Wikipedia:Peer review/Definitely Maybe/archive1

Definitely Maybe

I've listed this article for peer review because Oasis' first album seems in nice condition and this was a great album. But because it was such a big hit for a debut album, I want to know if anything needs adjusted or if it needs more research before it becomes a GA. This album is older than me, and I've never had a successful 90's album nomination before, so I wanted to know.

And by the way, I'm sure there are dead links in the article, I have not looked at that yet.

Thanks, dannymusiceditor ^{Speak up!} 22:05, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Comments by Bruce1ee

Lead

• "supposed rebuttal of the downtrodden fatalism" is very close to "positive rebuttal to grunge's downtrodden fatalism" at http://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/7852-the-top-200-tracks-of-the-1990s-50-21/. The "Release and reception" section makes the same statement about grunge, using the same source, but the wording there is fine. In the lead it's too close to the source (see Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing).

Recording

• "...and questioned Morris' mixing choices...": I think "Morris'" should be "his" – it's quite clear that "his" refers to Morris.

Release and reception

• Who is Neil Strauss? One of the album's reviewers? From which publication?

Cover art

• The 1st sentence doesn't need the commas ("... was taken, by rock photographer Michael Spencer Jones, in guitarist ...").
• The 1st sentence needs to be sourced.

Legacy

• "In 2006, NME placed the album ...": suggest replacing "placed" with "put" to avoid repetition of "placed".
• "rank" is repeated 6 times in this section.

DVD

• The 1st paragraph and most of the 2nd paragraph has no sources.

Notes

• Several references need to be expanded

  #27: "oasis - definitely maybe (back).jpg (1181×921)"

  #30: "Channel4.com : The 100 Greatest Albums"

• There are 4 deadlinks: see http://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webchecklinks.py?page=Definitely_Maybe

Otherwise I think the article is looking good. I did a little copyediting here. —Bruce1ee^talk 10:08, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the review Bruce! dannymusiceditor ^{Speak up!} 19:29, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Comments by Richard3120

Considering the two albums that followed are currently GA and FA, this definitely has potential to be a GA.

Things that I have noticed so far...

• Some factual problems in the infobox:

(1) Where do the recording dates come from? Need a source for these dates.

(2) The infobox states the album was recorded in Clear Studios and the Pink Museum, but the article text states Monnow Valley Studio and Sawmills Studio.

(3) The charting date of 11 July for "Shakermaker" implies that the single's release date was 20 June, not 13 June – this needs checking.

• There are too many short sentences in the text, e.g. "Definitely Maybe was released on 29 August 1994. The album sold 86,000 in its first week. On 4 September the album debuted at number one on the British charts."... they break up the flow of the prose. I think many of these sentences could be joined together.
• I feel it's missing some kind of "composition" section. I don't mean a detailed analysis of each track on the album – Lord knows Noel's lyrics don't stand up to severe scrutiny, and he's never going to be considered a wordsmith alongside Bob Dylan or Elvis Costello. But I mean things like... where did Noel write the songs? Did he already have them written before he joined the band? Was he trying to sound like any of his musical heroes? Did the rest of the group mind that he was writing all the songs? What about the ones that have a story behind them, e.g. "Digsy" was the nickname of Noel's friend Peter Deary, and "Digsy's Dinner" came about when the pair were messing about in the studio and Deary started singing about lasagna? I'm not saying there are answers to all these questions, but these are the kind of topics that could be considered. At the moment it jumps straight from the background about the band getting together to recording in the studio, and some intermediate step seems to be missing.
• The "artwork" section needs clarifying on several points. For instance, it should say "footballer Rodney Marsh" to distinguish him from the other famous sporting Rodney William Marsh, and that he is pictured during his playing days for Manchester City, the football team the Gallaghers support. The sentence about the picture of Bacharach and Ummagumma is somewhat confusing too – it needs clarifying that the possible tribute is to the cover of Ummagumma and not the record itself, and "reserved" isn't the right word here, either: it implies that Floyd had deliberately planned to leave that space available when designing the sleeve in order to place that album there, and we don't know that's the case.
• The other section I think needs expansion is the critical reception – there's a nice selection of publications in the album ratings infobox, but for a GA I suspect many reviewing editors would expect to see some supporting prose as well, e.g. quotes from the NME and Q reviews. At the moment there is only one quote, and it's from a publication that isn't mentioned in the ratings box at all – and it doesn't say from which publication it is. I know it's hard to get hold of publications from the pre-internet era to be able to supply those quotes, and I can help you here: when I am in the UK (I'm British but I live in South America) I have access to the British Library, and they have back issues of NME, Melody Maker, Q, Mojo, Rolling Stone, and various British newspapers... you'll just have to wait until October or November when I next visit.

I hope my comments don't seem too harsh: I'd love to see this at GA – it's one of the key British albums of the 90s by one of the key British bands of the 90s. Good luck. Richard3120 (talk) 19:11, 18 August 2017 (UTC)