Wikipedia:Peer review/Rumours/archive1

Rumours

This peer review discussion has been closed.

A nice review against the FA criteria is much appreciated, especially comments on prose. PRB88 (T) 23:44, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: I am still suffering from Mozilla Firefox bugs which are causing access problems and generally slowing my work. However, here is the first two-thirds of my Rumours review. I'll deliver the rest as soon as I can.

• Lead
  • "it was produced by the band, Ken Caillat, and Richard Dashut,..." Suggest you rmove a slight ambiguity by changing this to: "it was produced by the band in conjunction with Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut,..."
    • DONE. Just "with".
  • "strived"? The word is "strove", but "strove to expand" sounds forced. I'd say "tried"
    • DONE. "wanted".
  • "The studio time for Rumours was marked with disquiet and hedonism..." This is odd phrasing - "disquiet and hedoism". Why not say the studio time was "marked by interpersonal strife and hedonistic behavior as..." etc
    • DONE.
  • "While the lyrics were informed by the failure of personal relationships, the compositions were moulded using acoustic and electric instruments to create a pop-influenced sound." There is no "while" here; there are two separate, unrelated factors: what influenced the lyrics, and how the musical sound was produced. Personally. I would attach the first clause to the previous sentence, to give: "The studio time for Rumours was marked by disruption and crises as all band members went through breakups; the lyrics were informed by these personal relationships failures." Then, new sentence: "The compositions were moulded using acoustic and electric instruments to create a pop-influenced sound."
    • DONE.
• Origins
  • "Following six months of non-stop touring, the McVies divorced after eight years of marriage." I'm struggling with this. Presumably the six-month touring began after July 1975 and went on until early 1976. Then the McVies divorced? I don't know how things work in the US, but in the UK a divorce takes time. The marriage would have to have broken down before the tour started, to get a divorce immediately after it finished. Was this the case? When, exactly, did they divorce? This may sound like chasing after irrelevancies, but it seems that the personal relationships in the group had a lot of baring on the making of the album, so I'd like to be clear on this.
    • DONE. Finalised them.
  • I can't work out what this means: "Buckingham and Nicks—who had joined the band before Fleetwood Mac after guitarist Bob Welch left—..." Can you clarify?
    • That's the album, not the band. That's why it's in italics.
  • "Despite any anger..." Is "any anger" the right wording? I'd say "Despite mutual hostilities..."
    • DONE. "the hostile environment".
• Studio sessions
  • First paragraph contains rather a motley collection of facts. The first three sentences follow logically. Then we have a repeat of the production information given in the lead. Then information about Buckingham's role. Then unrelated info about no live takes. Then Buckingham and McVie working together, and finally Fleetwood at his drums trying to guage his co-producers' moods. All relevant stuff, I'm sure, but it needs to be put together a bit more coherently if we are to get the feel of these studio sessions.
    • DONE.
  • Third paragraph: Buckingham's statement in the first sentence surely needs a direct citation.
    • All cite numbers cover all the preceding material up to the previous cite or the previous paragraph break. PRB88 (T) 18:32, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
  • When the concerts finished, Fleetwood Mac returned to the studio, but this time at Los Angeles venues.[2]:111 Not really a "return to the studio", more "resumed studio-based sessions". And what does the "111" signify to te reader (and later similar notations)?
    • DONE. The numbers are the pages of the books. They're part of the citation template. I didn't want to make the article cumbersome with a ref section for just three cites per book (only two).
• Promotion and release
  • What is a "shipping advance"?
    • DONE. Explained better.
  • "Rumours was released on 4 February..." Add year.
    • DONE.
  • "...the members..." Is this the band?
    • Yes. All members mentions follow the use of band in the sentence before. I didn't want to repeat same words.
  • Can you clarify? "the members encountered poor receptions from fans who were not accustomed to the new material." Yet it seems that the European tour which followed was a success. So should this be "initially encountered poor receptions..."?
    • DONE.
• Lyrics
  • "Christine McVie has pointed out that, only with hindsight, did the fact that the lyricists were extensively focusing on the various separations become apparent to the band." Dodgy punctuation and rather awkward construction/phrasing. More fluent would be "According to Christine McVie, the fact that the lyricists were extensively focusing on the various separations became apparent to the band only with hindsight."
    • DONE.
• Composition
  • "...Buckingham and producer Dashut built it up..." Built what up?
    • DONE. The demo.
  • General observation: too mant specialist terms which, though linked, make reading impossible for the less aware. Thus "a simple acoustic demo"; "shuffle"; "tack" etc. - unfamiliar language to me, I had to keep clicking on links, and rather lost the thread. I know it's a problem, but maybe a little more explanatory text, as well as links, could be included.
    • DONE. I think demo should be OK to understand and is linked and mentioned previously a few times. I explained all the instrument parts with more detail.
  • "a hum choir". Was this the band themselves forming "choir", or some outside agency?
    • DONE. Band.

More follows Brianboulton (talk) 12:02, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Concluding

• Composition: "a keyboard instrument called a harpsichord," is maybe an explanation too many. Harpsichords, unlike (say) dobros, are mainstream and don't require explanatory text.
  • DONE
• Reception; commercial
  • "debut at", not "debut of"
  • "In February..." → "In February 1978..."
  • Paragraphs should not begin with numerics, so "Thirteen million...etc"
  • "13 million copies of Rumours were sold worldwide by 1980" "were" and "by" don't go together, so try "had been sold".
    • ALL DONE
• Critical
  • "attained acclaim" doesn't sound right; acclaim is earned or won, rather than "attained" which means "reached". Suggest change word.
  • "...pointed out that it "jumps right out of the speakers at you" Facts are "pointed out", not personal impressions. He "wrote that...", perhaps, or "thought that..."?
  • Could you include a date for the retrospective piece?
    • ALL DONE
• Legacy
  • I'm not sure that what follows amounts to a "legacy" (something left behind for the benefit of others). It's really just a summary of the album's continuing success. Perhaps a change of title - though don't press me for a suggestion.
    • "Something left behind for the benefit of others" = The influence and tribute album. Legacy is also the place of the album in history through lists. By definition, e.g. Is This It, Legacy is Influence and Accolades. I originally had them separate but it didn't look right so I merged them. But essentially it is the same as before. PRB88 (T) 00:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
  • "...the album contained each song of the original covered by a different act who was influenced by it." Meaning unclear, and wrong use of "who". Does it mean that each song in the original album was accompanied by a new song from some other group that had been influenced by the original?
    • DONE

Everything else looks pretty tidy. I won't be able to watch this review page; if you have a specific query arising from my review, please ping my talkpage. Brianboulton (talk) 18:15, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

• You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC.
  • Current ref 2 needs page numbers
  • Same for current ref 4

Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 16:36, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

They were in the text with the Rp template but put them in the reflist. PRB88 (T) 00:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)