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The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

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I want to get it up to FA status. While I've worked on many song articles, I haven't really worked on a real album article before. I'd appreciate any criticism, especially regarding big picture aspects about the page's structure. Thanks, Tkbrett (✉) 20:25, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from zmbro

Placeholder for later – zmbro (talk) (cont) 14:28, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Lead section seems a little long. I think you should try to trim a bit as it feels flooded with detail right now, especially superfluous things like "In the UK it was certified silver for reaching 60,000 sales in 2008 and gold for reaching 100,000 in 2018" and maybe even "including those published by Rolling Stone magazine and in the book All Time Top 1000 Albums."
    Yes, I think you're right ... I'll start trimming things down. Man, I really hate writing leads. Definitely my least favourite part.
  • Might be a me thing but there's a LOT of quote boxes from Ray Davies. He was the main guy, obviously, but it definitely feels like a lot, especially in the songs section.
    That's fair. The difficulty I've found is that since he's the songwriter and producer, he's the one that has the most important things to say. At least in a Beatles article I could split that over Lennon, McCartney and George Martin. I haven't found many interesting observations from Mick Avory or Pete Quaife. I'll try cutting the less interesting quote boxes down.
  • Speaking of that section, I think some tracks have a little too much detail. When writing articles like Hunky Dory and Aladdin Sane, I tried to have a brief description of the music and lyrics and, if there's some info connecting it to the whole album or other tracks, especially that. If I had to guess you probably followed Sgt. Pepper but in my eyes parts like the two paras on "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" seems a little much.
    Yeah, fair enough again. I've always found it easier to write a lot than to exercise restrain ... I'll try making some cuts.
  • Couldn't agree more. You should see the first drafts of Hunky, Ziggy, and Aladdin. Oof. – zmbro (talk) (cont) 23:56, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed some. I'll look through closer later.
  • Doesn't look like you saw BBC Review. Should help extend retrospective a sentence or two.
    Thanks for this and all the links below. I've been meaning to just rewrite the section from scratch – I originally pumped it out quickly because I hate writing the retrospective sections (almost as much as a I hate leads) just because I like working with books more than websites, and the latter tend to make up the bulk of sections on the retrospective assessment.
  • There's also this Billboard 50th retrospective
  • not sure if this one is reliable but it's worth a try.
  • UCR
  • 'The Best Rock Album You've Never Heard' – Esquire
  • Check out AllMusic for expanded prose on the 2018 deluxe edition (and track times)
  • Ah, I didn't realize they had other reviews tucked in there! Unfortunately the AllMusic entry for edition I've listed in the track listing (all 5 CDs) doesn't include times for the tracks. Only the 2 CD version you've linked has times. I wonder how necessary it is to have all those bonus tracks listed ...
  • Probably not. Wasn't there a consensus on WP:ALBUMS for alternate track listings...? – zmbro (talk) (cont) 23:57, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hope this helps for starts. :-) – zmbro (talk) (cont) 20:04, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, as always zmbro! Tkbrett (✉) 20:55, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Another comment: One thing I think you could is combine some page numbers (ex being p. 20 vs pp. 20–21 can be moved to just pp. 20–21). I did that with the older Bowie articles as I think it just looks better so there's not upwards of 100–200+ references (and there's currently 370 here). You don't have to but it's just a thought. – zmbro (talk) (cont) 20:48, 9 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I cleaned up a few where I could but it didn't change it too much. I'm not especially concerned, since Sgt. Pepper and Pet Sounds also have a ton of them. I usually like having citations for every sentence since it helps with verifiability years down the road after IPs swoop in and start adding in weird stuff. Tkbrett (✉) 14:12, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Cursory comments

Solid looking article 👌 👏

One comment I have is the opening of the influence section, that you should clarify by whom was it largely overlooked (i.e. listeners, critics, etc.) 𝒮𝒾𝓇 𝒯𝑒𝒻𝓁𝑜𝓃 (talk | contribs) 23:54, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've listened to [Village Green] so many times and I just fucking love it. It's obviously such a big influence on Damon Albarn's writing. You know the song 'Big Sky'? 'Big sky, too big to cry.' You can almost hear someone shouting 'Parklife!' at the end of it, do you know what I mean?[1]

– Noel Gallagher, 2011

Thanks Teflon Peter Christ. I clarified that it was the public that did the ignoring. I think the Influence and Retrospective assessment sections are the ones that I need to work on the most. The album had a major impact on the music of the 90s, especially Britpop acts, something I'd like to flesh out a bit more. (I mean, look at this hilarious quotation from Noel Gallagher, at right. There's no way that's not making it in.) Do you happen to have access to John Harris' book Britpop!: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock (Da Capo Press, 2004)? I see it's sourced in the article for Modern Life Is Rubbish, discussing how Damon Albarn "started to miss really simple things [about England]" and listened to the Kinks a lot. The book isn't at my local library and I don't see anywhere nearby I could get it on interlibrary loan. Tkbrett (✉) 00:12, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have access to that book. My knowledge and listening experience of Britpop are actually pretty peripheral. So, I'd trust you more on this topic. 𝒮𝒾𝓇 𝒯𝑒𝒻𝓁𝑜𝓃 (talk | contribs) 01:08, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Beatleswhobeachboys

Really nice work! Coming from someone who has done a lot of work on Kinks articles, I'm impressed at how well researched it is. Couple of nitpicks:

  • "The Kinks first recorded "Village Green" on 24 and 25 November 1966 at Pye Studios in central London.[24] The sessions marked the beginning of the band's next album, released the following September as Something Else by the Kinks.[30] The songs recorded in November 1966 were later re-recorded in February 1967, including a new version of "Village Green",[31] though Davies withheld it from the new album." Maybe rephrase to make the chronology clearer, something like "The Kinks first recorded "Village Green" at the beginning of the Something Else sessions on x date. It was later re-recorded on x date at the end of these sessions, though it was withheld."
  • Agreed. Reworded it near your suggestion.
  • "...deadened the sound on "Phenomenal Cat" by placing newspaper over a floor tom-tom." You probably could just hyperlink to floor tom instead.
  • Done.
  • "Village Green served as the album's working title through the summer of 1968, though Davies remained unsatisfied that it was too narrow too encapsulate the album's broader themes." Fix the "to" vs. "too" here.
  • Whoops!
  • "and "All of My Friends Were "There" – helped to "kill the album conceptually"" Fix quotations in song title.
  • Fixed.
  • Maybe restructure "Influence and Legacy" section to be more chronological? Maybe begin with the after-effects felt by the band and then pivot to influences on other artists (also maybe begin with earlier influencees (?) like Townshend and then pivot to the Britpop guys).
  • Yeah, I'm toying with how to do this. I think you're right that chronologically is the way to go. I think I'll have a better idea of what to do when I have more sources on '90s music and Britpop in particular.
  • It may also be worth renaming the section "Aftermath and legacy" or something like that, given the band relations following the album might not fit squarely in the old title. Beatleswhobeachboys (talk) 03:19, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Essential Records issued the album's first CD remaster in May 1998." fix link to Essential Records (is it Essential Records (London))?
  • Maybe reformat the track listing to match the layout on articles like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band? Also not sure what the dashes at the end of song titles for some of the bonus tracks represents.
  • Do you mean with the Track listing template? By WP:TRACKLIST it isn't necessary here since we have such a simple situation, where every song has the same songwriter and same lead vocalist, save one. I'd like to do without bonus listings, since I feel they can get a little overblown and are probably better served by a link to Discogs in the external links section, but I guess that's a battle for another day at WP:ALBUMS. The Sgt. Pepper page luckily doesn't have to deal with this since its 50th anniversary edition has its own article.
  • Fair point. For whatever reason I have a preference for that formatting, but if it's not a necessary thing for the FA status it's probably not worth the hassle.
  • Oh, and those dashes were supposed to be followed by the track lengths. Unfortunately I can't find anything for the 2018 release – nothing on AllMusic, Amazon or on the back of the CDs. Guess I'll just not put times for now.
  • Generally would say to make sure all references to "Davies" can clearly be ascribed to Ray or Dave based on the context of its usage. (Had a fun time with that when I was working on the article for "Come Dancing", where I was jumping around between Ray, Dave, and their sister Rene, all of whom share the Davies surname).
  • Yes, what a pain ... I've gone and fixed everything by MOS:SAMESURNAME, but I'm guessing the issue will keep cropping up on subsequent rewrites, so I'll try to keep that in mind.

Again, great research and writing. Glad you're taking the initiative to sharpen up some of these Kinks articles... they're a fantastic band that merits attention from us editors. Beatleswhobeachboys (talk) 01:00, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks very much for the kind words, Beatleswhobeachboys. I found it unfortunate what short shrift this article had been given compared to its significance. I guess that's often been the story of the Kinks though ... Tkbrett (✉) 02:59, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely, a true shame how often they get overlooked. Though I'm not on Wikipedia quite as much as I used to be, feel free to contact me about other things with the article. I'd definitely be curious to see more about the album's influence on Britpop, given my affinity for bands like Blur and Pulp. You can definitely sense the Davies storytelling style in Blur's material as you mention in the article. Beatleswhobeachboys (talk) 03:17, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, this article here might be useful for establishing Blur's affinity for the album. Graham Coxon might not have been the one who spearheaded the band's aggressively Kinksy turn, but he was still a major player in Blur's songwriting team. Beatleswhobeachboys (talk) 01:06, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by FrB.TG

  • "Primarily known as a singles act,[4] the Kinks assembled their early LPs" - LP should be linked here as opposed to later at "a medium which would compromise between the longer format of an LP and individual singles".
  • Fixed.
  • specified July 1965.
  • "Davies expressed his pride of Britain in an April 1966" - WP:NBSP needed between April and 2016. Since this is for FA, I suggest applying it throughout the article as there are other instances.
  • Fixed all of them.
  • The lead uses s's for singular people ("an idea he based on Dylan Thomas's 1954") but elsewhere it's without an s in the end (e.g. "Davies' songwriting earnings from November 1965"). I suggest remaining consistent.
  • Consistently used s'.
  • FrB.TG, I didn't realize until now that the MOS actually provides direction on when to use possessives (MOS:POSS). So it is "Dylan Thomas's radio drama", "Ray Davies's songwriting" and "Pye Records's offices" versus "The Kinks' discography", "the songs' elaborate productions" and "listeners' polls", amongst others. Tkbrett (✉) 19:50, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Around the same time, Davies interviewed with Record Mirror and New Musical Express (NME)" - I don't think you really need to write out NME here as the website's uses the abbriavation much more commonly.
  • In 1968, the full title was written on the magazine's cover, so I think it's best to use it at first mention and then NME with subsequent uses.
  • My comments above are fairly technical Wikipedia aspects. My impression of the writing so far is that the article is well-written and I don't have much to complain but I did notice some unusually large sentences. For example, this one from the lead has nearly 50 words: "After the band's principal songwriter, Ray Davies, experienced a nervous breakdown in March 1966, the group reduced their commitments and spent more time recording in the studio, allowing him to develop as a songwriter, while being increasingly separated from the emerging youth- and drug-cultures." In such instances, you are better off splitting it for readability.
  • Agreed. I've chopped that sentence in two.

Having only gone through a few sections so far, I will read through the rest of the article soon. Let me know once you have addressed these. I found your article at WP:PR, where I myself have listed one for a music article, which could use some comments. I would appreciate it if you could find some time to review it, but it's obviously not obligatory in any way. FrB.TG (talk) 18:50, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks FrB.TG, I appreciate the comments. I'll try to get to your PR as well. Tkbrett (✉) 20:45, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Richard3120

I haven't finished reading this yet, but it's absolutely correct to say that in the UK, at least, this album is regarded as the Kinks' masterpiece and a major influence on Britpop. I hope you don't mind, but I made a few spelling corrections such as obvious missing words.

  • Background: "Davies expressed his pride of Britain in an April 1966 interview with Melody Maker magazine, explaining his wish that its culture could remain distinct from that of America and Europe." I haven't read the interview, but does Davies "explain a wish", or simply "express a wish"?
  • I think I had it as "expressed" originally, but changed it to avoid repetition. I'll switch it back.
  • "Adding to his stresses was litigation by Larry Page, the Kinks' former manager, and Edward Kassner, their former publisher, who were claiming publishing rights and 10 per cent of the Kinks' earnings since November 1965." – "had been claiming", not "were claiming".
  • Fixed.
  • "Rogan writes the album can retrospectively been seen as a transitional work where the band moved away from their original R&B style." – should be "can retrospectively be seen".
  • Fixed.
  • "Alan "Mac" MacKenzie worked on the album until departing from Pye in spring 1968" – should avoid the use of "spring" per MOS:SEASON... maybe just simply say "...until he departed from Pye".
  • There were a couple violations of MOS:SEASON, so I fixed them all. I changed "spring 1968" to "early 1968", but I'm not certain, since I guess it spring could really range from late March to mid-June.
  • Production: "Village Green was the Kinks' first studio album which Davies produced entirely on his own, following a dissolution in his relationship with the band's longtime producer, Shel Talmy, during the sessions for Something Else." Not sure you can have a "dissolution" in a relationship – I think "breakdown" would be better here.
  • Agreed, switched to your wording.
  • In various places the text talks about periods of time such as "a tour of Sweden from 8 through 23 June 1968". I've always felt the use of "through" in this context is a North American way of speaking, and most Brits would simply say "from 8 to 23 June". Maybe I'm just being a picky Brit here...
  • I'm not British so I'd appreciate even the smallest of nitpicks about getting the writing style right. It seems especially appropriate for this album.
  • At present the legacy section only notes the album's placing on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 greatest albums of all time – numerous UK publications have also included it on their "all time" album lists, including the NME 500 Greatest Albums Ever (2013), Uncut's 200 Greatest Albums of All Time (2016), and Q's 50 Best British Albums Ever (2004). I should have proper citations noted down for most of these. Richard3120 (talk) 19:09, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the comments, Richard3120. The legacy section is the one I still feel I need to put a bunch more work into. I recently got a book about Britpop which should help (The Last Party by John Harris), but I've been putting off the expansion of this page while I work on the various song articles. I'd appreciate any help with adding lists! I've so far tried to base it off the legacy section of Sgt Pepper, which similarly appears in a lot of lists. Tkbrett (✉) 21:12, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Richard3120, I previously saw your assistance for zmbro in finding old magazine articles and I'm wondering if you'd also be able to help with something similar here. There's a Rolling Stone article from 1974 I'm interested in – it has quotations from Ray Davies regarding his initial inspiration for "Village Green". Several books make reference to it obliquely, but none quote it extensively. I haven't been able to find it online and my local library's archives don't go back far enough. It's this article: Bailey, Andrew (20 June 1974). "Can Anybody Depend on the Kinks? Yeah". Rolling Stone. No. 168. p. 18. I'd appreciate any help! Thanks. Tkbrett (✉) 15:50, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Tkbrett: firstly, I should say: well done. You've done a great job in adding detail to this article, a lot of which I didn't know about and was fascinated to learn. Very rude of me not to say so in my original post and I apologise. I didn't want to come across as superior and "this is the proper British way of saying things", because I can see you've taken great care to use British English throughout, so I just wanted to point out that most Brits would not say "Monday through Friday".
  • I would be very happy to help you if I could, but apart from not being in the UK at the moment, unfortunately it's very likely that copy of Rolling Stone is not in the British Library, although of course I will have a look for you - they have a fantastic collection of UK music magazines, but not so much the US ones. NYC's music library almost certainly has it, as their collection of Rolling Stone is almost complete, right back to 1967, but I guess you are nowhere near New York. I will post a more detailed response on your talk page in a couple of days, because some of it is not directly related to this PR. Richard3120 (talk) 22:01, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Tkbrett: you got lucky! But that's great news. I said I was going to write on your talk page about a related issue... I'll do that now. Richard3120 (talk) 20:57, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review/The_Kinks_Are_the_Village_Green_Preservation_Society/archive1