Talk:The Nightfly

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The Nightfly has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: June 5, 2017. (Reviewed version).

Picture

Who is the guy at the cover? Donald Fagan himself? abelson 07:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. 88.32.216.139 (talk) 14:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ELABORATION: This is indeed a photo of Fagen, but what's more it's a depiction of the narrator of the story in the song "The Nightfly." If you'll look, he's got "Chesterfield Kings" cigarettes, for instance. B. Polhemus (talk) 03:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Nightfly

I suppose I don't understand the elaboration about the album going Platinum in the U.K., and then the offhand statement "it also went Platinum in the U.S." I favor a non-locale-centric POV on something like this. Yes, it's interesting that the album went Platinum in the U.K. more than twenty years after its release, but the article should reflect FIRST that it went Platinum in a low-key sort of way, then say something like "going Platinum in <whatever country, USA or UK, was first> in <year>, and in <later country> in <year>."

As it is, it sounds like an article specifically written for a UK audience, which is odd for an American recording artist. B. Polhemus (talk) 03:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"One of pop music's sneakiest masterpics" (Wall Street Journal) doesn't sound like a reference to its being a steady seller, rather I think it refers to the dandy cynicism of some of the lyrics. Those lyric vignettes are in a Steely Dan vein of course, but they also move close to the humour of a lot of American movies of the Kennedy years. /Strausszek (talk) 23:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Covers

Several of the songs were covered by Mel Torme on Mel Tormé and the Marty Paich Dektette - Reunion. Article should probably mention this. Who else has covered songs from the album? Danceswithzerglings (talk) 22:38, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Howard Jones has covered I.G.Y. See his discopgraphy. The Seventh Taylor (talk) 00:07, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Goodbye Look

Which county is "Goodbye Look" set in? Cuba? Danceswithzerglings (talk) 22:43, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.241.13.120 (talk) 05:58, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the lyrics mention a "Cuban Breeze". But what's the other evidence exactly? Cuba is hardly "an island in the bay"? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:27, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cuba itself comprises two big islands and around 1600 small ones. I guess, there are some amount of bays, also. Tockman (talk) 14:26, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WKAZ

The title track mentions "WKAZ". What is he referring to? 76.126.21.16 (talk) 05:08, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's the fictional radio station at the "foot of Mount Belzoni" that Lester is broadcasting from.

"Mount Belzoni" is also a fictional mountain? Danceswithzerglings (talk) 23:42, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it's "WJAZ" -- the call letters are descriptive, since it's a station that plays jazz Patricia Meadows (talk) 03:58, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WJAZ

I removed a section of text claiming the album refers to Pennsylvania's WJAZ radio station, as it's not true. Fagen's WJAZ is a fictional radio station. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.245.212.63 (talk) 03:33, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cover image

By James Hamilton I assume? What turntable is that? What record is being played (the sleeve is just visible in the foreground.) Is the image available as a poster anywhere? Danceswithzerglings (talk) 23:42, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quick googling identifies the record as Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders. This should probably be mentioned in the article. Danceswithzerglings (talk) 23:47, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the clock appears to show 4:09. Does this number have any significance? Danceswithzerglings (talk) 10:25, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It might be just for photographic purposes, because the two clock hands are equidistant from the 12 and 6 and, as the photo does not show the entire clock, are both completely depicted, while also indicating a time late at night. Richard K. Carson (talk) 03:31, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Article title formatting

Why do I see the title as The Nightfly? When I go to edit or move it I don't see those, I just see normal text? Maybe it has something to do with Firefox 3.6.23 on Ubuntu 10.10? Spalding (talk) 12:51, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Genre

I changed the genre from Jazz and Pop to rock. At one time, the infobox had Jazz and Rock as the genres, but an anon. changed it without discussion or an edit summary. This is not a jazz album, but, like a lot of Steely Dan's albums, it has a strong jazz influence. At the same time, one could make a case for the strong R&B influence, as well. It is best, I think, to limit the number of genres in the infobox, and discuss the different influences in the body of the article, with sources indicating what critics have said, not the opinions of editors. ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 17:16, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am changing it to jazz rock. AmericanLeMans (talk) 18:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What we need are sources that discuss the genre. Otherwise, this is just guesswork on the part of editors. ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 19:41, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Nightfly/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Homeostasis07 (talk · contribs) 00:33, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I'll be reviewing this over the next few days. Homeostasis07 (talk) 00:33, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again @Saginaw-hitchhiker: I've gone through the entire article, and let me just say that it is immaculate. Aside from a couple of grammatical errors; a single ref being out of numerical order; the column width on the singles section of the infobox being out of line; the page numbers of two references appearing outside of the references (I've fixed all these), I mean, it was basically perfect. The prose is perfectly written, with zero fancruft or weasel words, and everything on the article is perfectly sourced and accurate.

However, there is an issue with the audio file in the Songs section. Per the audio use policy: "Samples should generally not be longer than 30 seconds or 10% of the length of the original song, whichever is shorter." The clip of the title track is 38 seconds long, and should be reduced.

Aside from that, I'm more than satisfied that the article meets the good article criteria, and will be happy to promote it once the issue with the sound clip is rectified.

Great work! And well done. Homeostasis07 (talk) 19:38, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, @Homeostasis07:, thanks for such a great review!! I've loved this album for a long time so getting it up to speed was a pleasure. As for the sound clip, it's been edited -- it's still over 30 seconds, but it's only 10 percent (34.5 seconds) of the song, which runs 5:45. I knew that it was long when I submitted it, haha, and I figured i'd have to change it for GA. I just really liked that the clip showcased the chorus and the beautiful segments thereafter... haha. But thanks a ton! Thanks for fixing those ref's, too. Saginaw-hitchhiker (talk) 05:27, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. The article is so top quality that reviewing it was a breeze. If only every other article at GAN was like this one, there wouldn't be a 7-month wait. :( Congratulations, again. Homeostasis07 (talk) 17:38, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Review

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:

Well done! Homeostasis07 (talk) 17:38, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

YouTube link

... Is not working for me. I'm not sure if this means it's been withdrawn, or it's just unavailable outside the US. Can anybody clarify this? If it's gone the link needs to be deleted. If it's just unavailable outside America there should be a note to that effect. Lee M (talk) 04:03, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Assume you mean this one in External links. Also in UK, I get: "! This video is not available", so I think YouTube have taken it down, probably because a temporary licence has expired. What do US viewers get? Glad to see Warner Bros. are still allowing the wonderful Rocky Morton video for the song "New Frontier", which might make a suitable replacement for now? It seems Fagen does not have his own official YT channel. There are several postings of the full album, including one by YT user SolsburyHill22, but there is no reason to believe all are not all in violation of copyright, of course (even after 7 years and 442K views). Martinevans123 (talk) 12:49, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Now working fine again for me. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:48, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

First sentence/description

On opening this article to double check the personnel I was baffled by the first sentence asserting that this album was Donald Fagen's "debut studio album." While this is technically true, it's incredibly misleading given that Fagen was a massively successful artist and had already created many studio albums at the time. The phrase "debut studio album" without any qualifier seems to imply that a musician is new to recording and/or the music business, and I think an opening sentence without the word "solo" fails to accomplish the goals of the first line of an article. I've added this word to the article, and I would welcome any adjustments to the grammar here, but I think it's clear that "solo" needs to be somewhere in that sentence. Sopwerdna (talk) 16:51, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good points. Thanks. Binksternet (talk) 18:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

3M

The sentence "To prepare to use the digital technology, the album's engineers took classes at 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota." makes pretty good sense to me (although it seems to be unsourced), with or without the image for which it was a caption. Could it not simply be better placed? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:46, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

...oh and hang on, the image was removed because it was "too big for the page"?? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:22, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]