Talk:Music of the Mother series

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Cannibaloki 20:16, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Checklist

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   "EarthBound, known in Japan as Mother, is a role-playing game series created by Shigesato Itoi for Nintendo. The series started in 1989 with the Japan-only release of Mother, which was followed up by Mother 2 for the Super NES in 1995, known outside Japan as EarthBound. A second sequel was released in Japan only, Mother 3, for the Game Boy Advance in 2006." EarthBound is known in Japan as Mother and Mother 2 is known outside Japan as EarthBound? Clarify please.

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   The files were provided, but its use is questionable. The audio sample of the song "Love Theme" has a fair use rationale for Mother 3, but is not been used in that article. I think this sample do not meet the non-free content criteria.--Cannibaloki 04:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   The article have a low-quality image for the first soundtrack, 1989's Mother, but I think this image has been used only to decorate the infobox. Its importance is not being discussed in the article. The album cover shows the word "MOTHER" in a shade of green over a red background; the letter "O" of "MOTHER" is replaced by an image of planet Earth, also with a greenish tinge.--Cannibaloki 04:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   On hold for a week.--Cannibaloki 04:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

   Passed. All issues fixed, this article meets the Good article criteria.--Cannibaloki 19:17, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

 Doing...--Cannibaloki 20:27, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• "Some pieces from the soundtrack such as "Eight Melodies" and "Pollyanna" were reused in various forms [What forms?] in the other games in the series."

• "Some of the music from the game was released as an album [an album, soundtrack or soundtrack album?], Mother, by CBS/Sony [Linked to Sony Music Entertainment Japan?] on August 21, 1989 with the catalog number 32DH-5285." Is the catalog number relevant or even encyclopedic?

• "It consists of eleven tracks, seven of which are English vocal arrangements of songs from the game, and has a total duration of 1:03:47. The arrangements that were done [created?] by Suzuki, David Bedford, Takeshi Saitoh, and Michael Nyman."

• "The album was re-released on February 18, 2004 by Sony Music Direct with the catalog number of MHCL-341. The tracks on this release are digitally remastered, a twelfth track from Earthbound was added entitled "Smile and Tears", and "The World of MOTHER" was replaced with a version that was six minutes longer. The re-release has a length of 1:15:49." The soundtrack was reissued on February 18, 2004 by Sony Music Direct with its tracks digitally remastered, a song from Earthbound entitled "Smile and Tears" was added, and the track "The World of Mother" was replaced with a version that is six minutes longer.

• "The album was well received..." [Are you sure of this?]

• "In a different Famitsu interview [We really need to use this kind of wording?], Shigesato Itoi said..."

• "Suzuki has estimated that he composed over 100 pieces of music for EarthBound, including songs that did not make it into the game, and says that his favorite was the bicycle music, which he had actually composed before starting work on the game." What is bicycle music?

• "Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushū (MOTHER2ギーグの逆襲?, lit. "Mother 2: Gyiyg Strikes Back") is The soundtrack album for EarthBound. The album was released by Sony Records in Japan on November 2, 1994 with the catalog number SRCL-3024."

• "The album's 24 tracks have a duration of 59:49; many of the tracks are arrangements combining several pieces from the game into one piece. [The album has 24 tracks, where many of these tracks are arrangements combining several pieces from the game into one piece.] The final three tracks on the album consist of remixes of multiple tracks merged together; for example, "Room Number (PSI MIX)" is a remixed version of several "shop" and "hotel" themes combined into one song." When you wrote the example, it simply made the sentence confusing. What are several "shop" and "hotel" themes?

• "A combined soundtrack for the collection, Mother 1+2, was released by Toshiba-EMI on August 20, 2003 with the catalog number of TOCT-25125. This single-disc album contained 26 tracks and spanned a duration of 1:01:28."

• "Another album for the collection, Mother 1+2 midi Piano Version, was released three years later on May 27, 2006 by Sky Port Publishing with the catalog number of SPCD-001; The album contained MIDI piano arrangements by Shunsuke Sakamoto of songs from the two games, with its music covering many different moods, from "lively to sedated". Like the soundtrack album it contained 26 tracks, but with several different tracks than the first album. The music selected for arrangement covered many different moods, from "lively to sedated". The album had a length of 55:38, and like the first album had its first ten tracks from Mother and the other 16 tracks from Earthbound." Like the soundtrack album, Mother 1+2 midi Piano Version had its first ten tracks taken from Mother and the other 16 from Earthbound, but with several different tracks than the first album.

• "On November 2, 2006, the MOTHER3+ soundtrack album was released by Tokyo Itoi Shigesato Office with the catalog number HOBO-0004. The album contained ten tracks from the game with a total duration of 28:50. It was also released in the iTunes Music Store on February 2, 2007, featuring an additional bonus track, "MOTHER3 – theme of LOVE-", though this album has since been removed from the iTunes store. The MOTHER3+ soundtrack album was first released by Tokyo Itoi Shigesato Office on November 2, 2006, and then distributed through the iTunes Music Store on February 2, 2007, featuring an additional bonus track, "MOTHER3 – theme of LOVE". Another album of music from the game, MOTHER3i, was released on February 6, 2007 by Tokyo Itoi Shigesato Office in the iTunes store and other online music services. This album contains 15 tracks with a total duration of 1:05:55, and Like the Earthbound soundtrack album, each track of MOTHER3i is a combination of several tracks from the game itself, though it still does not cover all of the tracks from the game."

Remix in Pokémon?

Would it be notable to say that The Last Road theme from the Generation I Pokémon games is actually a remix of Mt. Itoi's theme from Mother 1? This is further evidenced by the fact that Ape (now Creatures, Inc.) has also co-developed the main series Pokémon games. 85.240.138.55 (talk) 16:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, that could be asserted should the proper sources be provided; unfortunately unless you can find them, that interesting idea can't be put in the article. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 10:31, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Image use

Great article, but I fear that the images might be too great in number. Seeing as how there's no clear image to use, it might be best to either use one cover as an example for the lead or just not have any images and limit the article to only the .ogg. (pinging User:PresN for his comment). - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 10:30, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

When the article was promoted, there was just the one cover. I'm cool chopping it back to that and the .ogg; I mainly try to stay out of the fight about how many album images are allowed in a conglomerate article like this. --PresN 17:55, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Famitsu verification

How did you access the Famitsu interviews mentioned in this article? I'd like to read them czar ♔ 02:01, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

1992?

How could the Tokyo Philharmonic had played music from EarthBound in 1992 if the game as released in 1994???. –– ♫ Mara ♫ 08:42, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

@McLennonSon: It is odd, but it's actually true (check out the recording date here). Apparently these two songs predate the game's release by two years. Also, the correct conducting unit is the Tokyo Memorial Orchestra, not the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra as previously stated. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 10:32, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Split and merging

This article is unnecessary. Any information on individual game soundtracks should go in their respective games' articles. After that is done, the article quickly becomes redundant of Mother (video game series)#Music, leaving only two arranged albums. The broader information is not terribly big (about 5,000 and 10,000 bytes) and can easily fit into Mother (video game series). Although most of it is probably already there — at least half of this article is duplicated info already.

Of the arranged albums, Mother (Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka album) has 7 sources to fulfill WP:NALBUM. The other, for Mother 1+2, has only 2. There is basically nothing to the Mother 1+2 album, it is almost like a doujin work. The Mother album is undoubtedly significant, especially with participation from figures like Suzuki, Michael Nyman, Louis Philippe, and a host of other prominent Japanese avant-pop musicians from that era (employed on the album as session players).--Ilovetopaint (talk) 11:12, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Oppose - I can't tell you how much of a fan I am that you proposed a split while moving off large chunks of the article to the game articles, and then claiming that it should be split because it duplicates what is at the game articles. Really. I can't. Anyways, don't have time to fully investigate this morning, but typically the development sections of a game article would get overwhelmed by the amount of music-related text that would have to get moved from here. Also, your tag wants a whole new stub article on the Mother album? Even though Earthbound has just as much content, Mother 3 has more, and Mother 1+2 and the legacy section just gets chopped up and left to the mist. I don't understand why you're just source-counting, rather than looking at the content, to determine where the information to be split to. If we're going to play that game, I have a great idea for an article- why don't we move all the music information together into one place? I bet we could get, say, 28 sources all told. --PresN 12:32, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

As per the edit I just reverted- 1) please don't open a split discussion, the revert anyone who doesn't like you going ahead and splitting anyways. 2) "Why should this background information remain in this article when it has nothing to do with the soundtrack itself?" - because this article is "music" of the series, not "albums" of the series, so the composer talking about the process of composing and the influences on the composition is not background information. --PresN 12:38, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

There is not enough content about the music of each game to merit a split. WP:SIZERULE states articles between 60KB and 100KB may typically justify their lengths if the scope is wide enough. It is clearly justified here. After 100KB, it "almost certainly should be divided". Here's how all these other articles currently look.

• Mother (series) (74 kilobytes)
  • 1.7KB devoted to the article's "music" section
  • ~3.1KB of information is contained under "legacy" (whether unique or not)
• Mother (game) (28 kilobytes)
  • 1.8KB devoted to the article's "music" section
  • ~2.5KB of unique (not copy and pasted) info is in this article (neglecting infoboxes and track listing templates)
• EarthBound (91 kilobytes)
  • 7.5KB devoted to the article's "music" section
  • ~0.8KB of unique (not copy and pasted) info is in this article (neglecting infoboxes and track listing templates)
• Mother 3 (58 kilobytes)
  • 2.4KB devoted to the article's "music" section
  • ~2.04KB of unique (not copy and pasted) info is in this article (neglecting infoboxes and track listing templates)

All of these articles are well below 100KB. The largest, at 91KB, doesn't even exceed a difference of 1KB. It makes no sense to have this article. You wouldn't create Development of the Mother series, Reception of the Mother series, or Plot of the Mother series. Why Music of the Mother series? As for "I don't understand why you're just source-counting, rather than looking at the content" — you can make a 100KB article from one source, but it wouldn't demonstrate more notability than a 5KB article with 10 sources.--Ilovetopaint (talk) 13:29, 29 May 2016 (UTC)