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Primary topic issues involving Bad News Brown

You Wikifolks may be interested in a requested move discussion regarding the primary topic for Bad News Brown. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:04, July 27, 2013 (UTC)

Genres for band member articles

Input from other editors on this matter is appreciated. --Lapadite (talk) 20:48, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Unwritten Law members

There are at least 20 musicians who have been in the band Unwritten Law. With the exception of drummer Wade Youman, all the other original members left before the band ever recorded anything. I know that Eric Barth, Craig Winters, Jeff Brehm, Chris Mussey, and Shannon Woods are some of the early members. Does anyone know what instruments they played? If anyone knows the original lineup and what instruments each of the early members played, please add it to the article. 173.51.130.250 (talk) 21:00, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Use of the terms "clean/unclean vocals" on Misplaced Pages

I recently went through every Misplaced Pages article and removed the uses of clean/unclean vocals — there were only about 150 articles. This move was objected by Elizium23 (talk · contribs) who recommended that I achieve consensus first, so here I am.

My objection to the use of the terms clean/unclean vocals is simple: they aren't wide-spread, industry terms, but rather they are used primarily by non-notable metal blogs and kids involved in the heavy metal community. To me, these terms easily fell into the realm of a neologism, which have no place in an encyclopedia or dictionary and various guides/policies here frown upon. According to Words to Watch § Neologisms and New Compounds, "Neologisms are expressions coined recently or in isolated circumstances to which they have remained restricted. In most cases, they do not appear in general-interest dictionaries, though they may be used routinely within certain communities or professions. They should generally be avoided because their definitions tend to be unstable and many do not last. (my emphasis added)" As far as I can tell based on some Google searches, the term has been around for at least a decade, but only gets used on non-notable niche blogs. In fact, the majority of GNews searches turn up the metal blog underthegunreview.net, which is listed at WP:ALBUM/SOURCE as an unreliable source of information.

While Misplaced Pages Is Not a Dictionary § Neologisms is specifically about articles on neologisms, not use of neologisms in articles, the section does offer further insight into handling neologisms on Misplaced Pages. According to this section, the terms clean/unclean vocals could never pass for their own articles on Misplaced Pages. From the section, "Some neologisms can be in frequent use, and it may be possible to pull together many facts about a particular term and show evidence of its usage on the Internet or in larger society. To support an article about a particular term or concept, we must cite what reliable secondary sources, such as books and papers, say about the term or concept, not books and papers that use the term." So, if Misplaced Pages would never consider having an article on these terms because information about these terms cannot be collected through reliable sources, then why on earth should it be acceptable to use them in an article? If tomorrow some blog coins the phrases rocky/watery vocals, should they see widespread use on Misplaced Pages as well? No. And finally, per WP:JARGON, "Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do" (my emphasis added). There's a handful of completely appropriate synonyms for clean/unclean vocals that already exist, are already in the dictionary, and are already in use in countless other punk/metal articles — as I said above I only found these terms in just 150 articles out of about 250,000 total band/album articles.

tl;dr – Misplaced Pages articles should be written for a general audience and should not assume the reader has any degree of familiarity with the topic, and as such, writers should attempt to use as common and as easy to understand language as possible. The terms like clean/unclean vocals are not common (only used in niche circles) and may not be easy to understand for the general reader, and many alternatives do exist, thus neither should not be used anywhere on Misplaced Pages (barring direct quotes). Thoughts? Fezmar9 (talk) 06:11, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

"There's a handful of completely appropriate synonyms for clean/unclean vocals that already exist, are already in the dictionary, and are already in use in countless other punk/metal articles" - which of them would you suggest us to use instead? Unclean vocals currently redirects to Screaming (music), which I don't think is a good replacement because screams are not necessarily "unclean" (I'm not a native speaker of English, I'm assuming screaming, shouting and yelling have similar meanings just like in my native language; if not, do correct me). I'm not a big fan of the terms "clean"/"unclean", but they seem comprehensible for the average reader to me. Victão Lopes 07:05, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

i actually read this thread assuming clean/unclean referred to whether or not the song was ok for radio play. some searching revealed that "unclean vocals" are ostensibly synomous with screaming. (@Victor Lopes: screaming is normally synonymous with yelling, but in the context of music it often basically means screaming melodically in order to sing.) if that's what this thread refers to, i agree—not only is the term an unnecessary neologism, but it is also easily confused with the terms as they are used to describe the apropriateness of lyrics. so, if this thread is referring to using "unclean" to mean screaming or something similar, i'd say it's fine (preferable, even) to remove uses of the term in that context. ~ Boomur 08:01, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that it is a confusing term. In my limited experience, it appears that the combination of clean and unclean vocals is one of the aspects that defines the melodic metalcore genre, which I presume is why it was introduced. While I was copyediting the A Skylit Drive article I noticed that both on Discogs.com and Allmusic.com they are identified as screams. In that context I would not oppose a change, but as this is an aspect that appears to be genre-defining, a distinction has to be made. Karst (talk) 09:51, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with removing these terms. At best they are jargon, and should be removed so the articles are accessible to a general audience. --Laser brain (talk) 15:03, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Just a question: how would you guys call what singers do at the beginning of songs like "Misguiding Your Life" by Edguy, "Reach Out for the Light" and "Chalice of Agony" by Avantasia, or at the end of "Eagle Fly Free" by Helloween? I would say they're "screaming", but definitely not in an unclean way. Victão Lopes 15:28, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I just listened to "Misguiding Your Life" and "Reach Out for the Light". I would definitely call that "screaming" in casual conversation, but we're writing an encyclopedia. What they're technically doing is falsetto singing, but I think we can safely use Fezmar9's approach. Anyone who makes vocal noises on an album can be credited as "vocals" and we can describe it as "singing" or "vocalizing" in the writing if we need to. --Laser brain (talk) 15:37, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

This might be a better example from the melodic metalcore genre; where the lead-vocalist is prominent and the grunts and growls that come with it, apparently constitute that crossover. You can detect it mostly in chorus. I'm not sure if screaming is sufficient in describing what they are doing. It is quite obvious that these are heavily processed vocals, more akin to death metal grunts? Karst (talk) 15:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. I'm all for removing obscure jargon or obscure terminology, but there's a pretty basic wiki-link that solves this, and its all around a pretty basic concept. (unclean=screamed vocals) I didn't know what it meant at one point in time...but I figured it out pretty easily. I have no problem with the use of "screamed vocals" instead, as I do think its a little more clear, but not to the point where we need to banish clean/unclean. I can see it being preferable in some cases, as designating the difference or change in "clean/unclean vocals" may actually be more clear than "screamed/whatever the counter point to it would be" (sung?) Sergecross73 msg me 15:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

That is probably something that needs to be discussed on the metalcore Talk page, to avoid reverts/edit-warring etc. on this issue. Karst (talk) 15:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, feel free to put an alert of this discussion at that talk page if you like. I have no idea if that's an active problem there, I'm merely commenting here upon the request to do so at WP:ALBUMS, the area where I spend majority of my music-related editing. Sergecross73 msg me 16:22, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

"Grunts and growls", I was trying to remember these words. They would be fine replacements for me. I'm just not so sure yet that "clean"/"unclean" constitutes a neologism and leaves the reader clueless as to what we're talking about. I mean, we can always wikilink it like Sergecross73 pointed. Now, I invite you to take a look at this: while Unclean vocals redirects to Screaming (music), Death growl lists "unclean vocals" as a synonym. Victão Lopes 16:30, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm with Fezmar9 on this; the clean/unclean combination is only used by a relatively small group. By far the majority of English speakers will not understand. I think we must say "screaming vocals" or "growling vocals" or even "non-singing vocals" when referring to this sort of vocal work. When regular melodic singing is presented in contrast to screaming, we can say "singing vocals". Binksternet (talk) 16:56, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Wow, this is generating more discussion than I was anticipating! I purposefully chose not to define or provide any synonyms for these terms to illustrate that a general audience might not understand them, so thanks for helping to prove my point Boomur. In most general cases like personnel sections or listing band members and roles in the lead, I think just saying "vocals" is perfectly fine for all articles and no distinction should be made there. The mixed use of multiple vocal stylings in metal/punk/underground music has been around since maybe the mid-90s, and all this time simply labeling the singer(s) (regardless of their style) a "vocalist" has been perfectly fine. I think the most famous example would be Linkin Park, which features the singer/screamer Chester Bennington and rapper/singer Mike Shinoda. The article for their debut album Hybrid Theory labels both as vocalists in the personnel section as vocalists, but in the body of the article it elaborates on their specific styles and uses familiar terms like rapping/screaming/singing to do so. But on articles like anything related to Hollywood Undead, which is a band that also features rapping/singing/screaming, the writers of those articles feel the need to not only use these neologism terms, but explain all the different types of vocal stylings with something like "unclean vocals, rap vocals, occasional clean vocals" just for one member in the personnel section, which I think is complete overkill. Outside of a general reference like a personnel section where you might want to elaborate on what style of vocals and where some might be tempted to use "clean/unclean," there are plenty of synonymous terms that already exist. For "clean" you can just use sing or maybe "softer vocals", or since the reader might assume that a vocalist will sing, it might not even be necessary to make a distinction depending on the context. For "unclean," Misplaced Pages already recognizes screaming and death growls as those already have articles. When punk music with different vocal styles became popular, the phrases "loud/soft dynamics" or "sing/scream dynamics" were popular disambiguators, and I see "aggressive vocals" and "harsh vocals" used a lot in reviews for casual descriptions. So like I said, there are plenty of alternatives that are commonly used and will make sense to most readers, so it's completely unnecessary to these uncommon and potentially confusing terms. Fezmar9 (talk) 19:40, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Fezmar9 that "clean" and "unclean" (especially the latter term) are little-known outside of heavy metal and hardcore audiences. However, while terms such as grunts, screams, or growls all work for describing the vocal styles encompassed in the term "unclean," and actually provide better nuance then the term "unclean" (there's a difference between hardcore shouts, death growls, and black metal shrieks, for example), what term should we use to describe "normal" or "clean" singing? Just "singing"? I've actually encountered the term "clean" a lot more than "unclean," and I think it's for this reason.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 20:21, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

"Harsh vocals", that's another term I forgot and I find it even better than growl or grunt. If we say one guy does harsh vocals, I suppose we can assume one will understand that the other guy who is listed as "vocals" is singing in a "clean" way. I still don't think unclean is a case of neologism to be avoided, but if the participants of this discussion come to a consensus that it needs to be replaced, I won't object. Harsh vocals seem like the best option so far. Victão Lopes 20:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I forgot about that term. That could work. There are times though that the "clean" vocals are the emphasis. For instance, in the band Exttol, Ole Børud is the "clean" singer. So how do we explain that on his Misplaced Pages article? Right now, due to this discussion, I just re-wrote the sentence about how critics praised his "clean" singing, and it now says that critics praised his singing, which contrasts with Peter Espevoll's screams and growls.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 21:39, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

One of the many reasons I objected and reverted all of this was because it removed useful information from articles. I think it is clear that it is useful to make a distinction among several different types of vocal styles. All we need to settle is the terminology to be used in the articles. We already have "Screaming (music)" and "Death growl" as a basis. Perhaps I could propose that these terms be adopted as they are stable names for the articles in question. Now for a broader rationale. The whole point of Misplaced Pages is to link together informative terms using standard WWW hyperlinks. If we present an unfamiliar term, we make it a wikilink so that the reader may better understand it. It makes no sense to remove descriptive terms as well as their associated, wikilinked articles and say that makes a better encyclopedia. If I am writing an article that contains the term "saxophone", it is wikilinked in the hope that someone unfamiliar with the term, say a child in grade school, can click it and find out what that means. It would make no sense to remove it and replace it with a bare word such as "brass horn". Still less does it make sense to cite a guideline such as WP:WTW and policy such as WP:NAD as the rationale for so doing. It just didn't make any sense to me. I hope that for a way forward, we can settle on some terminology and retain the useful distinction among extended vocal techniques. Thank you. Elizium23 (talk) 22:19, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

i agree that normally, a wikilink would suffice and serve to advance Misplaced Pages's aim to create a network of information. however, i think in this case i agree with Fezmar (and, uh, myself, i guess) that "clean" and "unclean" are too ambiguous. if i am reading the page assuming those words mean something wholly different—which i expect a large portion of readers will—i won't click the link or even hover over the piped term to see what it is, i'll just assume it's the music-related definition i know already. on the other hand, while screaming also has a definition most readers already know, this may not apply to a musical context, so there is more motivation to read further by clicking through the link. so, yes, it is fine to use a word the audience may not know and link to it—but only if you can safely assume that most of the audience will click that link. ~ Boomur 08:19, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that something we need to keep in mind is that "unclean vocals" is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of different techniques (e.g. hardcore shouts, death growls or black metal shrieks) while "clean vocals" is used to distinguish standard singing from these techniques when both of these are used by a band. They are most often used in metalcore articles because melodic metalcore is in part defined by the variety of vocal techniques used in it, including different "unclean" techniques which are contrasted with "clean" singing, often done by a different vocalist. I think that in this area the distinction between "cleans" and "uncleans" is very important, and don't think there are many other terms we could use that would express this distinction adequately. The only solid alternative I can think of would be "harsh vocals" versus "sung vocals", but I don't think these are any less confusing.--MASHAUNIX 21:53, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I would also like to note that in my opinion, the average reader will need to get familiar not only with the terms used, but also with the very fact that there are two different kinds of vocals that metalcore (and other) bands use. The terminology used should make it easy for the reader to learn this quickly and effortlessly.--MASHAUNIX 01:11, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Steve Hewitt & Polaroid Kiss

There is a dispute over whether Steve Hewitt was ever a member of Polaroid Kiss. Along with edit warring, potential outing and allegations of sock puppetry! I would appreciate any comments or help, like reliable sources, etc at WP:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Repeated vandalism on Biography of Living Person (Polaroid Kiss Music Band). Regards, 220 of 17:13, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

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