "Argued" suggests that there's direct contention against her statement here. Alternatively, you could switch some paragraphs here to keep this wording (particularly the first and second) or combine this paragraph with the second. Not sure if my logic is coming off coherently here, so feel free to pick my mind further or tell me off about this.
 * MOS:SAID is often right.
 * "A dark and furious tone also manifests in the song, to contrast the vulnerability critics wrote was characteristic of SZA's music." - Replace "to contrast" with "in contrast to"; also, as someone who seldom listens to lyrics (a rather shoddy fault of mine), are these characterizations of vulnerability with regards to past releases or the other songs on SOS?
 * Both. See "Sobriety" from the Z era; "Drew Barrymore", "Broken Clocks", "Normal Girl", and "20 Something" from the Ctrl era; "I Hate U", "Special", "Nobody Gets Me", "Blind" from SOS etc.

Release
 * "In a November Billboard cover story, SZA revealed the album's title as well as its release date, which was scheduled sometime next month." - The "sometime next month" part reads a bit strangely. I wouldn't say it's a violation of MOS:RELTIME, as most readers would assumedly be able to ascertain that "next month" in this case means December 2022, but "scheduled for the following month" could provide the same effect without toeing the line of compliance.
 * Changed to "scheduled for next month"

Critical reception
 * "Some appreciated its vivid lyrics; it was one of the compliments Julienne Pal Loreto from The Line of Best Fit gave the song, which they wrote made it SOS's standout track and worth the two-year wait." - Wording is a bit windy here, and there's an instance of WP:WIKIVOICE in the inclusion of the phrase "vivid lyrics". Perhaps "Some appreciated its lyrics; Julienne Pal Loreto from The Line of Best Fit complimented them as vivid, and wrote that they made it..." could be an alternative way of writing this.
 * Had my own idea of changing this
 * "Also writing about that emotional intensity" is a bit confusing; are these expansions upon points made by previously-mentioned authors? If so, this clause could be amended to be something like "Expanding upon [Author]'s points regarding the song's emotional intensity..." Additionally, I noticed that the spelling of the first name of Pitchfork Herrera differs between the citation and the prose; it should be "Isabelia".
 * Good catch w the typo . re. first point, I changed it to "Ashley Pointer for NPR Music and Isabelia Herrera for Pitchfork also wrote about the song's emotional intensity. The two believed that with 'Shirt'..."

Commercial performance
 * No major issues with prose that I could identify.

Music video
 * "directed by Dave Meyers" would probably go better in the second sentence, as the first pertains mostly to the song's music video premiere rather than the stylistic and technical aspects.
 * "Starring her and LaKeith Stanfield, the video follows the two..." - I'm not sure of the effect of "starring her", and this could be more concisely worded. This is a bit of a rough rephrasing, but could "The video follows SZA alongside LaKeith Stanfield as they..." be acceptable here?
 * "This act, in the views of CJ Thorpe-Tracey, visually conveyed what SOS was about in a nutshell." - Could be better worded as "According to CJ Thorpe-Tracey [maybe include "of The Quietus here too?], this act visually conveyed..." Also, the use of "in a nutshell" is an instance of WP:IDIOM; "overall" should suffice.
 * All should be addressed

Live performances
 * No major issues with prose that I could identify.

I hope that these comments were thorough, though I apologize if they came off as pedantic. As always, you are at liberty to reject my suggestions with justification, and are free to ask questions regarding my comments if any should arise. Hope you've had a great week so far, and I look forward to your responses here (as well as on my FAC - I hope I'm not pestering you too much about this). joeyquism (talk ) 01:39, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * @Joeyquism: replies above. don't sweat too much about seeming nitpicky; why else are we at PR, GAN, or FAC :) Elias (PSA) 🏕️🪐 | [please make some noise] 10:33, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Sorry for taking forever to get back to this. I'd say it looks much better now; I wouldn't have any further comments here. Nice work! joeyquism (talk ) 05:10, 16 July 2024 (UTC)