Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums

WikiProject Albums is an organization of Wikipedians dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of all kinds of musical albums. We seek ways of simplifying album pages so users can get the basic information fast, creating high-quality new pages, ensuring a standardized format and make articles as informative as possible. There is also a WikiProject Albums Featured Albums Project, which seeks to coordinate efforts to get as many albums as possible promoted to Featured status.

Feel free to ask questions on the talk page. 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.

Subpages

Project templates

When you create or find a new album page, please add {{Album}} to the top of the talk page. The {{Album}} template has several optional parameters:

Notability

While members of this project like to see new articles about albums, not all albums deserve articles at Wikipedia. Many consider any original studio album by a notable artist to be important enough to deserve an article, other editors follow stricter guidelines. See the following policies and policy proposals:

Style

Naming

The article name should be the title of the album, disambiguated if necessary. Do not pre-emptively disambiguate! When there is no other encyclopedic use of the album title, the article should reside at the normal name, e.g. London Calling, not London Calling (album). In cases where disambiguation is needed, the term (EP) should be used for EPs, (video) for video albums and (album) for other albums, e.g. Insomniac (album) and Gas Food Lodging (EP). For multiple albums with the same title, use the artist name to distinguish the different albums, e.g. Down to Earth (Rainbow album) and Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne album). For artists who release multiple albums with the same name, disambiguate by year, e.g. Weezer (1994 album) and Weezer (2001 album) (unless the albums were released the same year, in which case they can be disambiguated by some commonly accepted convention).

For split albums of which there is no single official title, use the two artist names separated with two spaces and a forward slash, such as Isis / Pig Destroyer. The artist that is on the A-side (or whose tracks come first on a CD) should be placed first in the article name. If two bands release more than one split together and occupy the same sides on each release, disambiguate normally by year, adding, for example, (2000 album). If the split has two titles, one per side, use the same forward-slash formatting, such as Jihad / Freezing Moon.

Formatting

Songs and singles are placed in "quotation marks", album titles are italicized and artists are left alone, with punctuation outside quotation marks, for example,

Links should only be created to song articles that don't exist if you believe that the song most certainly deserves an article.

Capitalization

In titles of songs, albums, and band names in the English language, the project standard is to capitalize:

In titles of songs or albums in a language other than English, the project standard is to use the capitalization utilized by that language, not the English capitalization. (If you are unsure about the capitalization standards of other languages, check the foreign-language Wikipedias or the MusicBrainz documentation.)

Dating

Please try to 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 (1991)". Do not use piped links to "years in music" e.g. [[1991 in music|1991]], instead add (see 1991 in music) where you feel it is appropriate.

Do not describe uncertain dates by using the season name, eg "released in winter, 1995". This can be ambiguous as northern and southern-hemisphere seasons occur at opposite times of the year. Instead, use the most accurate date possible, such as "February 1995" or "early 1995", if a more precise date cannot be verified.

The date an album was leaked onto the Internet is usually not notable, unless it resulted in some other action that is notable, such as being directly responded to by the musical artist or their management, or the leak itself receiving broad media coverage.

Disambiguating links

Infobox

This documentation is transcluded from Template:Infobox Album/doc. ( | history)

Dirt

Studio album by Alice in Chains

Released

September 29, 1992

Recorded

March–May 1992 at One on One and Eldorado in Los Angeles, California

Length

57:35

Label

Columbia

Producer

Alice in Chains, Dave Jerden

Professional reviews

Allmusic link
Alternative Press (favorable) March 1993 (p. 40)
Robert Christgau (B) link
Q February 2002 (p. 120)

Alice in Chains chronology

Sap
(1992)

Dirt
(1992)

Jar of Flies
(1994)

The standard infobox for album articles is the {{Infobox Album}} template. The box to the right is an example. You can click on "edit this page" and copy-and-paste the markup to a different article, replacing its information with info on the album you choose to write about.

The infobox code should be placed at the top of the article.

Code

Most articles should only need the following fields (for the full list of fields see advanced usage). Do not remove fields from this list when the value is unknown; in that case the values should be left blank. Please note that the field names are case-sensitive.

{{Infobox Album <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums -->
| Name        = 
| Type        = 
| Artist      = 
| Cover       = 
| Released    = 
| Recorded    = 
| Length      = 
| Label       = 
| Producer    = 
| Reviews     = 
| Last album  = 
| This album  = 
| Next album  = 
}}

Details

Try to fill in as many of the details as you can. If some details are unknown, leave the section blank or fill it with ??? to make it obvious to other editors that the info is needed. Wikilink wherever appropriate, but make sure you check your links and disambiguate accordingly.

Name

The album's title should be specified using text (not a logo), which will be automatically italicized.

Type

The Type field refers to the general type of album. Enter a code from the following chart. The type will appear with the appropriate color and wikilink. If the type is unknown, leave the field blank.

Code

Display

studio

Studio album by artist

demo

Demo album by artist

EP by artist

live

Live album by artist

greatest

Greatest hits by artist

remix

Remix album by artist

box

Box set by artist

compilation

Compilation album by artist

cover

Cover album by artist

tribute

Tribute album by artist

soundtrack

Soundtrack by artist

television

Television theme by artist

film

Film score by artist

video

Video by artist

by artist

Cover

An image of the official front cover of the original version of the album (or a reissue, if no original cover can be found) should be included at Cover. Album cover artwork may be scanned, or downloaded from another site such as Allmusic or Amazon.com. Note that whether you scan one yourself or copy it from another site, when uploading an image, you must tag it properly and follow fair use guidelines. If you cannot find a cover image, just leave this field blank.

Upload a copy of the album cover (under fair use). The width of the image should ideally be no less than 200px (the default display size of the infobox), but it should be no more than 300px on at least one side (to satisfy fair use criteria). For images smaller than 200px, see the section on cover size below.
On the image description page, use the {{Non-free album cover}} image copyright tag. Selecting "Album or single cover" from the pulldown list on the image upload page will accomplish this.
Add detailed fair use rationale for each use of the image. You can also use the {{Album cover article rationale}} template (see the usage guide for an explanation on how to use it) or the {{Album cover fur}} template.
Fill the template's Cover field with the name of your file (the full image syntax is not required here – just the file name with the extension).
remove the request-photo or request-image template from the talk page of the article.

Released

Only the earliest known date that the album was released should be specified, using a single occurrence of {{Start date}}, for example {{Start date|2007|7|31}} (or {{Start date|2007|7}} or {{Start date|2007}} if the exact date isn't known). Later release dates can be mentioned in a Release history section.

Recorded

Details on where and when the album was recorded should be included.

Length

The length of the album should be specified in minutes and seconds, even if it is longer than one hour, for example 74:00. It may be helpful to include a source in a comment, such as .

Label

Only the record label that the album was originally released on should be specified. Where significantly different versions have been released (featuring alternate track listings) e.g. in the U.S. vs UK, the later release date and/or record label should be mentioned in the article, for example in a Release history section. Drop words like "Records" from the end of the label's name (e.g. use [[Universal Records|Universal]] rather than [[Universal Records]]).

Producer

The name of the producer should be linked to the corresponding article. If there is more than one producer, the names should be delimited by commas.

Professional reviews

Professional reviews may include only reviews written by professional music journalists or DJs, or found within any online or print publication having a (paid or volunteer) editorial and writing staff (which excludes personal blogs). The standard for inclusion always is that the review meet Wikipedia's guideline for reliable sources and that the source be independent of the artist, record company, etc. A list of some sources of professional reviews is available at WP:ALBUM#Review sites. Due to their proliferation and dubious value, lists (e.g. Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Punk Rock Albums of the Early 1980s) may not be included.

The reviews should be listed alphabetically in the Reviews field. Start each one on a new line, beginning with an asterisk (*). The first bit of info should be the name of the source (most commonly a magazine like Rolling Stone—note that magazines are italicized).

The second bit should be the rating given in the review (e.g. 4/5). The rating should use the same format as in the review, to accurately portray the score of the review. For star ratings you should use the star rating template, for example, entering {{Rating|4.5|5}}, will render: . For reviews by Robert Christgau you should use the Christgau review template, for example, entering {{Review-Christgau|dud|album=10000}}, will render: Robert Christgau link . Numerical ratings, letter grades and other non-symbol ratings should be shown using plain text in parentheses, like (3.5/10), (B) or (90%). If no rating is given in the review you should use the word (favorable) or (unfavorable) to describe the review, possibly allowing for (ambivalent), (mixed), (extremely favorable) and more, but keep it short and simple. If you cannot summarize the review, just leave this second bit blank.

The third bit is preferably a link to the actual review on an official page; it may also be a summary of the review located elsewhere (if the original publisher doesn't include it online). The link should display as the year that the review was published. If you cannot find the year of publication, the word link will suffice. If there are no online sources, you may include no link at all, but must then cite the information properly. The citation should include the full date of publication and preferably the page number.

Include no more than ten reviews. When choosing which reviews to include, consider the notability of the review source and keeping a neutral point of view. For older albums, try to include not just contemporary but also some more recent reviews.

Chronology

The chronology section should link to the previous album on the left (using the Last album field) and the next album on the right (using the Next album field). The current album should be in the middle (using the This album field). Only studio albums, usually excluding live albums, compilations, singles and EPs should be included in the chronology.

The current album should always be in boldface. All album titles should be italicized. The year of release of the albums should be listed in parentheses, separated from the album title by <br /> or <br>. Wikipedia's date style guidelines recommend that years should not be linked within the chronology section. Cover images should not be included in the chronology, as that would not be fair use. For first albums the left box should be left blank. For latest albums the right box should be left blank. At least one of the two fields, previous or next, must have a value filled in, for the chronology to display.

No more than one album should be included in any of the three slots in the chronology. Additional chronologies may be used if necessary (see below). Albums released on the same day should be listed separately, ordered using the standard ordering of those albums, or alphabetically if no such standard exists.

Advanced usage

For more advanced usage, see Template:Infobox Album#Advanced usage.

Article body

Articles on albums should normally be about only one album, including possible reissues. These guidelines assume an article about one album is being written, and will need adjusting for articles about multiple albums, for example by shifting the heading nesting levels down one step.

Each article should begin with the album infobox (see above), followed by the lead section which should include basics such as title, artist, release date, record label, and a word or two about genre and critical reception.

Describe history, 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.

Add a paragraph or two on how the album fits in the development of music. What does it 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?

Track listing

Track names should be in quotes in the track listing and in the rest of the article. A track that is a medley of multiple songs should be inside one set of quotes, like this: "Song 1/Song 2". Untitled tracks should be listed as Untitled (without quotes). If a track has an article of its own, the track name should link to that article.

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 or team, this can be stated at the top as "All songs were written by Gordon Gano." If several songs were written by the same person or team, this can be stated as "All songs were written by Gordon Gano, except where noted."

Track lengths should be included for each track. Use a spaced en dash (–) rather than a hyphen (-) as a dividing horizontal punctuation mark before the track length. (Note that they may both look the same in the edit box.) You can insert it from the special character list below the edit box (see Help:Special characters) or copy and paste it from here. You can also add it by writing – HTML entity to the edit box (like this "–") but this makes the code less readable. If you think that this is too difficult, you can still use a hyphen, and hope that someone is going to change it into a dash. This holds true both in "Track listing" and "Personnel" sections. See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Dashes.

Particularly for hip hop albums, it is helpful to list which members of a group (or guests) rap on which verses as well as mentioning sampling sources. This can be done in a nested list, as in the example above. Using a table is recommended in more complicated situations (see Before These Crowded Streets for example). If a table is used, it should be formatted using class="wikitable", using column headings "#", "Title" and "Length" for the track number, the track title and the track length, respectively.

The track listing should be under a primary heading named "Track listing". If there are significantly different track listings for different editions, these can be listed under sub-headings. If the album was released primarily on CD and spans multiple discs, these should be listed separately under sub-headings named "Disc one", "Disc two" and so on. Albums originally released primarily on vinyl or cassette should similarly list the tracks of each side separately under sub-headings named "Side one" and "Side two".

Personnel

A personnel section should be included under a primary heading "Personnel" and should generally be formatted as an bulleted list of names and forms of participation, with en dashes between the two (see track listing section). The names should always be linked if an article exists. The forms of participation (for example instruments) should be written in lowercase, delimited by commas, and linked on the first occurrence only. Remember to pipe the links if needed, for example "percussion" to percussion instrument and "keyboard" to keyboard instrument.

Certifications

An album's certification can be worked into the body of the article, or a table can be created if an album has achieved multiple certifications.

Release history

Albums are often released on different dates, on different labels, and on different formats in different regions. This information can be included in a table. Note that the infobox should only include the first release date and label.

External links

Album articles may contain an external links section of links to relevant external resources about the album. Links to resources about the artist rather than the album do not need to be included here, as these should be linked from the artist's article instead. Links to individual reviews shouldn't be included here, but links to professional reviews can be included in the professional reviews section of the infobox. Appropriate links may include links to chords or lyrics for the tracks on the album. Note however that lyrics may be protected by copyright, and external resources that reprint lyrics may be violating that copyright, in which case they should not be linked.

Contents

Subpages

Project templates

Notability

Style

Naming

Formatting

Capitalization

Dating

Disambiguating links

Infobox

Code

Details

Name

Type

Cover

Released

Recorded

Length

Label

Producer

Professional reviews

Chronology

Advanced usage

Article body

Track listing

Personnel

Certifications

Release history

External links

Categories

Discography

Work to be done

Collaboration task

Maintenance

Participants

Review sites

Non-professional reviews

Non-English reviews

New articles

See also