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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 9 March 2019 [1].

Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies edit

Nominator(s): Dan56 (talk) 13:43, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a 1981 music reference book by pioneering rock critic Robert Christgau, collecting his capsule album reviews from his "Consumer Guide" column in The Village Voice during the 1970s. It was influential as a source for popular music studies at a time when academia largely ignored the field and as a guide among fellow critics, record dealers, and consumers during the rock-era. It is the first in a three-volume series of "Consumer Guide" collections by Christgau and has been appraised in retrospect as a top work in popular music literature. This article's good article assessment found it to be "virtually FA quality"; I have added some content offering insight into the book's creation and paraphrased some quotes in one section to improve it since then. Dan56 (talk) 13:43, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Image review edit

Let me know on the one point above. Thanks. Kees08 (Talk) 06:03, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, agree. I have changed the description. Dan56 (talk) 06:15, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, image review is complete and the article has passed it (I never know how to phrase this...). Kees08 (Talk) 07:01, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support from BLZ edit

Comments from BLZ
I was the GA reviewer. I have been making copyedits to the text since the FA nomination opened, with rationales provided in the edits. Some of these have been rolled back, and from Dan56's rationales it looks like most of his reversions were for good reason. A few points on where we've differed so far:
  • Regarding "See also": the 80s and 90s review anthologies are very closely related to this book, and for a "skimmer" who wants to surf from this article to one of the other books, it may not be obvious where those other books would be discussed/linked within this article. I often find myself jumping to the bottom of an article to find related articles in a template or otherwise. That said, I think this could be cured by creating a Christgau navbox. It's not unprecedented for a well-published cultural critic to have their own template (there's Template:SiskelandEbert and Template:Pauline Kael) and regardless, the presence of a template is for navigational purposes, not relative levels of notability or "importance". I've mocked up a potential Christgau template at my sandbox, let me know what you think.
    • Good work Looks good. I would much prefer the template than repeating the book links. Dan56 (talk) 05:08, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also on "See also": I understand why you included "Music criticism" now, but the difference between the subject matter of "Music criticism" and "Music journalism" is not obvious at a glance. (For those reading this nomination who are not familiar: "Music criticism" is about refined musical/aesthetic criticism of classic music, while "Music journalism" is about mass-media journalism and criticism about popular music since the late 1960s.) Someone would have to be highly attentive to understand that "Music criticism" is referring to the pre-Christgau/pre-rock era of music writing, while "Music journalism" refers also to criticism in the rock era onward. Potential solution: include a bullet point in "See also" for both "Music criticism and music journalism". That would provide a direct opportunity for a reader to distinguish those topics and detect the differences side-by-side, and presenting them this way would benefit the reader's understanding of both topics.
  • Regarding the wording of the paragraph on Christgau's marital difficulties at the time of writing. I've explained the reason for my changes further in two subsequent edits. Dan56, if you read my latest edit summaries on those changes and still object, let me know here. —BLZ · talk 23:50, 2 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I take some, but not all, of your points. I would still recommend in-text attribution of the source of Christgau's statement, some indication that the praise of Dibbell was from his later memoir. Your concern is that citing the title of another book detracts from the paragraph's focus on this book; my concern is that the wording "later said" is vague and context-free. The current wording fails to establish the relevance or context of Christgau's remarks, which I feel detracts from the focus of the paragraph. A reader doesn't know in what context he said it (his own writing, an interview, or something else), how much later it was said (was this said just afterward, while promoting the book?), etc. These contextual cues aren't just details: they alter the meaning and impact of what was said. The fact that he wrote that statement much later in a memoir—i.e., a serious summation and retelling of his life—contributes to the weight of those remarks. I don't think this missing context is "obvious" to readers with just the wording "later said".
  • How does identifying the source of the quotation as the memoir change the meaning of the quotation? Dan56 (talk) 20:22, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Another point here is that Going Into the City is conspicuously missing as a source. Unfortunately, all relevant pages are omitted from Google Books Preview. Amazon's preview (here) contains some relevant passages, but omits other pages that seem likely to contain useful info; from what I can tell, at least pp. 332–340 cover the period of writing the Record Guide, but more than half of those pages are missing. To be sure, a lot of the previewed text is strictly about his relationship with Dibbell, and so I imagine the omitted pages are largely the same, but there is still plenty of relevant and noteworthy information about his work on the book itself. He says on on p. 333, "As I revved up to a ninety-hour week things got grimmer" in his relationship with Dibbell. The detail that he was working a 90-hour week is worth mentioning, and that sentence also further ties his insane work methods at the time of writing to his marital dysfunction. There are more good details on p. 333, such as his estimate that his previously published capsule reviews represented only "two-thirds" of the writing that would need to be done for a book "that would properly represent the decade", with "hundreds of records to find out about, hundreds to find, hundreds to re-review, hundreds to touch up." This reinforces info that's already present in the article, but with added details about the extent of the work that had to be done. We also learn most of it was written in a boathouse, a "working vacation" shared with Dibbell. On p. 339, we learn the manuscript for the book was delivered to the publisher several weeks late, and the page ends with "Carola moved back in September, and when the book was done we"—cutting off mid-sentence, but suggesting there is further information omitted from the preview. I imagine the omitted pages after p. 339 could contain some useful info about the release, sales, and/or general reception to the book; the omitted pages before p. 339 probably contain other useful info about the writing process and relationship with the publisher.
If it's at all possible, I'd recommend getting a copy of Going Into the City to use what's on the missing pages. Here's the book on WorldCat to check if it's at a library near you. I may go into the city (San Francisco) myself later this week, so I could stop by the SF Public Library (the nearest non-university library with a copy of the book) and scan the pages if that's more convenient for you. —BLZ · talk 19:59, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. I'll see about adding what's available online when I have time. In which case, the memoir may warrant in-text mention with several quotes being taken from it here. But I will check if the quotes you are mentioning tie directly to this book's preparation; "insane work methods" simply being "at the time of writing" this book, that also happened to affect "his marital dysfunction", are off-topic and would appear to give more insight into his personal life than the book; better allocated to his article. Dan56 (talk) 20:43, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the underlying issue is about organization. The section that currently holds this paragraph is "Content and scope" and it's about, well, the book's content and scope, not about the process of the book's writing. But as I see it, that paragraph is mostly about the writing process, and there's plenty more to say about the process, including stuff that has little or nothing to do with Xgau's relationship with Dibbell. It's true that the dedication is part of the content, but rather than shoehorn the paragraph into the "Content" section using the dedication as a hook, it'd be more interesting and logical to talk about the process somewhere else. Based on a quick look at other FA book and novel articles, it looks like the process of writing the book is usually included with the "Background" section (or, less frequently, included in its own section titled something like "Composition", "Construction", "Creation", which sometimes also covers the publication history). I think it would make sense to move the paragraph to the "Background" section and to add about a paragraph's worth of other content about the writing process, maybe more if warranted by other info to be gleaned from a complete copy of GITC.
By the way, there are many details from the same section that I didn't highlight because they are strictly personal and don't merit mention (either here or in Xgau's own article), such as who the affair it was with, the fact that they underwent counseling, etc. But the details I mentioned above are about the writing of the Record Guide. I don't see how a 90-hour work week that almost ended his marriage, undertaken solely to write the book, is off-topic to the book! People frequently comment on the fact that Xgau's CG consumes a ludicrous amount of time, attention, and effort compared to most album reviewers who review a fraction of the content he listens to. Going further in-depth into his process for writing this book speaks to the unusual amount of effort and difficulty it takes for one person working alone to make a reasonably comprehensive album guide, especially on their first attempt, and especially at a time when the music reference genre was in a nascent stage. —BLZ · talk 21:59, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
So him preparing for the 90-hour work week was for the book? What is the exact quote mentioning the book? I was unable to locate a mention of the book near the quoted portion ("ninety-hour work week") on Amazon. Dan56 (talk) 22:26, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a screenshot of what I see. The phrasing was "ninety-hour week", as reflected in my verbatim quotation from the book earlier, but that would be best paraphrased as "90-hour work week". —BLZ · talk 22:35, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If you feel there may be more about the book in the omitted pages, scans of a physical copy of the memoir would be appreciated. I live outside New York City so am far from a library holding a copy, after seeing your worldcat link. Dan56 (talk) 18:15, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I should be able to find a copy tomorrow. We're at a bit of an impasse right now, but tbh it's one that arises solely from our current lack of access to GITC. We're both making our own interpretations based on a very incomplete and interrupted sample. —BLZ · talk 19:19, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • New thought: what order is the "Contemporary reception" section presented in? It's clear that it's "mostly good" reviews first, then "mostly negative" reviews later, but I don't see much rhyme or reason to the order of the mostly-good reviews. It's not strictly chronological by publication date, nor does it divvy up paragraphs based on the type of publication (a section for reviews from the general press and music press, a section for library-oriented reference book reviews, etc.) I think division by source type would probably make the most sense. It would also allow you to write some introductory generalizations based on the points of consensus within each group. —BLZ · talk 22:35, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The first paragraph deals largely with unqualified praise (only Palmer is slightly qualified), the second with more qualified praise, the rest more critical. There is transition, sometimes loosely, among the points from one critic to the next, but divvying it up along source-type lines would leave these points more scattered, and from previewing a configuration of your suggested model, the sections would appear bloated (on the side of the music press content) and awkward to read, less attractive. Dan56 (talk) 11:24, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To the extent that the gradient from most positive to least positive is a thematic thread, it's not an obvious (or especially useful) one. The only impact this actually makes in the text is the phrasing of this clause: "David Browne shared a similar sentiment in High Fidelity". By rewording that, we are left with no other explicit textual signals of this thematic organization—nor the possibility of signaling the thematic organization to the reader, since you sacrifice the possibility of introductory sentences. It would hardly work to open one paragraph with "These critics had high praise for the book" then the next with "These critics had medium praise for the book". Without introductions, the average reader is likely to be intimidated by a section that opens with two huge paragraphs and no introduction or summary of what follows. As far as thematic threads go: by choosing to intermingle the library/reference reviewers, you bury their significance, at the expense of the (quite clear and cogent) development of the book's significance as a reference work in the "Legacy" section.
I take your concerns about bloat seriously, and those concerns are actually why I went ahead and drafted out my recommendations to see if it was even workable in practice. I was initially troubled that my proposal would result in one tremendously long paragraph on the popular press, as you described. Previously, in the GA review, I'd said that the first two paragraphs of that section are already daunting and trimmable/splittable: in your draft, they both run in the range of 250–300 words, putting the article's two longest paragraphs one right after the other. Of course, putting all of the music press together would result in one paragraph running well over 300 words. I did have to take a second look and considered a few options, including splitting the grad in two. I think I found a solution, outlined below:
The lopsided bloat you're concerned about is easily cured by moving Simels's review. Palmer's and Simels's reviews were both, by far, the most extensively covered reviews; putting them in the same paragraph is not a great idea, sure. But by your own terms, Simels's praise was "qualified", and the ideas you pull from his review are quite a bit harsher than any of the other reviews in the "positive" section. So why not move Simels to the "more critical" section? His review is not entirely negative, but it's certainly "more critical" than most others. I think placing Simels first among the "more negative" section also eases the reader into the negative reviews with a mixed review. That placement also works well with the opening notes about Simels taking inspiration from Christgau, but nevertheless having some serious reservations about the book. By moving Simels, trimming Simels and Palmer, and adding introductory sentences to the first two paragraphs, my version has a first paragraph with 185 words and a second paragraph with 253 words, plus a new paragraph on Simels. —BLZ · talk 19:14, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • It looks like you moved Simels back up top—and hey, that's fine by me, too. His review makes sense in either place. I wanted to present the option to move him, but if you prefer putting him earlier I think that is fine as well. I made two other tweaks:
  • First, I added a quick description of what Year by Year in the Rock Era is—it should be pretty clear it was a history book anyway, but the little extra contextual hand-holding helps orient the reader.
  • Second, I added subsection headers to break up the "Contemporary reception" section. I wanted to split the paragraphs, but realized the reader may lose the organizational thread. Solution: headers. Splitting the paragraphs up makes the section more readable (and, by putting the Simels review at the start of a paragraph, avoids burying his in-depth insight in the middle of a long paragraph); the subsection headers prevent the problem of a massive wall of text, or feeling constrained to organize by paragraph (which just results in long paragraphs). These two changes also make it less necessary to trim from Palmer or Simels; I had been reluctant to do that in the first place, but felt it might be necessary to avoid an overlong section. Now that the grafs are more bite-size, there's more room for your full original text and no need to trim.
Generally, I think the reception section looks excellent now. I'm pivoting to the "Legacy" section. —BLZ · talk 20:55, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Some changes to the "Legacy" section so far:

  • Like the previous section, I've split it into subsections based on the general themes: "Impact on the rock canon and popular music writing" and "Retrospective acclaim". The former contains text focused on precisely what it says, the latter on the final two paragraphs of general praise for the book. I think the title of the first subsection is an adequate summary of the contents but it's maybe not as elegantly worded as it could be, so please feel free to revise.
  • I took Christgau's own self-assessment of the book's impact and moved it into its own paragraph. I felt this bit was a little lost in the mix, coming at the second-to-last sentence of a long-ish paragraph. An author's feelings about their own work's legacy and worth are worth distinguishing from assessments from third parties.
  • I also went back to the sources of the graf described above and expanded on it, adding a new sentence. I thought it was worth elaborating a little more on the changes Xgau saw in the 80s and 90s, to provide a sharper contrast with (and thus, to better define by contrast) his perceptions of the 70s and his role within that decade's canon-forming.

And one comment:

  • The "Answers from the Dean: Online Exchange with Robert Christgau" source is split into multiple pages, but across multiple URLs. This makes the quote on "p. 2" harder to access and unintuitive to find, but also completely omits an archive-url for that second page. Characterizing these as "pages" may not be quite precise, either; the second page carries the distinct title "Answers From the Dean: Online Exchange with Robert Christgau, part II". I feel like "part II" should be cited as a second source in the bibliography, using "Christgau 2002a" and "Christgau 2002b" in the footnotes rather than "p. 1" and "p. 2". Here's an archive link via webcitation.org for part II for your convenience. —BLZ · talk 21:41, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Something else I thought of earlier that I'd better jot down before I forget: there is a verified free-license image of Carola Dibbell, which would be a nice addition to the "Preparation" section. —BLZ · talk 21:46, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It would appear anachronistic; the image is 30-40 years apart from the time she is discussed in the section, and would not help readers visualize her in these events. Dan56 (talk) 15:52, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I added the 2007 photo of her; appears younger. Dan56 (talk) 00:29, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-ups: your rearrangement of the subsection headers is an improvement. Simpler and, in the case of nixing the "Negative assessments" section, more accurate. Ditto for moving the Weisbard sentence—my mistake. —BLZ · talk 22:37, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Making this comment to keep the review from getting stale: Any update on the memoir, and this review? @Brandt Luke Zorn: Dan56 (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'll be able to get ahold of the book on Tuesday. —BLZ · talk 21:07, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I found a few pages I hadn't seen in the previous glance on Amazon and added text accordingly. Dan56 (talk) 00:29, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ah well done! Here's pp. 330–340 as a scanned pdf. I haven't had a chance to look over it too closely. In retrospect, it was a little silly to assume the 90 hours excluded his regular schedule at the Voice, but he does mention that he was hardly listening to new records at that time period and that it was his "only such hiatus" in his 50-year career (p. 333). —BLZ · talk 18:52, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, those details were added yesterday. I have just added a few details I see from p. 338 in your pdf. Dan56 (talk) 20:26, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good. The last thing I might add from Going Into the City would be some of Christgau's commentary on the Rolling Stone Record Guide and how it differs from his CG, which would fit nicely in the "Contemporary reception" section. (And having skimmed through GITC: knowing you intend to take Robert Christgau to FA one day, using the full book would be essential. It cuts off shortly after the '70s CG, but it seems like an excellent resource for biographical details from his early career.) Otherwise...
  • ... Support. This is an impressive, comprehensively researched, well-written article. It not only meets all the FA criteria but, from my perspective—following a lot of deep, hands-on reviewing and assessment of source material at both the GA level and here—I believe it is now presented in virtually the best form it could take. An article like this, covering a critically important book of music criticism, provides invaluable yet easily overlooked insight into popular music history and the development of modern music journalism, the latter of which is especially easy to overlook or take for granted. As such, Wikipedia's very lucky to have such a fine article on this topic. Kudos, Dan56. —BLZ · talk 22:01, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Christgau's retrospective comparison of his guide to Rolling Stone's was added yesterday to the third paragraph of the legacy section. Thank you lots for the support! Dan56 (talk) 22:22, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ah, I somehow missed that when looking over your latest edits. Funny because I was actually going to recommend placement there, too—either place makes sense and you've integrated it well there. —BLZ · talk 22:26, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Source review edit

I looked over the sources during the GA review and gave them a second look now. All sources and citations are up to code. The offline/print sources are almost all verifiable through Google Books Preview or Snippet View. All quoted material is present in the source material and attributed correctly. I have a Rock's Backpages subscription and can verify the accuracy of the citations that are linked behind its paywall. No reliability concerns for any of the sources. Formatting is consistent and error-free. I made a few alterations to the bibliography yesterday, mostly minor MOS adjustments.

One small detail that may need to be attended to: the link to Dylan Hicks's "A minus review from Robert Christgau" post has persistently appeared to be down for the past two days whenever I've tried to access it. His homepage at dylanhicks.com also seems down. Switching to a different browser doesn't help. Yet when I've checked downforeveryoneorjustme.com, it tells me "It's just you. www.dylanhicks.com is up." Dan56's citation already has an archive URL, so it's still possible to verify the information from that source. The only question is whether this is a real outage at his site, and whether it is a temporary outage or something more persistent, which I can't really determine. If others can access the site, it may genuinely just be my computer acting up for whatever reason. If not, at some point there may need to be a judgment call to say his post is down and set deadurl=yes.

In conclusion, checkY the sourcing and source formatting looks FA-level to me. —BLZ · talk 23:50, 2 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support by Kees08 edit

  • Would it be worthwhile to include background information on the author? Have they written these types of books in the past, have they written any books or just newspaper columns, etc.
    • His first book, an essay collection, is mentioned in the background section. Dan56 (talk) 11:09, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I skimmed a bit of it, overall the article seems very complete and well-written. I will give it another read-through soon to see if I find anything. Kees08 (Talk) 07:09, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Any update? @Kees08: Dan56 (talk) 16:00, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would sabbatical be a better word? I don't have the source, so only change if it does not change the meaning of the sentence. he took a vacation from The Village Voice
    • page 333: "this working vacation"
      • Ah, well vacation and working vacation are pretty different! Might want to add that it was a working vacation somehow. I was wondering how he was able to leave to write a book. Kees08 (Talk)
        • The "working" part of the vacation was working on the book, which is made clear in the article by "to work on the book"; adding "working vacation" to the same sentence would be redundant. The "vacation" aspect was taking time off from the newspaper to use this free time as he pleased: Christgau and his wife also went to the movies, as described further in the pdf. Dan56 (talk) 22:46, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hyphen in mid-September? finished the guide in mid September
    • Yes. Done.
  • Consider using submitting the manuscript in place of submitting its manuscript
    • Done.
  • Are there any reviews of the reprint that estimate how much has changed? Wondering if it was an edit for copyright purposes, where just enough is revised to get another copyright date, or if it was pretty expansive. If sources do not exist to say, then no worries. In the reprint's introduction, Christgau said he had revised some of the content.
    • Sources do not exist, to my knowledge. The Smith source verifies there were only "some revisions".
      • I searched through the Westlaw news database, which has access to numerous offline print newspaper articles not available elsewhere online, and didn't find any reviews of the revised edition. It's not uncommon for a second edition of a book to get few or no new reviews. —BLZ · talk 04:55, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • I figured as much; thanks for checking.
  • Would be interesting to know if it was free or not The contents of all three "Consumer Guide" collections were made available on Christgau's website when it went online in 2001.
    • I thought the "free" availability was suggested in the sentence, but I will make it more explicit: "...were made freely available..." Dan56 (talk) 04:43, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks. Since it did not say freely, I interpreted it to mean he digitized it and it cost money to access. I think it is fine that in the introduction it does not say freely available, and later on it says freely available, for the record. Kees08 (Talk)

I just have another section to go. Looks good so far. Kees08 (Talk) 01:01, 22 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Every paragraph in Legacy and influence begins with Christgau; is there any way to mix that up? Just something that stuck out to me, not a big deal.
    • I've replaced the book title with "the guide" in the second paragraph. Dan56 (talk) 22:32, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I know it does not really count as another review, but my girlfriend read through the article and said it was well-written and only had the last comment that I wrote above. Kees08 (Talk) 19:40, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Cheers Dan56 (talk) 22:32, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • If this is the conclusion to your review, can it be considered a support, @Kees08:? Dan56 (talk) 06:35, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Of course, I missed your last response until just now. Support. Kees08 (Talk) 07:04, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

One last comment (does not affect my vote): should the title be Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the 70s? I just realized our 80s and 90s article titles are stylized that way, and that the title of the book uses 70s and not Seventies. Kees08 (Talk) 17:28, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The copyright page of the book credits it as "Seventies", as does Christgau's website, worldcat, googlebooks... I imagine the spine does as well and that this is the official title. Dan56 (talk) 00:56, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Is File:Christgau's Record Guide (1981).jpg the cover the only thing that says 70s then? Kees08 (Talk) 02:43, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a copy of the first edition, so I don't know. But safe to say the official title is "Seventies", and I assume the cover only has the numeric rendering to fit or look nicer with the other text. According to Goodreads' entry on the reprint, the original title (of the first edition) is "Seventies" (click "more details"). Same for the site's entry for the first edition. Most other online book catalogues and sellers of the original edition appear to also use "Seventies". If you Google-search "Rock Albums of the 70s" instead, you get more hits for the reprint; search for "Rock Albums of the Seventies," however, and you get more hits for the original. Dan56 (talk) 04:54, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good, just wanted to bring it up and document it. Thanks for the explanation! Kees08 (Talk) 06:17, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Jayron32 edit

Full disclosure: Dan56 asked me to look it over and give my opinions.

  • Writing quality: Spelling and grammar is fine, writing is compelling, flows well, and is well organized. Paragraphs have a logical organization.
  • Comprehensiveness: Writing is very comprehensive. Background details on the process of writing and compiling the book, and of the strain it placed on his personal life, are great for the reader and provide historical and personal context that I think makes the article quite compelling. The "Past present and future" are all covered well.
  • Sourcing: References seem highly reliable and from a broad spectrum of sources, which is nice.

Overall, I can't find anything to hang up over. I give this my full Support for FA. --Jayron32 13:14, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Other comments edit

I was told to review this article and I'm kind of stumped. Robert Christgau himself never had a featured article, but this one book of his is nominated? I suppose I can support it anyway, but I'd sooner be in favorite of nomination of his own article rather than his book's. Mrmoustache14 (talk) 18:11, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Since editors are volunteers, we are kinda bound by what interests them rather than what others might consider to be more 'important'. As long as an article meets notability criteria, it can in theory be brought to FA standard. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:47, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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