Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Archive 26

Record label standards
Why is the notability standards for record labels covered under WP:CORP instead of WP:MUSIC? I was recently involved in a deletion discussion about a Christian subsidiary for one of the major U.S. record labels which shocked me that someone would nominate for deletion using CORP or WP:GNG. It's very difficult to find sources for some subsidiaries like this one, especially in Christian genres. All of its artists were notable to very notable, many records charting on Billboard, Grammy awards, etc. Seems to me to be a topic worthy of discussion if I'm not treading on a perennial topic.  Royal broil  02:26, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:MUSIC is currently under review by several editors. This question could certainly be raised as part of that review.  Thanks for the heads up  --Jubilee♫ clipman  13:42, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Action Bullet
I have put this article about this glam metal or so band up for deletion. For more information, see the above band's article and Articles for deletion/Action Bullet. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 21:12, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

List of art music traditions and related category Category:Non-Western classical music genres move discussion
There is currently a move discussion going at List of art music traditions over whether it should have 'art' or 'classical' or some compromise between the two in the title. Further input is likely to be helpful in achieving consensus. See Talk:List of art music traditions. There is also a (now archived) related discussion at Categories for discussion/Log/2010 May 23. Munci (talk) 22:09, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Different font for lyrics
There's a question at Talk:O Canada regarding the use of a different font to highlight in the article the lyrics of the anthem from the surrounding prose text. I wonder if someone from here could weigh in at that discussion with their opinion. Cheers. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  17:28, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Magazine archive (Computer Music)
Hi project members. Does anyone have back issues of, or access to an archive of Computer Music magazine? We are looking to improve the referencing in the various Audio Trackers articles. Thanks, Marasmusine (talk) 12:51, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Specifically, it's the June 2007 (issue 113) that I'm after. Marasmusine (talk) 08:47, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't personally subscribe to that magazine but I do know that publishers often post their back issues online or make them available upon request. You'll probably have to pay, though, of course.  Have you contacted the publishers to see if they can help?  --Jubilee♫ clipman  13:36, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm still awaiting a reply. However, their website says that only "recent issues" back be ordered, so I'm not hopeful. Marasmusine (talk) 17:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Kitrina Podilata
This is a band article that is currently being put up for deletion. For discussion page about possible deletion, see Articles for deletion/Kitrina Podilata. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 20:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Discussion page template
is there on for this wikiproject? Talk:Mădălina Manole needs that template, and i couldnt figure out what it was.Lihaas (talk) 08:10, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * There isn't. This project is a bit like a coordination center for more specific music-related projects such as WP:ALBUMS and WP:SONGS. This project doesn't tag articles for assessment; it leaves this to the more area-specific projects. The project you want is WP:MUSICIANS, so use this tag for the talk page:  --IllaZilla (talk) 08:17, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Autumn (Dutch band)
I have requested that Autumn (Dutch band) be moved to Autumn (band). For more information, see the link in the subject line. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 19:13, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I performed the move as uncontroversial. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:54, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for doing that. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 20:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment: italic article titles
An RfC has been raised concerning the use of italics in article titles (i.e., rendering the main title in italics on the Wikipedia page). A guideline currently restricts the use of this feature to "special cases", but there is now a suggestion that it could be more widely used, wherever appropriate to the article's title. Opinions are invited at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style'''. PL290 (talk) 07:52, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Plural v. singular form when referring to a musical group
(Since Brit Eng follows a different standard on this issue than other languages, for now all edits will be confined to NON-British musical groups.)

I will be systematically going through and editing every single article that uses the plural forms of passive verbs when referring to bands. (i.e. - "The Killers are an American rock band" "The Moldy Peaches were an indie group") I'm not sure why this glaring error is something that has been used only for musical groups, but it is most assuredly incorrect. A band is asingle unit - when talking about a band, in any tense, the singular form should always be used. Were we to be talking about themembers of the band collectivelly (i.e. - "Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward are the comprising members of the band She & Him") then it would be appropriate to use the plural forms of verbs, pronouns, etc... For further clarification, take the article on the United Nations. While the UN is made of of a large number of individual countries, the organization known as theUnited Nations is one single thing. So the article (correctly) states "The United Nations Organization (UNO) or simply United Nations (UN)is an international organization..."

(For a simpler way of looking at it, try replacing this band's name with the term "this band" - "The Killers are a band..." "This band are a band..." Obviously, the singular form should be used: "This Band is a band..." "The Killers is a band..."

I hope this makes sense to anyone reading it. Obviously, there are a lot of articles out there which need this kind of editing and it will take a long time for me to do so by myself. Feel free to pitch in and make alterations anytime you see this plural/singluar error. Send any questions, comments or objections to my talk page. (This entire text will be copied verbatim into the talk page of evey band article I correct.) ocrasaroon |  blah blah blah    20:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
 * Please reconsider this. The articles for British bands use British English, in which bands are referred to as plural (as they have been since the 1950s). Please see, for example, here, under "band names". That is also long-standing consensus on Wikipedia, so please be prepared for some reversion and edit-warring. Probably better to stick with the way it is. Rodhull  andemu  20:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I am a little alarmed by this. Whilst I would not want to encourage anything that leads to edit warring,  is clearly correct, and I am surprised to see this usage endorsed by the Guardian style guide.  However, I checked a few WP articles to see for myself and was reassured to see that the first four I looked at, Michael Nyman Band, Hanover Band, Ensemble Modern and London Sinfonietta do use the singular verb.  The fifth I looked at, Piano Circus, uses both singular and plural, but then it is inconsistent in how it spells the group's name too.  I have a nasty sense of a large worm-can opening here.  Please be cautious, whichever viewpoint you adhere to!  --Deskford (talk) 21:07, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not advocating edit-warring, just predicting it, as I have vast experience of editing articles on UK bands- however, the style guide, and consensus, would appear to apply to pop groups and rock bands (etc), rather than classical music ensembles. Whilst I would agree that "the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra are" is a solecism, writing about popular music seems to adopt somewhat different standards. Rodhull  andemu  21:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I also think you will have some problems with this...as noted by Deskford many articles are not proper (lower quality ones) - but you will find that GA and FA level articles generally deal with this on a case by case biases and reword things to the reviews.Moxy (talk) 21:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Because there is a different grammatical standard for Brit bands, the original proposal above has been edited to illustrate my exemption of all English bands. However, this is really just for now - basically to avoid any undue turmoil. The bottom line is: Wikipedia should be uniform. Whether the article is talking about an international organization, the latest MTG set, an art exhibition or a musical group, we should be applying the same grammatical rules to construct the articles. So I'll be avoiding U.K. groups (and yes, that's where the majority of these discrepancies are), but in the end we'll have a different set of standards for English bands as we do for non-English bands (which is a pretty huge chunk of them) and that English standard doesn't conform to the way other mass nouns are treated and it's just a whole big mess. Hopefully, those who use British English will respect my right to alter non-brit band articles to reflect the grammatical rules of my language just as I respect their right to refer to modify their nouns on English pages however is right to them. ocrasaroon | blah blah blah    21:36, 21 July 2010 (UTC).
 * (edit conflict: written before reading Moxy's and Ocrasaroon's comments but still relevant) Perhaps we should have a WP guideline that says if a particular article is consistent one way or the other it should not be changed for the sake of one editor's point of view. In contemporary music I am often working with groups that straddle the divide between "popular" and "classical", or don't fit conveniently into either camp.  But maybe we've found a way of defining the difference.  If a group takes a plural verb it's "popular"; if it takes a singular verb it's "classical".  But, seriously, I would caution  against his proposed campaign, even though in principle I agree with him.  --Deskford (talk) 21:41, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * i also in principle think it makes sense, but see problems in implementing it...those GA and FA articles usually have some ownership issues...However i do see she has posted this to a wide audience covering most of the sub-music project. We simply have to wait and see.Moxy (talk) 22:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "her" ocrasaroon (talk) 21:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * My apologies! I originally typed "his/her" and "him/her", then thought this looked too cumbersome and decided I would take the 50/50 risk!  --Deskford (talk) 21:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I strongly caution against a systematic campaign of mass edits until a clear consensus is formed here, and reflected in the MoS. Embarking on such a widespread campaign when there is no clear consensus reflected in our guidelines will surely result in a backlash. In my experience most US & UK sources use the plural verb form when referring to a band name that is plural (ie. "The Beatles were...", "The Greencards are...", "The Kinks were...", "The Pixies are...", "The Supremes were...", "The Waterboys are...", "The Wiggles are..."). --IllaZilla (talk) 22:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Ocrasaroon is correct where "group" or band" clearly refers to a collective entity: this is clearly singular. In the case of "the Michael Nyman Band", you are talking about a band, which is singular. But when talking about "The Beatles", there are several Beatles, so "The Beatles are" plural. I do not accept that the Guardian style guide reflects a usual, accepted or distinct "British English" usage: it reflects the writer's opinion only. There is no established usage for this extremely common error, often heard on the BBC; "the government are", "the team are", "the family are" and so on. It's wrong and it should go. And while we are at it, a "rendition" means a hand-over (of a hostage, prisoner etc.). When somebody sings a song it's a "rendering". Please correct on sight. Redheylin (talk) 22:55, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And is applying plaster to a wall, or boiling down fat, "rendition" or "rendering"? This is getting like Humpty Dumpty. "Rendition", according to my OED, refers to a performance of a musical piece and has only in recent years been used for your contention in addition to its original meaning. D'oh! Rodhull  andemu  23:01, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Rendering. Rendition means surrender. I agree with you: it is sad what has happened to the Oxford. Try Chambers. Or http://www.yourdictionary.com/rendition which will tell you that the original and proper meaning is now "archaic"! Still, despite the decline of the Oxford, it's hard to believe they have got it quite as wrong as you allege, since the word was only introduced in the 17C and its original context and intent is quite clear. As for "archaic", I should not be surprised, now that the word has returned to famous use in the world of diplomacy, if there's a rethink before long on that score too.


 * I'd be obliged if you'd produce a reference for your contention that the use of plural verbs with singular collective nouns is accepted British English usage? Redheylin (talk) 04:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * PS see http://www.word-detective.com/041506.html - "The noun "rendition," which first appeared in English in the early 17th century, originally meant "the surrender of a garrison, place or thing," a bit later encompassing the surrender or forcible return of a person - "rendition" in the popular speech of the 20th century usually meant a musician's or a singer's "treatment" of a song." This is correct. And, as I say, it seems we need the word to mean what it means again. Redheylin (talk) 04:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Since this kind of reference point was being requested I thought I would bring over the following comments by Kohoutek from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rock music, where there was a parallel discussion. Most of the other points in that discussion have already pretty much been covered here.--''' SabreBD  (talk ) 10:47, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I've already posted this on Ocrasaroon's talk page but I thought that I should put it here as well. If you take a look at American_and_British_English_differences, you'll see that "The Killers are..." is correct, even in American English. If the band's name is a plural proper noun, then "were" or "are" (depending on whether they're still a functioning band I suppose) is correct, even in American English. Therefore, "The Killers are..." or "The Moldy Peaches were..." is correct and should not really be changed as far as I can see. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 12:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

←In response to Redheylin's request for a source above, how about the style guides for The Guardian (see "band names" entry) or The Times (see "collective nouns" entry). Moving on to American English, I was always under the impression that verbs took either the singular or plural form depending on the notional agreement link provided above. However, it appears that the Associated Press disagree: Their style guide apparently says that band names take the plural verb form (see "Singular/plural" entry). --JD554 (talk) 12:10, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for you trouble, but the examples given there are common plurals like "the Beatles", while collective nouns like "staff" are singular. Now, the words "group", "band" etc. are collective nouns, so it follows that a collective name like "The Spencer Davis Group" is singular. Otherwise; "Duke Ellington's Swing Orchestra ARE ONE of the most famous bands of the swing era, and another one ARE Count Basie's". QEA. There's a middle group that have a singular but not-collective title like "Manhattan Transfer", but when you could substitute "the group", then the group is "it" and it is not exactly fatiguing to resort to "the group's members ARE". Redheylin (talk) 22:39, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Just a passing comment: It appears that several editors would benefit from reading WP:PLURALS and WP:ENGVAR.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:06, 28 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that: it leads to solid authority - Fowler - for the Brit. Eng. question; " "the team is in the dressing room" (formal agreement) refers to the team as an ensemble, whilst "the team are fighting among themselves" (notional agreement) refers to the team as individuals."


 * Perfectly reasonable, but I'd point out again that the wiki goal of avoiding Engvar where possible can be achieved by taking the trouble to write "the members of the team are fighting...". Nobody has written to say that I wrote; "there's a middle group that have". Ah well. Redheylin (talk) 18:12, 28 July 2010 (UTC)


 * (responding to Redheylin's response above datestamped 22:39, 27 July 2010) The Guardian says, "Bands take a plural verb: Editors are overrated, Iron Butterfly were the loudest band of the 60s, etc." (note that Iron Butterfly is not a common plural), and The Times says, "Prefer plural use for [...] music groups and bands [...]" and doesn't give any examples. --JD554 (talk) 08:00, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Category title
Sorting through electronics-related cats I found Category:Instrument amplifiers, defined as "Articles in this category describe electronic amplifiers expressly intended for amplifying the sound of musical instruments." The category name is suspiciously close to Instrumentation amplifier, a whole different thing.

Can you confirm that the Instrument amplifiers is, indeed, the going name for what I thought are 99% guitar amplifiers? (there's Category:Guitar amplifier manufacturers and Category:Guitar amplification tubes but no Category:Guitar amplifiers).

Cheers, East of Borschov 04:18, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't have said it's the going name, no. But there are other common types than guitar amp (e.g., keyboard amp). I've never heard of any of them referred to as an "instrument amplifier", although that's a reasonably logical name. Is "going name" a criterion for categories? It seems to be a convenient (and meaningful) grouping. "Musical instrument amplification" or somesuch might be a better name, though. PL290 (talk) 07:23, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I've done a fair amount of work trying to sort out music/electronics categories, but there's plenty left to do. A number of perverse CfD decisions, along with a small number of editors who war against categorisation rules, have been the main problem, but there tends to be a linguistic/conceptual fault-line between music and electronics, naturally, and things can be much improved on the borders.


 * Guitar amps bring the most interest but there are many other kinds of amp built for music production, such as bass amps, keyboard amps - and there are also P.A. amps, mic preamps and so on, that are not "instrument" amps but are barely different. Some of these have applications outside music. Important terms like "sound reinforcement" have not been used: the categories may have been created on an ad hoc basis by enthusiasts and may not represent the most musically and electronically logical classification. If you want to discuss this field, please PM me. If you want to create new categories and move pages there you'll probably find there'll be one person who insists their pet amplifier must be classified only as an "instrument" amplifier. If you ask for a change of name at CfD, you probably will not find anyone ready to familiarise themselves with the category tree before saying and doing whatever they feel like. Redheylin (talk) 13:15, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

List of awards and nominations received by Justin Bieber
Request for comments is currently being asked for in a proposed merger of List of awards and nominations received by Justin Bieber that may be of interest to the project.Moxy (talk) 06:57, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposed merger of Infobox song and Infobox single
There is currently a TfD discussion regarding merging Infobox song and Infobox single. Members of this project may wish to contribute to the discussion, which can be found here. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:09, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Need emergency help/Kourosh Zolani
Hello everyone. I am new in Wikipedia. I was working on a musician’s article, Kourosh Zolani, as my first project when one of the editors put it up for deletion. It seems most people who are contributing to the deletion discussion do not have enough musical expertise to get involve in this topic professionally. Therefore, since the beginning of this discussion, some editors have been trying to remove or disvalue the reliability of the sources, added to the article by other editors who try to improve the article. Please help me out and weigh in this discussion as music experts. Here is the link to the version with my last edits. Here is the link to what they did to it. The time is running out. The deletion discussion will be closed today. Thank you Thomasshane (talk) 18:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Canvassing for support in AfD discussions is prohibited. It's OK to simply mention that there is an AfD taking place and that project members may be interested to contribute, but asking for support in either side of the discussion is frowned upon. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Can a user delete Iran's history of classical music and art from WP?
Hi, The same user who was highly involved in an Iranian musician, Kourosh Zolani’s AfD discussion and deleted a huge part of the comments from the opponent side on August 15 and Agust16, has nominated almost every Iranian musicians articles for deletion or speedy deletion today. Here are links to two pages of names: (page 1) and (page 2). The user is proposing to delete almost all the history of Iranian classical music from WP. This act sounds totally racial and discrimination to me. Is there any policy in Wikipedia to stop this user’s suspicious act? Thank you, Thomasshane (talk) 20:04, 18 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I can't speculate as to Beeshoney's motives, but if you feel that their deletion requests are racially motivated, rather than based on the qualities of the articles themselves, you can report the behavior to WP:ANI. If they are overly hasty in nominating pages for speedy deletion, or are nominating articles that don't meet the speedy deletion criteria, then you can warn them with Uw-hasty or Uw-csd. I'd recommend talking to Beeshoney first on their talk page, and only taking it to ANI if you can clearly establish that they are disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. Sometimes behavior like this can seem discriminatory, but isn't; they could simply be making nominations by browsing through a category (such as Category:Iranian musicians), and their nominations could be legitimate. I've certainly made some deletion nominations in that manner, which might lead to the impression that I was prejudiced against a particular topic area, when really it was just the category I happened to be flipping through at the time and it happened to have a lot of deletion-worthy articles. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your note. The issue is being discussed on WP:ANI. Unfortunately, it has not been only Iranian musicians; the user has now moved to Iranian politicians and tagged them with speedy deletes. Thomasshane (talk) 22:33, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * This does look to have been an indiscriminate spree of nominations. I'm no expert on the music of Iran, but I've removed the PROD tags from Aref Ensemble and Parviz Meshkatian as these are clearly notable.  The former had already been kept after an AfD discussion, so PROD was probably not valid anyway.  The latter gave no reason for the nomination.  Both articles would benefit from improved referencing, but that's no reason to delete them.  I suspect the same may apply to many of the others.  --Deskford (talk) 00:06, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Canadian Country charts
There is a discussion going on here regarding the removal of the Canadian Country Singles charts from articles. These chart positions seem to be utterly lacking in verification. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 19:30, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

5 things to make Wikipedia's articles about music styles better
1. Stop including somes styles in the wrong categories. (For example : Doo Wop is a Rythm and Blues style, however, in the article about Rock'n Roll, they say Doo wop is a Rock and Roll style. James Brown did a bit of Doo Wop in his begginings, are you saying James Brown did Rock and roll. I don't think so. And, Rythm and Blues is'nt a Blues style, like you say in the Blues genres article.

2. Stop inventing new styles

Arena Rock is not a style. Why do you include Arena Rock in the Rock music template if it isn't?You should concentrate yourselves on real styles instead of creating pages like that one.

3. Stop saying: According to Allmusic ...

Who said Allmusic.com was a good source? You're always taking everything Allmusic.com says for granted, like it's the best Website ever. I once gave 5 sources for the definition of Britpop. What the guy told me is : Those aren't good sources. Two of them were repeating themselves, and one of them came from a university teacher. But they were not good sources...

4. Give a definition

If you don't give the definition of a style, we won't know what it is. Stop saying things like: Jazz-rap is a jazz style that combines elements of Jazz and Hip-Hop music. You have I don't know how much articles like this. If you don't have a precise definition to give us, don't say it's a style. If you don't have any definition to give us, it means that songs you consider as Jazz-rap or Funk-rock (or many others) are only a mix of the two. For example: If Jazz-Rap doesn't have a precise definition, it means Jazz-rap songs are only a mix of Jazz and Hip-hop, because we don't know which elements of each style they took to make this new fusion style. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.130.166.221 (talk) 02:23, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. Get busy! Redheylin (talk) 23:50, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I didn't know how to respond to that anonymous post at first, but I'll just say that allmusic has been deemed a reliable source for wikipedia, and if someone invents a style, and it is proven notable enough, then it'll be on wikipedia. I have no reason to believe that wikipedia coined the term "arena rock". As for the definitions, there are whole pages on the genres, and that's all I'll say about that. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 03:07, 29 August 2010 (UTC)


 * That's only 4 things... --IllaZilla (talk) 05:35, 29 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Like Backtable said, Allmusic is a reliable source for wikipedia. It's listed under reviews sites that may be listed. Magiciandude (talk) 15:52, 29 August 2010 (UTC)