Wikipedia - which band has the nerdiest/crap-trivia-filled page

Always funny to see what random trivia some fans think is important. Also funny to see really amazing, exciting and fun music broken down like this:

"Standing on the Verge of Getting It On"

The singer exhorts the listener to get Funky with it. In contrast to several previous songs with a similar lyrical theme, "Standing on the Verge of Getting It On" shows tremendous growth in songwriting as the suggestion to get Funky also explicitly includes a connection with social change and an awakening of the mind, and not just dancing.

a classic:

'The name "Fieldy" is said to have come about as an inside joke. Originally, his band mates called him "Gopher", due to his large cheeks. Gopher quickly became "Gar", Gar became "Garfield" (based on the comic strip character of the same name), and eventually "Gar" was dropped and a "y" was added to "Field", which became Fieldy. His full moniker is "Fieldy Snuts", which when spoken aloud sounds like "feel these nuts".'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closing_Time_(Semisonic_song)

However, the book So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star (ISBN 0-7679-1470-8) by Semisonic's drummer Jacob Slichter indicates that it is, instead, about being born[2]: the place that is closing is the womb, and the mention of alcohol is a reference to pregnant women not drinking. This can be seen in the lines:

Time for you to go out to the places you will be from
...
This room won't be open 'til your brothers or your sisters
come

This interpretation has additional support. In a show in which he opened up for Sondre Lerche, Dan Wilson noted that the song was NOT written for the birth of his child; in an attempt not to be one of those annoying songs that an artist wrote for the birth of a "Jr," he made sure the meaning was abstracted. [3]

If anyone can top these useless sacks of shit I will be quietly impressed

fucking hell. and to think some wiki admin bastard was trying to delete the small fuck buttons page for not being noteworthy, when these guys have something that big. inconsistent shits.

the my vitriol page disappointingly thorough

Despite being essentially an alternative act, the bands music eventually worked its way through to various mainstream TV shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer amongst others

the weird al page is full of some on the most worthless, delusional writing i;ve ever seen

so i don't have to read the full 5,000-word entry, can u give us some examples

This song introduced Martika to a more adult contemporary sound than her previous efforts. The song is particularly remarkable for its constant backline, played by the drums and the bass, without any variation throughout the song, neither as far as rhythm or intensity are concerned, independently of other effects in the song (climax, forte, piano, backing vocals, etc.). Similarly, the melody insists particularly on monochord lines and repeats the "love thy will be done" notes as a leitmotiv.

love it

In 1991, the band released the album Young Gods that Q Magazine called "finely produced and well-arranged" while the single "Boneyard" charted in the UK.[1] Lee was fired from Little Angels during the Young Gods tour in New York, after it was discovered he had auditioned for The Cult behind their backs.[2]

"The Big Bad Horns" ("Big" Dave Kemp on saxophone, Frank Mizen on trombone and Grant Kirkhope on trumpet) had become synonymous with the 'Angels' sound over the years, contributing to a large majority of their recorded output, and appearing live with the band more often than not. However, they were keen to remain independent from the band, so appearances on stage and record are credited to Little Angels and The Big Bad Horns.

The Q review excerpt kills me for some reason, not a peep about the music.

I could’ve sworn the Wikipedia article for “Regulate” had like a 5,000-word essay describing the plot of the song in excruciating detail, but they must’ve deleted it.

There was a massive edit war about this, ultimately I feel it was deleted because it was mocking wikipedia's style and there is no room for anything potentially funny on wikipedia.

I saw people on here who hated it because they thought it was making fun of warren g / nate dog / rap in general, but that was IMO completely getting it the wrong way round.

Found it!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=386691435&title=Regulate_(song)#Synopsis

On a cool, clear night (typical to Southern California) Warren G travels through his neighborhood, searching for women with whom he might initiate sexual intercourse. He has chosen to engage in this pursuit alone.[5]

Nate Dogg, having just arrived in the east side of Long Beach, seeks Warren. On his way to find Warren, Nate passes a car full of women who are excited to see him. Regardless, he insists to the women that there is no cause for excitement.

Warren makes a left turn at 21st Street and Lewis Ave, in the East Hill/Salt Lake neighborhood[6], where he sees a group of young men enjoying a game of dice together. He parks his car and greets them. He is excited to find people to play with, but to his chagrin, he discovers they intend to relieve him of his material possessions. Once the hopeful robbers reveal their firearms, Warren realizes he is in a less than favorable predicament.

Meanwhile, Nate passes the women, as they are low on his list of priorities. His primary concern is locating Warren. After curtly casting away the strumpets (whose interest in Nate was such that they crashed their automobile), he serendipitously stumbles upon his friend, Warren G, being held up by the young miscreants.

Warren, unaware that Nate is surreptitiously observing the scene unfold, is in disbelief that he is being robbed. The perpetrators have taken jewelry and a Rolex Watch from Warren, who is so incredulous that he asks what else the robbers intend to steal. This is most likely a rhetorical question.

Observing these unfortunate proceedings, Nate realizes that he may have to use his firearm to deliver his friend from harm.

The tension crescendos as the robbers point their guns to Warren's head. Warren senses the gravity of his situation. He cannot believe the events unfolding could happen in his own neighborhood. As he imagines himself making a fantastical escape, he catches a glimpse of his friend, Nate.

Nate has seventeen cartridges (sixteen residing in the pistol's magazine, with a solitary round placed in the chamber and ready to be fired) to expend on the group of robbers. Afterward, he generously shares the credit for neutralizing the situation with Warren, though it is clear that Nate did all of the difficult work. Putting congratulations aside, Nate quickly reminds himself that he has committed multiple homicides to save Warren before letting his friend know that there are females nearby if he wishes to fornicate with them.

Warren recalls that it was the promise of copulation that coaxed him away from his previous activities, and is thankful that Nate knows a way to satisfy these urges. Nate quickly finds the women who earlier crashed their car on Nate's account. He remarks to one that he is fond of her physical appeal. The woman, impressed by Nate's singing ability, asks that he and Warren allow her and her friends to share transportation. Soon, both friends are driving with automobiles full of women to the East Side Motel, presumably to consummate their flirtation in an orgy.

The third verse is more expository, with Warren and Nate explaining their G Funk musical style. Warren displays his bravado by daring anyone to approach the style. There follows a brief discussion of the genre's musicological features, with special care taken to point out that in said milieu the rhythm is not in fact the rhythm, as one might assume, but actually the bass. Similarly the bass serves a purpose closer to that which the treble would in more traditional musical forms. Nate displays his bravado by claiming that individuals with equivalent knowledge could not even attempt to approach his level of lyrical mastery. Nate goes on to note that if any third party smokes as he does, they would find themselves in a state of intoxication almost daily (from Nate's other works, it can be inferred that the substance referenced is marijuana[7]). Nate concludes his delineation of the night by issuing a threat to "busters," suggesting that he and Warren will further "regulate" any potential incidents in the future (presumably by engaging their antagonists with small arms fire)

I think it went through many different versions

lol

i love/hate that wikipedia articles on pop songs either consist of enormous walls of text like that, descriptions of every chart movement it made, what the artist ate on the video set, etc., or just have, as gregory abbott's "shake you down" does, a 'Composition' section consisting of the single sentence "According to Billboard, the song is about sex."

You get things like: The song is a pop[3], dance-pop[6] and electronic pop[14] song with elements of electronic music[12] and synthpop [12].

Pop Wikipedia is kinda its own beast and it is bad at writing GAs that still pass anyway.

yeah it's horrific, i often want to cry when i read pop music wikipedia

I once tried to add pages for some well-known pop singers from Romania & Bulgaria, there is just no way to convince the deletionists that they are notable unless they are picked for Eurovision.

I love when the entries have years of trivial cruft piled up, like: “On July 23, 2013, she teased her new single in a Twitter post.[1] The song’s title was revealed on August 12, 2013, in an Instagram live session.[2]”….

Someone’s got to record this stuff for future generations

My buddy and I will share our favorite lol bits. Like this one today about David Lee Roth's Eat'Em and Smile:

Sonrisa Salvaje (literally "Wild Smile") is the Spanish-language version of Eat 'Em and Smile. According to the Van Halen Encyclopedia, the idea to re-record the album in Spanish was the idea of bassist Billy Sheehan, who had read an article in a magazine which reported that over half the Mexican population was between the ages of 18 and 27, a prime record buying market.[23] Roth re-cut all his vocals with the help of a Spanish tutor in the studio. He edited some of risqué lyrics, so as not to offend the more conservative Spanish-speaking population.

i remember reading an interpretation of the lyrics to some springsteen song on one of its pages (don't remember which) that was the absolute height of wankery + read like the work of a high school sophomore. this was back when i would actually make occasional edits and i was tempted to just delete the whole thing, but i found it kinda funny so i just added a 'citation needed' for effect

another wonderful thing about pop wikipedia is how literally almost every single chart hit released in the past two decades has apparently received "generally positive reviews from (blue link) contemporary music critics", even when half the cited reviews are one-paragraph blog posts announcing the song's release the same day + a youtube embed. i deleted a citation to one such "review" that was literally to a blog post about a song's 30-second preview before it even came out, but no, it was put back and considered a "positive review" because whoever wrote the blog post said it sounded like "a banger". half the ppl making edits on these songs' pages have usernames derived from the artists' song lyrics. pseudo-objective unpaid e-team marketing pablum

I love when the entries have years of trivial cruft piled up, like: “On July 23, 2013, she teased her new single in a Twitter post.[1] The song’s title was revealed on August 12, 2013, in an Instagram live session.[2]”….

― rendered nugatory (morrisp), Sunday, 28 April 2024 20:10 (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This sort of thing usually passes GAN (Good Article Nomination) for recent albums, which are most of the nominations overall. And I'm not sure how I feel about it, but until people write enough biographies about Kanye or whoever that can contextualise background info neatly we're gonna get stuck with ugly articles that are just a list of dates.

it was put back and considered a "positive review" because whoever wrote the blog post said it sounded like "a banger". half the ppl making edits on these songs' pages have usernames derived from the artists' song lyrics. pseudo-objective unpaid e-team marketing pablum

Tbf both sound fishy even by wikipedia guidelines. My friend has his account deleted over a decade ago because he never changed his (dumb) username from having 'youtubechannel' in the name. I think most of the discussion about what goes in critical reception sections happens at wikiproject albums (rather than songs) but it should, and I think generally does, apply across the board. besides being stupid, a passing comment that a song is good shouldn't really be used anyway, especially when there is a plethora of actual good sources to use.

that's the other pop wikipdedia thing, as illustrated above several times - the constant use of tiny quotations.

I don’t normally f with editing Wikipedia, but last year I made a project out of fixing a page for a well-known song which stated a “fan theory” as fact (one of those factoids that’s repeated all over the Internet, but which there’s not actually a true source for). The issue had been raised on the Talk page over the years, but the standard for fixing it was some sort of “prove the negative” situation.

After a few deletions of my edits and more Talk back-and-forth, I finally got it done; thanks to a sympathetic & skillful editor who saw what I was doing, looked at my source for debunking the rumor, and incorporated the correction (better than I had originally done).