Wikipedia:Peer review/American popular music/archive1

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American popular music[edit]

Spin off of a section from music of the United States that got much too large. I'd appreciate any comments; I think it does a good job of explaining the various styles of American popular music. I didn't want this to be a history article (there's a separate music history of the United States), so I put all the top-level genres in roughly chronological order but didn't worry about the specific timeframe jumping back and forth between sections. Do I need more images? There are some sound samples there, but I'm inclined to remove them, since there's a link to samples of music from the United States anyway, and it might be hard to neutrally choose which ones to use. Total size is 93kb; without images and references and sounds, it comes to 76kb. Any suggestions on what to remove to trim it, let me know. Tuf-Kat 19:53, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I haven't read through the entire article (though I will tomorrow). I added a section on early recorded music since this became such an important part of popular music, even at that time. I have written some articles on some of these artists, which I felt were sorely missing. It might belong in a different place in the article, and might well justify being a "germ" for an article of its own. I realize this makes the article even longer, but it is important. Rt66lt 03:52, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I read the article. This is a really great article. I corrected a typo and added a reference for the section on the Pioneer Music Era I added yesterday. The article is long, but (to me, anyway) that is relative to the material being covered and in this case is probably OK. If anything needs to be cut, it's probably the main section under Country, it seems out of proportion with the others. The number of pictures seems appropriate, I wouldn't add any more. As for Rock and Roll, I always understood that Alan Freed used the term (although it already existed) to apply to various rockabilly, R&B, and popular music popular with white teenagers and is not a type of music in and of itself (though "Rock" is). The Wikipedia article on Rock and Roll states Freed used it differently, but the book Rock of Ages is where I heard my definition. I don't know what you have on it, but it might be worth checking out. Once again, this looks like a pretty good article. Rt66lt 03:21, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I moved your section down, so that the sections on primarily not-recorded popular music (during their peak) come before the sections on eventually recorded popular music. I also copyedited it, removing the reference to the term "Pioneer Era" as I don't think this is really a very common term. I agree the country music section seems long -- I just did a very minor trim, but I'm not sure what could be cut without losing something important. Don't have time to look too closely right now, but I'll see what I can do. Tuf-Kat 07:19, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tuk-Kat, well done again—you've developed another article of great importance. I've read the opening paragraphs and made few changes; the whole text will need copy editing. A few points thus far:
    • Huge number of references; I'm sure reviewers will object. I wonder whether you can rationalise them without reducing the precision of the referencing much?
      • In the process of changing this, done up to jazz
    • Again, either close the space before the reference numerals (my preferred option, since they're a little less visually intrusive then), or insert  
    • Please start sentences with 'however', rather than nesting this word after the first phrase. Sometimes you could remove the word altogether and achieve better flow. For example: 'The 1960s, however, also saw a sea change'. Here, why not remove 'also' too; it's typically redundant, given that every sentence is an also. Save for where you really need it. If the sentence is now stubby, merge it.
    • Please consider replacing many instances of 'as well as' (which sould be reserved for highlighting an addition, or to disambiguate) with plain 'and'.
    • Italics serve to mark titles and items such as popular music; I'd de-italicise the latter in every case.
      • I believe wiki-style is to italicize words and terms when they're being used as words or terms (i.e. Most scholars music define American popular music as referring only to recorded music). It's certainly possible there's still gratuitous italicization, but there are sentences that are about terms as terms, and should therefore be italicized. Tuf-Kat
    • No link for 'syncopated'? Many readers won't know exactly what it means. BTW, in Music of Nigeria, I'd remove 'time signature', which will mean even less to non-musicians than 'metre' (which is linked in any case). Tony 01:13, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Agreed. Thanks for your advice. Tuf-Kat

Sorry, I forgot: will you consider closing the two-space gap between sentence to one space? There's a good reason for this—it avoids the 'rivers of white' problem that sometimes emerges, particularly on some operating systems. Tony 01:39, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

        • Okay. Tuf-Kat
          • Interestingly, removing the double space between sentences (and two duplicated categories) was enough to knock 1kb off the article size. Tuf-Kat 01:49, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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