Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums

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Note: Anybody wishing to take part in WikiProject:Albums is welcome to do so. Feel free to ask questions here. Below is a basic guide to writing an article on a specific album of music; this is only a guide and you should feel free to personalize an article as you see fit, though others may change it to fit our standards. The Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums has an extensive list of notable albums from the last thirty years or so, if you would like some suggestions on which albums to write about.

Stylistic note: Songs are placed in quotation marks, albums are italicized and artists are left alone (i.e. The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" comes from their Xth album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band).

On song linkages: Don't link to a song that has no article unless you believe that the song most certainly deserves an article and/or you are willing to write it.

Please try and add the year in parentheses after mentioning an album for the first time in an article or paragraph (unless the year is contained within the sentence) as in: "Nirvana's next album was the breakthrough classic Nevermind (1992)."

Completed Examples: AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars, Highway 61 Revisited, The Violent Femmes, The Marshall Mathers LP

  • The basics should be in the first paragraph: title, artist, release date, record label and a word or two about genre and critical reception
  • Describe or upload copy of the album cover (under fair use).
  • Describe history, trivia, themes (musical or lyrical), a consideration of its specific influences, specific followers, where it fits in its genre and what leanings it may have toward others, reasons for the order of tracks (if any), etc. Also, synthesize the general critical reception of the album, being as detailed as possible. Be sure to note minority opinions as well, properly attributed (preferably with an external link). Also, any way the album affected the cultural consciousness of a society or culture.
    • There are various methods for writing this; it should be the bulk of the article. In the course of writing these, it has become apparent that there are two distinct styles of articles (that are actually opposite ends of a spectrum), either of which may be appropriate, depending on the album in question.
  • Add a paragraph or two on how the album fits in the development of music. What sound similar to? What inspired the artists? Who listened to this album, then started a band of their own and became famous ten years later? An example from Ziggy Stardust is below.
The glam rock sound on Ziggy Stardust comes from early pioneers in the field of gender-bending, heroin-drenched hard rock powered by climactic guitar riffs and bass-heavy beats. Bands like Mott the Hoople (Mott the Hoople - 1969) and T. Rex (Prophets Seers & Sages the Angels of the Ages - 1968) helped to create the sound of glam rock, contributing a heavy metal and folk aspect, respectively, along with Deep Purple's (Deep Purple - 1969) metallic prog rock. Bowie mixed this early combination with the frenetic proto-punk of the Stooges (The Stooges - 1969) and the contemplative, dark and melodic proto-punk of the Velvet Underground (White Light/White Heat - 1967). Dark psychedelia, like the Doors (The Doors - 1967) and early concept albums like Tommy (1969; the Who) influenced the lyrical direction of the album.
Ziggy Stardust was a monumental album in music history. Its sound has changed the way heavy metal, punk music, hard rock, glam rock and prog rock sound. The direct progenitors were later glam musicians like the glam-metal of Alice Cooper (Billion Dollar Babies - 1973), the glam-disco of Labelle (Nightbirds - 1974) and the glam-pop of Gary Glitter (Touch Me - 1973). Heavy metal began with bands like Blue Cheer (Vincebus Eruptum - 1968) and the Yardbirds (Five Live Yardbirds - 1964); in the post Ziggy Stardust world, heavy metal evolved towards glam metal bands like Mötley Crüe (Too Fast For Love - 1981) and Van Halen (Van Halen - 1978) through the occult bands of the mid to late 1970s, like Blue Öyster Cult (Tyranny and Mutation - 1973) and Black Sabbath (Sabotage - 1975), and metallic prog rock like Yes (Tales From Topographic Oceans - 1974). Ziggy Stardust (along with other notable albums, such as The New York Dolls - 1973) also combined the two types of proto-punk, the energetic power of the Stooges and the avante-garde lyrical and musical aspects of the Velvet Underground, resulting in early punk musicians like Elvis Costello & the Attractions (My Aim Is True - 1977), Adam & the Ants (Kings of the Wild Frontier - 1980) and Graham Parker (Howlin' Wind - 1976) before the first wave of true hardcore punk music, with the Jam (In the City - 1977), the Clash (The Clash - 1977) and the Ramones (The Ramones - 1976), as well as the more artistic punk of Patti Smith (Horses - 1975) and Television (Marquee Moon - 1977). In the 1990s, shoegazing and Britpop bands like Suede (Dog Man Star - 1994), Morrissey (Viva Hate - 1988) and My Bloody Valentine (Isn't Anything - 1988) showed a strong Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie influence.
  • Track Listing: (Note: Particularly for rap albums, it is helpful to list which members of a group (or guests) rap on which verses as well as mentioning sampling sources)
    • "complete song title" (John Doe, Brian Smith)
      • First Verse: Name of rapper
      • Second Verse: Name of rapper
      • Samples: Name of sample source (preferably, artist, song, album)
    • "complete song title" (Doe, Kelly Kalamazoo)
    • "complete song title" (Doe, Kalamazoo, Smith, David Whitman)
    • Note the standard method of attributing songwriters--write (and link) the full name the first time it appears, and then just give the last name (unless the first initial is necessary to disambiguate it, as in the Gallagher brothers of Oasis). If all songs were written by the same person/team, this can be stated at the top as in "(all songs written by Gordon Gano)"
  • Personnel: (names and instruments, link to instrument on first occurrence)
  • Other external links:
    • [chords]
    • [lyrics]
    • [parodies]
    • [anything else relevant]

Hey there,
I think this is a very interesting project and I've devoted some thought to how it might be done myself. The template you've outlined here offers pretty much the same information as each www.allmusic.com entry, perhaps even a little less. So I don't really think such an undertaking is all that useful. Wikipedia does not exist in a vacuum, and so I don't think we should try to duplicate what is already done, and done well.
What I do think would be useful, and if done well could be really fantastic, is an examination of each album from a slightly broader perspective. In the examination of each album, how about a consideration of its specific influences, specific followers, where it fits in its genre and what leanings it may have toward others, etc? With regard to the Funkadelic albums, I'd much sooner go to allmusic.com for that information than to these wikipedia pages, but allmusic doesn't have the kind of musical matrix information that I think could be really exciting.
What do you think? I'm up for more chat on this topic. -Tubby

Thanks for the input. I have added some of what you wrote to the above. The whole purpose of coming up with a template for Funkadelic stuff was because I know there are lots of info that should be in the articles--each song and album has specific traditions and like associated with it, but I don't know what they are. I was hoping it would draw in others who did have more unique information. I saved it here because the handful of albums that actually had an article in wikipedia seemed like the author didn't know what kind of information would be appropriate to put there, so this is meant as a list of ideas of things that could or should be in an article on an album.

If you are interested, perhaps we could try and accomplish some sort of depth in this field. Perhaps if we found a list of influential albums (many such lists exist), we could divide them up so that each one would get a thorough article. I think having info on recent music would bring a lot of new contributors to Wikipedia. Tokerboy 22:52 Nov 9, 2002 (UTC)


Right on - good idea. There aren't too many newer albums that I could do a 'critical' study on, maybe some Beck or some Stereolab, but yeah, I think if we come up with one or two 'deeper' articles, we could compare them and then hash out some standards. It might be useful to begin with some musics we both have some related interest in. I'm really not that familiar with Parliament and its associated associations, or really much funk at all (my loss), so do you have some other suggestions? I don't feel qualified to tackle huge albums like Zeppelin IV or Sgt. Pepper or Dark Side of the Moon, even though I'm familiar with them, but there should be some middle ground somewhere.
-Tubby

In general, newer albums will probably be more difficult because their impact can not be fully measured yet. Some of David Bowie's stuff was years ahead of its time, for example, and was dismissed as bizarre and stupid until it became a genre ten or fifteen years later.

I'm appended a quite long-list to the Talk page--it's obviously not something the two of us will do, so I am trying to advertise on the mailing list--I think we should each do two or three and add them to a list somewhere here (or on the Talk page), and then we can start discussing standards. Tokerboy 21:03 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

I've done Highway 61 Revisited, Aquemini, AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, Ziggy Stardust and The Violent Femmes. Tokerboy 21:57 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Please don't create edit links for every song. The vast majority of songs are not famous enough to warrent their own articles (not to mention the problem of finding info to fill these articles). Please also make sure italics and quotes are used where needed. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style. --mav


Excellent work on Highway 61 Revisited and Desolation Row. I'll check out the Violent Femmes later. I've got one quick suggestion so far: I would like to see some information on the structure of the album, like why the songs are in the order they are. That's a fascination of mine, so it may not appeal to others.
I've started compiling some ideas on Paul Simon - Paul Simon, so they should be up in a while.
Tubby

I'm not sure if the order is always something terribly important, but that's a good suggestion. I'm adding it to the above (and revamping it). BTW, I see you are linking to the uncreated article on Paul Simon (album) for his self-titled. I think I agree that Paul Simon should be an exception, but please note that thus far (as at The Violent Femmes and Funkadelic, plus more that I can't remember) self-titled albums are on the same page as the band. Paul Simon's different because he's a person and not a band. Do you think this standard should be changed, or is Paul Simon an exception? (I don't have terribly strong feelings either way)

I'd lean more to having a separate page for a self titled album. It is an album in its own right after all. But yeah, it becomes a problem when trying to classify or arrange or list the album in some larger set. Having it on the same page as the band suggests that perhaps the band and the album share something or have some identity, when that may not be the case. Would you put The White Album/The Beatles on the main Beatles page? Probably not, cause the Beatles are so much more than that album, as good as it is. Anyway, that's my opinion.
I'll write a little more about my opinions on structure later. Nothing serious though..
Tubby

I think you've convinced me. I've created Funkadelic (album) and The Violent Femmes (album) and will do others as I stumble across them. Tokerboy 14:25 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)

In case you hadn't noticed, I've spent the last little while writing semi-stubs for musicians on the list with no article. I realized it just seems kinda silly to be writing articles on individual albums when Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye had absolutely no article. I shall return to albums soon. Tokerboy 21:37 Nov 15, 2002 (UTC)

Is it time to work out some more standards or goals? Please feel free to comment on the Paul Simon article I've put together. Eventually I'd like to have a little something something about each song. Good work on those articles that you have written, at least the ones I've read are very well done.
I think some specific thing that I would like to see would be, say, on each album page, two links to other bands or artists that are similar in ways, but a few words on how they are different, and perhaps also a bit of a chronology to it. So, in a perfect world where every album is documented, one could travel back or forward or sideways, reading on one album page the description of related artists, finding stuff that may be more to their liking. However, this could lead to some repetition, with all albums pointing to only two other bands.
-Tubby

What you've got on Paul Simon looks good. My only suggestion is to take the big chunk about one song and put it into paragraphs, one for each song or whatever seems appropriate. I had Aquemini set up like you, and I think it looked a lot better after I changed it (you may wanna look at the very first revision in the history). The analysis itself looks good, very informative.

I've added this to Ziggy Stardust. Tell me what you think of the format. I was thinking about making it a table, but that's tedious and probably wouldn't be that useful.

Precursors: T. Rex - Electric Warrior, The Stooges - Raw Power, The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
Followers: Queen - Sheer Heart Attack, Mott the Hoople - Mott, The New York Dolls - The New York Dolls

I like this idea, though I suppose there will eventually be some serious disagreements about which to choose. I think aiming for three of each seems good too, though I'd hesitate to make it a rule.

I've gone ahead and made the section above a rough draft. Feel free to comment or make changes. The only thing I'm not sure about is linking to external reviews/listing something like "Rolling Stone: four stars; Source magazine: five mics" or something along those lines. What about amateur reviews? Do you have any ideas about how to handle this? Tokerboy 23:27 Nov 19, 2002 (UTC)

Anyone can find a boat load of reviews on an album just through Google, but idf someone wants to put a useful quote from a review in the article, in order to emphasis a point, or even to offer an opposing alternative, I think that should be encouraged. Major reviews like Rolling Stone or whatever could or should have links, if desired.
Regarding the Followers/Influences thing, I think there should be some description of the differences and similarities between the two bands or albums. The more specific the better. For example, for Ziggy Stardust, if I didn't know T. Rex or Mott the Hoople, I wouldn't know why they were on the list, or how they were different from the Velvets or Queen.
This is a problem that allmusic.com has. I think we should actively try to avoid being like allmusic. We can't realistically hope to match what they do, so we have to be different, or provide more information on the albums we do cover.
The section above looks really good. When people start to get on board, there will definately be some order and regularity to the articles. -Tubby

How about:

<snipped what is now the example in the standard -- Ziggy Stardust>

Two possible concerns: 1: too much info; 2: this is inherently subjective--I can't prove any of the above Tokerboy 03:31 Nov 21, 2002 (UTC)


Awesome! I think this is absolutely great. With this kind of extensive information, people could do lots of interesting things, like make a map of the progression of music, or rearrange their cd collection, or whatever. I think it would be even better if the release dates for each album were included.
Regarding your concerns:
1. It is a lot of information, but I don't think there's such a thing as too much info. What you've got here is extensive, but it's useful and compelling. Besides, it's a knowledge that a lot of people don't have. Probably only a few people would be able to write such a detailed article.
2. Good point. But, as far as I'm concerned, what you've written is right on. So there must be something that's "right" about what you've written, despite its subjectivity. I'm sure most people who know what's what would also agree with you. And if they don't, so be it, it would be a good chance to discuss these subjective issues and maybe develop an idea further.
I think if we were to try to add objectivity to these write ups, we would have to be as specific as we could. In order to actually make the link between Ziggy and T. Rex, the actual specific sound similarities would have to be detailed, whatever they may be. Consider the "woo-hoo" sound, which began in "Sympathy for the Devil", or earlier, and then also turned up in Blur's "Song 2" and the recent Sheryl Crow tune called "Steve McQueen", and probably other places too. What would those songs be like if it wasn't for "Sympathy for the Devil"? Would they even exist?
Obviously, this kind of meticulous detail is excessive, but I think that those kind of specific sounds do exist and can be tracked and followed. Kind of like a musical meme. Defining certain terms, setting certain characteristics and conventions to terms like "proto-punk" for example, would be especially useful.
-Tubby

I think you're right on all counts. I doubt we'll have many problems with people disagreeing with something along the lines of what I wrote above (though I'm not sure Morrissey is officially a shoegazing or Britpop band), though I'm sure it will occur eventually and someone will make some absurd claim (Britney Spears is heavily influenced by Ziggy Stardust) but we can deal with that when it comes up. I also agree very much about specific sounds ("woo-hoo") being nice, and I'll add them when I can but I don't really know much about music itself, so I couldn't discuss the use of minor chords or Wilsonian harmonies or anything like that. Still, I'll do what I can. I suppose the best part of being a wiki is that if I don't know something, someone else can (and will) pick up the slack. I also think we need articles on genres like proto-punk--there aren't many right now and I'm not really qualified to write them, but I agree that it would be helpful.

Unless you have any other suggestions, I'll go ahead and officially declare the above as WikiProject:Albums Standards 1.0. It seems that we are in agreement on anything. (If you write an article on something that better fits the second category of articles, please replace what's there now because neither of the examples actually fit the recommendations--Bob Dylan and the Violent Femmes are not prog rock, dance music nor symphonic by any stretch of the imagination) Tokerboy 21:53 Nov 23, 2002 (UTC)

Just a question in between: What about capitalization? I see you're using different methods. Sometimes every word is capitalized (like in Minutemen: Double Nickles On The Dime) and sometimes not (Midnight Oil: Red Sails in the Sunset). Shouldn't there be one choice? In the articles I started I capitalized every word, so Red Sails In The Sunset already exists. I capitalized only the first word of the songs mentioned in the article (though this might not be the right choice). Dhum Dhum 22:31 Nov 23, 2002 (UTC)

The normal practice is to capitalize the first and last words and all other words except articles (a, an, the), conjunctions (and, but, or, nor), prepositions (for, to, through, and so on, and the to in infinitives. (And remember albums in italics, song titles in quotes , as "She Said" from Revolver.) Ortolan88 PS, of course, if there's anything special about the title right on the album, you should copy the album. You know caMel cAse, allonewordlowercase, ALLCAPS, tricks like that.
I've always capitalized "through" and "with" (and probably other conjunctions and prepositions), but if that's the rule I'll try and remember not to. Maybe if I get the chance I'll fix the talk page's list to reflect that, since many are probably wrong (don't blame me, though, I pasted most of it from various other sites). Tokerboy 00:47 Nov 24, 2002 (UTC)
I lifted that from the Harbrace College Handbook, pretty standard. It says there used to be a fashion for capitalizing longer prepositions like before, between and through, but that is now considered old-fashioned. In fact, I just looked at the Little Brown Handbook which is pretty much the same as Harbrace and one from the 50s that says the longer preps should be capped. So, I think, the rule is pretty much as I stated it. Ortolan88
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