Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of music/archive1

History of music

This was a recent collaboration of the week. I think it's turned out quite good. It was the first large scale use of the new listen templates. It's large, and (in my obviously biased opinion) well written. It's a partial self nom - I am the one who added most of the songs (all copyleft/PD). →Raul654 05:36, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

• A truly massive subject dealt with in a surprisingly concise fashion. Perhaps an appropriate image could be added to the top of the article by the lead section? I'll grant that it would be difficult to choose one. Everyking 06:09, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Object: almost all of the content is about the western musical tradition. The cursory mentions of other cultures at the start are worse than nothing- I'd rather see them taken out and the article renamed "History of western music", or some such. And as a very minor point, the Monteverdi picture overlaps with some of the text for me. Mark¹ 06:12, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • The picture thing is a rendering bug. You can't control it in the article. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't, and it happens in a lot of places. – flamurai (t) 06:16, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
• Object.
  1. I have a problem with heavy metal being listed while other rock sub-genres (punk, alternative rock, progressive rock, etc.) are not. I think those three are equally important and distinctive. I think heavy metal should be rolled up into the rock and roll section, and those other sub-genres should be mentioned there as well. Heavy metal just seems to be one deeper level of detail than the rest of the article.
  2. Renaissance music is disproportionately large and goes into too much detail for this top-level "history of" article. (In fact, the Ren. section here is pretty much the same size as the Renaissance music article.) It needs to be pared down significantly. Medieval could use a little bit of a haircut as well. I believe each major musical style/movement within the categories should get one paragraph. The 20th century section is a good example. It's a long section, but each paragraph briefly summarizes an important aspect of 20th c. music.

  – flamurai (t) 06:15, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

• Object. 1) Some of the sub-topics get a lot of detailed info, while others don't. The longer ones should be shortened (more should be in the sub-articles), while the shorter ones should be expanded, or, if nothing more is to be said removed or merged with other sections. Especially the older civilizations need more attentions. What about the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, to mention just a few? The Middle Ages? 2) Many of the shorter sections consist for a large part of references to "Music of (country)" articles. 3) I also agree that there appears to be a bias towards the Western world (it even lists "History of European art music"), which should be lessened. 4) The choice of subtopics is sometimes hard to follow. Why is there a separate section on 20th century classical music (which stops in the 1950s)? Heavy metal was also mentioned already; why are "Disco, funk, hip hop, salsa, and soul" in a single section? 5) The "Popular and classical musics" section has way to many words in 'quotes' and even with some question marks. That doesn't appear to be encyclopaedic to me. 6) Especially the popular section could use a sample; plenty should be available. Jeronimo 07:39, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Object. When nominating any article of the 'history of...' something, one should make sure it is extensive - and this one is not, although it is a good start. In addition to above comments which I agree with, I'd also like to see something on the history of musical instruments - at the moment the article is more like 'history of music performers'. And isn't the lead a bit too short? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 11:06, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Object, sadly. In addition to the previous objections, I'd like to add that it reads as if written by committee; i.e. the various contributions have not been brought together to form a coherent article, with the consequence that it is rather bitty. Filiocht 13:34, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
• Object. I would not currently put this out as one of Wikipedia's best music articles, though it is a great start. Hyacinth 02:27, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Unfortunately, I have to vote Object. I don't think it is ready, due to the fact that it is truly a huge subject, it is still not complete. I agree with Filioct, it has too much info here, not enough there, etc. This is not to say that we should reject the article altogether. I just think it needs some more work before it should attain feature article status. On my part, I pledge to put some more work on this article. Let's keep going!. Bratsche 02:58, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)
• Support: This is a very large subject, it can never be in depth at every level. James M 13:42, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Object, the coverage is too uneven as others have noted. Recent pop variations are given far too detailed coverage for an overview like this, in comparison to earlier forms. --iMb~Mw
• Object, it doesn't mention anything about Japanese classical music. Revth 13:34, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)