Talk:Relapse (Eminem album)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: MuZemike (talk · contribs) 18:40, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Lead issues

• ...by American rapper Eminem, released May 15, 2009, on Interscope Records. → Should be ...by American rapper Eminem and was released on May 15, 2009,... Shouldn't the last part be by Interscope Records instead of on Interscope Records, as the record company has officially released it? (I mean, I don't know much about record company terminology, but I've never seen on <record company> before).
• It is his first album of original material since Encore (2004),... → He released it in 2009, so it should be It was....
• ...due to his addiction to sleeping pills and issues with writer's block. → Eminem also has an addiction to issues with writer's block? (That's what it reads like.) Please tweak that.
• ...and production was handled primarily by Dr. Dre, Mark Batson, and Eminem. → You can easily make that into active voice instead of the current passive voice.
• It earned him two Grammy Awards and has sold 2.2 million copies in the United States. Worldwide the album has sold 4.5 million copies. → You can easily combine them into one sentence, i.e. ...and has sold 2.2 million copies in the United States and 4.5 million copies worldwide.

Should be fixed by now.DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 01:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

• One more thing: Why is the last sentence in the lead have citations, and why isn't that last sentence not mentioned in the article's body? (i.e. if you mention that in the article's body, then the citations aren't necessary in the lead)
  • Fixed.DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 00:35, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Prose issues

• Please go through your usages of "due to" (an adjective) and "because of" (an adverb) and make sure they are right. An incorrect usage in the article includes this example:

• However, in December 2007, he was hospitalized due to an overdose of methadone.
• However, in December 2007, he was hospitalized because of an overdose of methadone. ("because of" modifies the verb "was hospitalized", describing how he was hospitalized)

• However, Eminem entered his hiatus after cancelling the European leg of the Anger Management Tour in the summer of 2005 due to exhaustion and an addiction to sleeping pills.
• However, Eminem entered his hiatus after cancelling the European leg of the Anger Management Tour in the summer of 2005 because of exhaustion and an addiction to sleeping pills. ("because of" modifies the verb "entered", describing why he entered his hiatus)

• In the initial recording stages of Relapse, record producer and long-time Detroit collaborator Jeff Bass of the Bass Brothers worked with Eminem on 25 tracks, for two years after the rapper had received treatment for his sleeping pill addiction in 2005. → The second part of that sentence seems out of place. It sounds like Eminem's work on the 25 tracks caused his sleeping pill addiction, which I know you didn't mean. I would tweak that, preferably separating that into two sentences so that it more naturally goes into how he got into his writer's block.
• At the same time,... but end up with tracks he really liked. → It's a rather longwinded sentence and should be broken into two separate sentences that express different thoughts.
• He then continued recording the album with producer Dr. Dre, who in September 2007 stated his intention... → The prepositional phrase (in red) seems out of place, should probably be moved to a better place in the sentence.

Still not done: recording the album with producer In September 2007 Dr. Dre stated his intention.... --MuZemike 21:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

• The song-writing process would start by Dr. Dre giving a number of his beats on a CD to Eminem... → Not a very good noun + -ing there. Perhaps a way to change could be Dr. Dre would start the song-writing process by giving...
• The song was then finished in January 2009 with additional vocals from Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. → So, the song was finished with additional vocals? I would replace that prepositional phrase with another verb such as and featured additional vocals. Moreover, "then" is not needed there.

Not only is there a misspelling in your correction, but you made the sentence worse: The song was finished in January 2009 faturing vocals from Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. --MuZemike 21:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

• Despite the leak, in February 2009 the album was being completed in a state of near-total secrecy, according to the British newspaper The Independent. → Again, the date seems out of place, but so does that last part. It needs to be rearranged to make more sense.

After taking another look, that last part looks fine. --MuZemike 21:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

• ...added even Eminem's record labels were not in possession of the music at less than one month from the release date... → That's rather ugly. I would rewrite that part to sound less wordy; to say the least "in possession of" can be replaced with a single word.

bfore... --MuZemike 21:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

• On "My Mom", the rapper traces his addictive tendencies to his mother, and thus to have turned out to be a drug addict just like her. → The red part is not very good prose at all and should be changed. How about something like and shows how he became or something that makes more sense gramatically.

Good, except there is no comma between "mother" and "shows", i.e. it should be ...traces his addictive tendencies to his mother and shows... --MuZemike 21:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

• with him and Dre rapping back and forth between each other → Again with the noun + -ing and not very good pronoun usage. Change to in which he and Dre rap back and forth between each other.
• No other official statement was made for over a year,... → It looks like you're trying to say too much in that sentence. I'd split that first part of the sentence and keep the rest as-is.
• ...coincidentally on Thanksgiving in the United States. → Is this necessary to have in the article? That is, does it add anything relevant to readers about the album's release?
• the second of which was created by a deal struck with Eminem and Marvel Comics, where the rapper would pose as Marvel's main vigilante The Punisher if Marvel created an issue starring him and The Punisher in order to promote Relapse. → This is not a complete sentence (note that this whole part is proceeding a semicolon).

Still not good. After reading that snippet, it still doesn't make sense. Perhaps, ...where the rapper would pose as Marvel's main vigilante, The Punisher, if Marvel created an issue that starred him. → Basically, I eliminated a lot of redundant stuff (I think it's safe to imply that Eminem will star as The Punisher, and that he would be featured to promote the album.) to make it a little more concise. --MuZemike 21:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

• ...but none were good enough therefore he dedicates the whole album to him. → It reads like either there is some missing punctuation or missing words. Please fix this.

Still not fixed: ...didn't found one of them good enough therefore he dedicates the whole album to him. → First off, "found" is not the proper past-tense verb to use. Second, you don't use "therefore" in this fashion. Third, you're going from past-tense at the beginning of the snippet (didn't) to present tense at the end (dedicates). Almost everything in that snippet is grammatically incorrect. --MuZemike 21:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

• Relapse had sold more than two million copies in the US. → The previous sentence said that it sold 1,986,000 copies as of June 2010. At what point did it break 2 million? Please clarify.
• Upon its release, the album received mixed reviews from most music critics, based on an aggregate score of 59 based on 27 reviews from Metacritic. → I don't think the album's score on Metacritic means that the album got mixed reviews; I would rather see that second part of the sentence removed.
• It doesn't seem like there is much coherence in the "Critical response" section; the first two paragraphs contain both positive and negative reviews. I would think it would make more sense to dedicate one paragraph to positive reviews and another to negative reviews so that the reader is not forced to jump back and forth on perceptions.

Shoulb be fixed so far.DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 12:03, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

• One more thing I just noticed in the very last sentence in the article: He expresses further criticism of the album... → If he said it in the past, then it should be expressed.

MoS issues

• You have two references (one that says MTVMay19 and the other that says recovery) that are broken and need to be fixed.
• Please consistently format your citations. Some use the {{cite xxx}} template, while others don't.

Still not fixed. Refs 1, 40, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 69 (still dead), 70, 83 (still dead), 96, 97, 99, 106, 107, 108, 111, 113, 126, 127, 132, 144, 148, 161 still do not use any template of any kind. --MuZemike 22:07, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Fixed.DasallmächtigeJ (talk) 00:54, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

• Please consistently format your dates in all of your citations. Some of them are YYYY-MM-DD, while others are fully-spelled out. Use only one style in the citations and stick with that.
• Ref #79: Please fix the "author" and "date" fields.
• Refs #80 and #95: Please place the date in the "date" field (I looked at the sources; they are there).

Verifiability issues

• Deadlinks found (I count 22 deadlinks total): refs #73, #92, #93, #94, #95, #98, #138, #157, #19
• Ref #9 from XXL: There is no article titled "Vengeance is Eminem" when clicking on the URL; I get "Eminem Speaks On Drugs, The Death Of Proof & Praises T.I. & Lil Wayne On New XXL Cover". Did you accidentally use the wrong URL, put the wrong citation in there, or what?
• Refs #68 and #69 from iTunes: Accessing them (at least on my part) is only possible through having iTunes, which not everybody has. However, I have found this online from itunes.apple.com, but I see slightly different information on the release date and nothing on availability. This should be rectified.
• Ref #83 is dead; there are mirrors of the list out there, but personally I find it hard to believe that Wired News would completely delete that article from its own site.
• Ref #87 is no longer accessible, but you can easily do a search and find press releases of that announcement that was on his website.
• Ref #155 is no longer accessible, though you may still be able to find it on the site somewhere.
• Ref #166 is not the correct reference that the URL gives.
• Refs #156 and #159 (the latter is recorded as a deadlink) are virtually the same source but in different languages, probably the same release from Universal Music Group.
• Ref #39 has apparently been made private by the YouTube account (likely a copyvio link anyways). I tried to search for the same video online on the web, and I get lots of hits of an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Is this that video?
• Refs #19 and #21 are dead, but you can access certain articles (all of which are behind paywalls, now) at http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/freep/advancedsearch.html, as the Detroit Free Press has hidden all their archived material behind paywalls (kind of contradicts the same of their newspaper IMO). However, I looked at the archive list, and while I find articles on the dates those two citations give, I see different articles about Eminem, i.e. different article titles.

Conclusions

In progress. –MuZemike 18:40, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Apologies for not making any progress on the review so far. I have placed some more prose issues that I have seen in the rest of the article; I'll hopefully go through MoS and verifiability later on. –MuZemike 20:18, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

On hold – Mainly the prose and the verifiability issues above need to be addressed. I went through the content, and most of the stuff I could verify (AGFing on the print-only sources and the one radio interview from Shade 45), except obviously the stuff I noted above. I'll give the standard 1 week to work on them; I'll have this page and the article watchlisted in the meantime, and I'll strike those issues that have been resolved. --MuZemike 05:53, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Failed – I'm sorry, I think I've given enough time on this to allow for improvements to the issues above, which has not happened. Please look at the issues above, fix the verifiability and linking issues as well as the prose and formatting, and feel free to re-nominate when they have all been addressed. --MuZemike 21:57, 31 December 2011 (UTC)