Wikipedia:Peer review/The Pale Emperor/archive1

The Pale Emperor
I've listed this article for peer review because it was recently promoted to GA, and I believe that it currently has a decent shot of making FA. Would appreciate any advice.

Thanks, Homeostasis07 (talk) 23:40, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Since you'd like to take this to FAC, I'll review this as if it were at FAC. It might take me a couple of days to get through the review; I'll post notes below as I go. I'm doing a little copyediting as I go; please revert if I make a mess of anything.
 * I don't review a lot of album articles, so perhaps this is standard, but the international distribution details listed in the second sentence seem a bit too detailed for the lead.
 * "Produced by Manson and newcomer Tyler Bates, who met through...": suggest "who Manson met through..."
 * "and is the first release since his return in 2008 to not feature writing and performance contributions from bassist Twiggy": needs some rephrasing; first time through I assumed "his" referred to Manson.
 * "It also topped the national albums chart in Switzerland, as well as Billboard's Top Hard Rock Albums chart. It went on to peak within the top ten in fifteen other countries." Since the previous sentence mentions Billboard, this means we've mentioned Billboard, a national chart, Billboard, more national charts.  Suggest: "It topped Billboard's Top Hard Rock Albums chart, and reached number one on  the national albums chart in Switzerland, peaking within the top ten in fifteen other countries."
 * "The album is being supported": I'd add an "As of 2016" or something similar to this, since "is" won't always be true.
 * "Bates explained that, through his use of Pro Tools, he was able to": do we care about Pro Tools? How about just "Bates was able to"?
 * I'm not so sure about removing this. If I do, then the sentence wouldn't make clear how Bates was able to "manipulate the music in a way that would allow [Manson] to just keep working on it without causing delay." Homeostasis07 (talk)


 * "where he was played final cuts of nine of the album's ten tracks for the first time, with "Cupid Carries a Gun" being the final track recorded for The Pale Emperor": suggest "where Bates played final cuts of nine of the album's ten tracks for him; "Cupid Carries a Gun" was the only track not yet completed".
 * "Expanding over the album's embryonic drum programming": I don't know what this means.
 * "On February 1, Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter confirmed Manson's acting involvement in the show. Sutter went on to say that he had written a song with Shooter Jennings, which was to appear in the final season of the show and feature vocals from Manson. He also suggested that Jennings was involved in the recording of The Pale Emperor, although Jennings' work does not appear on the album."  The first and second sentences seem unnecessary; they don't have anything to do with the album, do they?  The third is a very minor point; are you sure it's worth keeping?
 * Similarly, do we need to know that a Bowie cover was recorded, not for the album, and wasn't used in a film?
 * "Lead editor Naomi Zeichner": is Zeichner one of the interviewers in The Fader? If so, I think that could be clearer; I wasn't sure what you meant here.
 * The third paragraph of the Composition and Style section has "explaining" twice in the same sentence; can you rephrase?
 * Do we need all of the long quote about Mephistopheles? I don't think there's a hard and fast line on how long a quote can be, but you might find at FAC that some reviewers consider this a little more than is needed.
 * The quote more so details the concept of the album as a whole, and isn't really just referring to that one song. I suppose it could be trimmed down a bit. A lot was made of the whole Faustian/Mephistopheles narrative during the album's promo cycle. I'll look at this (and all the following suggestions) with a fresh mind tomorrow. It's 2:15 here. Time for bed. ;) Homeostasis07 (talk)
 * I've trimmed out quite a large chunk of the quote in one of my recent edits. How does it look now? Homeostasis07 (talk) 23:18, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:31, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * "Editions of the album sold at Walmart stores in North America feature a heavily censored version of "The Devil Beneath My Feet", and all US versions of the album were manufactured using black polycarbonate discs": the two sentences you combine here seem completely unrelated. Wouldn't the second half of this combine better with the following sentence?
 * "performing "Third Day of a Seven Day Binge" and "Ava Adore" with the band": I can't tell which band is being referred to -- Marilyn Manson or Smashing Pumpkins.
 * "it was released on streaming site Genius eight days ahead of its official release in the US": suggest giving the date, to avoid the reader having to look elsewhere in the article to get the official date in order to figure it out.
 * "and were also confirmed to perform at several music festivals throughout the year": by now they've either performed or haven't, so I'd drop "confirmed".
 * Why do we care about the return of Jimmy Chamberlin to the Smashing Pumpkins?
 * "The tour will see the two bands performing dates...": this sort of language ages very quickly; if you can't find a way to say it that won't be in the wrong tense in a couple of months, I'd suggest adding an "as of August 2016" and giving the current status.
 * The critical reception section has some structure which is nice to see. You might take a look at an essay I wrote recently about these sections, and see if it's helpful; feel free to ignore it of course.  I think more improvement is possible here.
 * I don't know what "pure" album sales are. Can we get a link, or an explanatory footnote?
 * "sixth title in a row to reach the region": what region are you referring to? If you mean it was the sixth in a row to reach the top ten, I don't think this phrasing works.
 * "debuted and peaked at number one": if you say it's at number one, you don't need to say it peaked.


 * Thanks for taking the time to do this, I've started to make your suggested changes to the article now, and I've read your essay regarding critical reception sections. That was the section I was most concerned about. I made some changes there during the GA review - mainly Quotefarm related - but the section still felt a little lacking to me. Your essay has some great tips, and will come in handy when I try to rework that section later (might take a couple of days). Thanks a lot for your help.

-- Homeostasis07 (talk) 00:10, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No hurry; I have this page and the article watchlisted, so I'll keep an eye open. Drop a note here when you've made a pass through and I'll take another look. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 00:18, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi Mike. I've gone through the entire article (save the Critical reception section - will take a while re-work that). Thanks. Homeostasis07 (talk) 22:36, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I looked at your edits, and most of my concerns are dealt with. I'll take another look when you've had a chance to rework the remaining section. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 02:23, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I've taken a first pass at the Critical reception section. I'm still not happy with the second and last paragraphs, but what do you think of the rest? Homeostasis07 (talk) 14:03, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Definitely improved. For the Music Feeds and Loudwire sentences, what do you think of this rewrite: 'The Pale Emperor was featured in Loudwire as the "Editors' Pick" for the month of January 2015.  Both Loudwire and Music Feeds considered the entire album a success; reviewers commented that "like 1996's Antichrist Superstar, it works best when listened to as a whole", and that the album was a "satisfying listening experience from top to bottom".'  I don't think we need those reviewer names, do we? Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 14:38, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Done. ;) Any advice for that second paragraph? I'm sure there'd be a way of reworking that sentence about the Otago Daily Times review to enable us to remove the quote altogether, but I'm having a bit of a brain fart trying to think how that could be done. Homeostasis07 (talk) 18:15, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll try and take a look in the next couple of days; might be a bit busy till Friday. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:33, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I've actually removed the quote altogether (per your comment below), so you don't need to anymore. ;) Homeostasis07 (talk) 23:18, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I just read through the reception section again and here are a couple more points that occurred to me. -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:35, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Paragraphs three, four and five all start with an "also"; I don't think they're needed.
 * I'd drop the stars awarded from the second paragraph; you have them in the table at the right.
 * Some of the reviewers don't seem notable enough to mention inline; Otago Daily Times, The Buffalo News, and Houston Press are all pretty minor, surely? I don't know the online sources, but perhaps some of those are minor too.  In those cases I'd try to find ways of compressing the descriptions.  For example, maybe the last two sentences of paragraph two could start "Two reviewers compared The Pale Emperor to Mechanical Animals..."
 * I've removed all bar one of those "also"'s (I think the opening sentence for paragraph three flows better with it still there). The stars in the first paragraph are for Stereoboard, which isn't in the table (maybe you're confusing it with Slant?). And I've removed the link to Otago Daily Times, but I'm not sure about removing The Buffalo News and Houston Press, as they seem like they'd be considered notable enough. The former is one of the highest circulated broadsheets in America, while the latter has a bunch of Pulitzer's to its name. Homeostasis07 (talk) 23:18, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was confused on the stars; sorry about that. Up to you on the source names -- my feeling is that it's worth mentioning the source inline when the reader learns something from it.  When quoting academic commentary I think it's usually worth it because the academic has a body of work that the reader may want to know about.  For this sort of thing I think it's worth giving the names of sources if a knowledgeable reader of this sort of article would recognize them and understand their importance.  As an ex-UK reader of music magazines, I would say it's worth mentioning NME and Melody Maker reviews inline if you have them, because readers would understand their position in the industry.  For different genres there are probably different sources in that position.  I'm not familiar enough with Marilyn Manson or modern rock journalism to know if these sources hold that sort of position, so it's an editorial judgement call.  Removing them typically makes it easier to edit the commentary paragraphs for flow.  And of course the source is still in the references at the end of the article, so if the reader is interested they can still see it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:22, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * So include stuff like Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Revolver? They'd be the sort of high-profile publications that hard rock bands like Marilyn Manson would find themselves being discussed in. Problem is, I've never been able to find the Classic Rock and Revolver reviews online; and Metal Hammers' review used to be in the prose, with the quote: "America's one-time chief villain's best [album] for a decade", which wouldn't really add anything to the article as it is now. Aside from those, I can't really think of any obvious publications that are missing from the article. AllMusic, Drowned in Sound, Kerrang!, Loudwire, NME, Rolling Stone, Yahoo! Music - all the biggies/hard rock ones are there. Homeostasis07 (talk) 18:20, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not knowledgeable about these sources so I'll trust your judgement on which ones are worth naming inline.
 * I think this is ready to nominate at FAC. If you do, I'll read through it again in case I missed anything, but I think you're pretty much there. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 20:39, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I've managed to find a scan of the Revolver review on a fansite. It didn't say much that isn't already included elsewhere on the article, but I thought it best to include it in the prose as a notable publication (arguably the biggest hard rock magazine on the planet - with 150k regularly subscribers, compared with everyone else's 50k). Thanks again for all your time and effort. It's been very much appreciated. Homeostasis07 (talk) 20:27, 5 September 2016 (UTC)