Wikipedia talk:Peer review/Like a Prayer (song)/archive1

TCO review comments 12JUL11
My first time reading a Wiki article on pop music. There are some good things in here. Then some to be improved. List below is in roughly article order.

Like your relatively simple sentence structure. Natural and reader friendly.

Take a look at some of your longer paras and see if you can do a natural topic break. For instance, this would read much better splitting the more music detailed stuff in the last half into an own para.


 * Biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli noted in his book Madonna: An Intimate Biography that the lyrics of the song is "a series of button-pushing anomalies."[9] With Madonna's inclusion of double entendres in the lyrics, "Like a Prayer" actually became a reference to both the spiritual/religious and the carnal. Taraborrelli felt that the song sounded religious, but there was an undertone of sexual tension.[9] This was achieved by the gospel choir, whose voice heightened the song's spiritual nature, while the rock guitar sounds kept it dark and mysterious.[9] O'Brien described as how the song's lyrics describe Madonna receiving a vocation from God. "Madonna is unashamedly her mother's daughter—kneeling alone in private devotion, contemplating God's mystery. She sings of being chosen, of having a calling."[10] Rooksby noted that the album version featured bass guitar played by Randy Jackson, while the 7" version has a much more complex intro by Pratt, doubled by an analogue Minimoog bass synthesizer. "Like a Prayer" was also remixed as a dance song by Shep Pettibone for Madonna's 1990 compilation album The Immaculate Collection.[13] According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Alfred Publishing Co. Inc, "Like a Prayer" is set in the time signature of common time, with a moderate tempo of 120 beats per minute.[14] It is composed in the key of D minor with Madonna's vocals ranging from the lower octave of A3 to the two-lined higher note of F5.[14] "Like a Prayer" follows a basic sequence of Dm–C–D–Gm–D as its chord progression in the opening chorus, and Dm–C–E–C7–B♭–F–A during the verses.[14]

Topic seems to be covered at about the right level of abstraction. Would not want it to sound more music critic-y.

Infobox looks pretty clean and effective.

General issue is that article kinda reads "long" and that a lot of the content is repeating same essential info (the sacralige angle for instance). Lead in particular, should be pruned back about 25-50%. (This is actually not "losing" any content, since everything is in article, but is just using a shorter summary.) The topic is just not so complex to need the length of the lead it has. I would try a little tightening in article as well. It will make it better...

"fellatio and orgasm." -> Cut "and orgasm". It will read stronger that way (single shock). Besides orgasm is a closely associated phenomon.

It's actually not bad, but I would think a bit about how to structure your lead. What topic is each para covering? For instance, "It became her seventh number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 in United States, while reaching the top of the charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United Kingdom, among others, and the top-five of the rest of the musical markets." fits better down at the end within a para on commercial impact or the like.

Small example "among other main musicians.": That's low value wording. Cut.

Lyrics was or lyrics were? There are also several other number disagreements further down.

"Critically appreciated, the Vatican...." The Vatican was not critically appreciated. It was the video. (dangling modifier)

Sound clip is good. How about putting it up in the Infobox? The purpose of the box is to put the most important things in a quick retrieval table at the top. So this is arguable the most important thing. Allows someone for one, to just make sure they "have the right song" right at the beginning, vice reading down.

Images: I know it is hard to illustrate pop music articles, so you are actually doing pretty well with the concert photos and all. Some suggestions:


 * All the concert shots should be at least 50% wider. You are displaying some of them in "upright" which is even smaller than the already small wiki "thumb" default. Think how small Madonna's face is in those shots! You have plenty of text to wrap and can easily accomodate larger images. The uprights should become thumbs and thumbs become 275px. The one decent shot is the one of the fellow where it is mostly his face (leave that as sized).


 * Maybe if there are some other iconic images from the video (donno video, but like a cruet or that incense-thingie), you could add them. Obviously not exact same one, but to show reader some cool-looking things that may be strange to him. You do have the stigmata, but it is rather complicated image and caption. (maybe make it bigger at least).


 * Just throwing out an idea, but is there some way you could add a table or graph of some sort in article? Perhaps a line chart of how it did week by week in the US top 40. Or something on $$ earned? It's just nice to have different sorts of visuals and you have a lot of photos, so a graph might be nice diversity.

Use of wikilinks is pretty good. Did not feel like I was getting too many blue speedbumps.

I think "black" rather than "Black" is a little smoother (I know there are different opinions on it and not making any political point...just it will look more normal).

"mauve chiffon midriff" is a bit much. ;-)

Suggest Music video header be renamed Music videos or just Videos. After reading through, I understand why Pepsi commercial is covered in same section...but it was confusing at first. Adding an "s" will make it go over easier.

The video plot summary, from ref 64, has a lot of interpretation (her feelings aroused, etc.) of the plot. I think a more "just the facts" summary would be better. First, I think it's obvious that Madonna was being a tease and trying to be ambiguous. Second, we kinda cover these interpretation type things anway in rest of article. Not sure how you handle this source-wise, but please consider the point.

I would maybe include just a tad more of the view from the people who were against the song. (I am fine with it by the way.) I just think it will help your article have a little more dramatic tension. Not really that much more content, but maybe find a quote or something to add to a box. Article can stay pretty positive, but it will even make the thing more interesting. Also than if anyone accuses you of being too pro-Madonna, it's covered.

Firs blockquote is too similar to boxed quote. I would probably cut the boxed one, but one or the other.

One of the external links is not working.

Sources look good although I am not an expert.

Tables look fine.

The double column for the long See also list seems like a good device although you could also just scrap the whole section (it's not really something reader will want to follow onto. They should link you...no reason you should link them.)

I did not do a detailed copyedit. Overall pretty good, but was finding a few little mistakes. Think before FAC, needs a detailed line by line copyedit.