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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/When You Get a Little Lonely/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 archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 11:29, 8 August 2018 [1].

When You Get a Little Lonely edit

Nominator(s): Aoba47 (talk) 19:32, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello everyone! The above article is about the debut studio album by American actress Maureen McCormick. The Phantom Hill record label released it on April 4, 1995. She recorded it in 1994, after rejecting an earlier solo record deal offered immediately after the end of the television sitcom The Brady Bunch in which she appeared. McCormick promoted the album with live performances in Palmdale, California, and album signings. The album, and particularly McCormick's vocals, received a mixed response from critics. It was rereleased in 2008 as an exclusive for the retail company Circuit City.

This is my fourth FAC on an album, following the successful promotions of Pru (album), Ho Ho Ho, and 3 of Hearts (album). This article is part of my interest in working on obscure albums; hopefully, it will inspire other editors to work more on lesser-known subjects. I doubt that a lot of people remember this release. This is what the article looked like before I worked on it. I believe that it fulfills the FAC criteria; it passed a GAN review, and received a copy-edit from the WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors. I would greatly appreciate any feedback. Thank you in advance, and have a wonderful rest of your day! Aoba47 (talk) 19:32, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions from Moise edit

Hi Aoba, my biggest suggestion:

  • Quite a few too many quotations. You could reduce them a lot to improve the article. I suggest having an online thesaurus open and go through each quotation one by one, and ask yourself if it is really necessary. A quotation could be beneficial if it is truly, truly hard to paraphrase, or if it really adds particular flavour to the article. But I would argue too many of the current quotations do not fit these criteria. Moisejp (talk) 03:56, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for the suggestion. I have cut down on some of the quotations, but please let me know if it needs further work. Have a great rest of your day/night! Aoba47 (talk) 05:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Lead:

  • "When You Get a Little Lonely is a country music album, though one critic wrote that it leans more toward country pop. McCormick said the album includes songs of different musical genres." This feels too wordy to me. You definitely don't need both "When You Get a Little Lonely" and "album"—I suggest choosing one or the other, preferably "The album..." Then I would argue it goes into a bit too much belaboured detail by specifying "it's country but someone described it as country pop, but McCormick argued it has lots of genres". If you could make this a lot more compact, something like: "When You Get a Little Lonely is the debut studio album by American actress Maureen McCormick, released on April 4, 1995 on Phantom Hill Records. McCormick strived to fuse various genres towards a country music sound."
  • Thank you for the suggestion, and I understand what you mean. I have revised it. Aoba47 (talk) 17:26, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Suggest mentioning that the earlier record offer was in the mid-1970s.
  • "Barry Coffing managed When You Get a Little Lonely": "managed" doesn't seem precise to me (manage an artist, yes, but not manage an album). In the main text it says "was the executive producer", which sounds better. In the lead you could repeat this wording or say he executive-produced it.
  • "all the tracks": "all of the tracks" feels slightly more correct to me, but that may be personal preference.
  • "McCormick promoted the album with live performances in Palmdale, California, and album signings. The album, and particularly McCormick's vocals, received a mixed response from critics." Three instances of "album" in a short space. Would you feel comfortable saying "and CD signings"? It appears from later in the article that it was released on CD but not LP. It's true there was also a cassette release, but from my memory by 1995 CDs had surpassed tapes. It's just an idea.
  • "In a 2008 interview, McCormick said that she was disappointed by the recording process." Ideally, it would be great to add a tiny bit here about why, but without repeating the same quotes in the main text. But I see the source article doesn't give much more to work with. It's hard to paraphrase because she doesn't explain precisely what she means. But one thing she does say somewhat explicitly in the interview is that she would have liked to have had the opportunity to write at least one of her own songs; maybe this could be the point you could focus on in the lead (and mention it in the main text) about why she was disappointed with the recording process. Moisejp (talk) 15:05, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Composition and sound:

  • "Including eleven songs": A little bit awkward, as "Including..." usually has a slightly different meaning. I suggest "When You Get a Little Lonely, which includes eleven songs, received..." Moisejp (talk) 18:10, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Like my feedback for the lead above, I feel this section gets bogged down splitting hairs about different people's opinions regarding what degree of "pure country" the album embodies. The bits about Victoria Miller and Barry Williams, in particular, seem superfluous. I suggest beginning my removing those parts. Then let's see how it looks. I'm not convinced the structure of contrasting different viewpoints is the most interesting, but I don't immediately have any other ideas to recommend. Possibly by the time I finish my review I might have some other ideas to suggest. :-) Moisejp (talk) 18:32, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I understand and agree with your point. Removed and revised. Aoba47 (talk) 18:37, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The songs' instrumentals include pedal steel guitars, fiddles, and pianos..." This seems like a really uncommon use of "instrumental" to me. Normally it means "music without vocals". How about "The instruments used on When You Get a Little Lonely include..."?
  • "McCormack also included her own version of Rena Gaile's 1996 single "Cloud of Dust"." Here "her own" feels like it gives unnecessary weight to the fact that it was McCormack's version. How about something like "McCormick also included a rendition of..."? Moisejp (talk) 02:03, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just noticed there are four instances of "include" in the two paragraphs between "The songs' instrumentals include..." and "for the retail company Circuit City in 2008" and five instances in total across the article as a whole. Could you rework some of them? For the sticker one you could say something "a sticker was attached to". I also find using "Among the..." or "...among which..." can sometimes be useful for replacing "include". Moisejp (talk) 02:12, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Release and promotion:

  • "Gary McKechnie of the Orlando Sentinel wrote that the album was commercially successful." This feels weak. Whether or not an album is successful should be more objective, not "So-and-so said that..." There should be more concrete evidence like sales or a chart position, but instead including "so-and-so said that" suggests on the contrary that no really concrete evidence could be found.
  • You added the bit about McCormack wanting to have written songs to the lead, but you didn't add it here to the main text.
  • The wiki-link to "record store" feels quite unnecessary to me.

Critical reception:

  • "On the other hand, LA Weekly's Dave Shulman praised the album, specifically for the short lengths of “Go West”, “Tell Mama”, and “Oh Boy!”." I was going to write that this doesn't sound like praise at all. It sounds like "it's good that these songs are so short because who would want to listen to a longer version of them?" Then I looked at the source, which says "Enjoy the brevity of". From this also I wonder whether he's trying to make a joke—it doesn't sound like he really means you will enjoy it.
  • Removed. It is hard to tell tone with written sources. Aoba47 (talk) 03:17, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Aoba, I'm really sorry, but I can't support this article's promotion. I won't oppose it, and will instead withdraw and let consensus be based on other reviewers. You have a lot of fans among reviewers here. But the reason I can't support is that there doesn't feel like there's enough meaty substance here. The details included don't feel very substantial. Some feel like filler because maybe it was hard to find more good, solid info about the topic. I know you like to take on "obscure" topics, but the flip side of the coin is that there may not always be enough info out there to build a substantial article with lots of interesting details. It may be subjective. My last FA was short-ish but, I felt at least, there were enough engaging details to bring it to an acceptable FA level—but there could well be other people who would disagree. What's interesting to one person—and what feels like substantial details to that person—may not to another. So please allow me to withdraw and I wish you the best of luck on the rest of this FAC. Moisejp (talk) 03:04, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Damian Vo edit

Support from Freikorp edit

Happy to support this now, but I'll make the following comments.

  • should you introduce him as 'Pemberton Roach of AllMusic', instead of just his name? I note the following sentence beings "Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly".
  • Added. I must have removed it by accident during other edits. Aoba47 (talk) 05:03, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'the album cover includes a "Marcia Marcia Marcia" sticker' - the link here won't open for me as my iTunes account cannot connect to the US iTunes store as I'm not in America, and the archived version of that reference just displays the words "Connecting to Apple Music". As I can't verify this myself, can you explain what this means? Is it just a sticker with the repeated words? And like, just a sticker stuck on the plastic wrapping of the album? Or would it be more accurate to call it a watermark since the iTunes version is not a physical album? I assume that's why this isn't visible in the album cover in the infobox? Freikorp (talk) 04:54, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is just a sticker with the repeated words (which is a reference to the catchphrase from The Brady Bunch series). I have read an unreliable source (i.e. Discogs) that says it is a sticker that was most likely stuck on the plastic wrapping of the album. Hope that clears it up. Here is an image of the cassette with the sticker (1) and another of the CD with the sticker (2). Thank you for the comments! Aoba47 (talk) 05:03, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Withdrawal edit

  • @Ian Rose:@Laser brain:@Sarastro1: I would greatly appreciate it if one of you could withdraw and archive this FAC. I respect and understand Moisejp's point. I have always appreciate Moisejp's help on my FACs and other Wikipedia projects and topics; if he is not interested in doing the review, then he should not feel pressured to complete it. To be completely honest though, it has dampened my spirits. Because of that, I do not think that I would be in an appropriate mind-set to respond to other reviewers. Apologies for the long message, and have a wonderful rest of your day and/or night. Aoba47 (talk) 04:08, 8 August 2018 (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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