Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/User:Monika/Nick Drake
User:Monika/Nick_Drake[edit source]
This sucks, is disjointed, and isn't finished yet, but I need to build up the momentum to finish it so I'll throw this up.
The section on Bryter Layter especially sucks but I don't know what to do with it.
--monika 02:24, February 14, 2011 (UTC)
| Humour: | 6 | There are some decent ideas here, but I think you're right when you say it's disjointed. "Sucks" is probably a bit harsh, but I definitely think it lacks focus. I will talk about this more under Concept, but for now let's take a look at the humour.
I think the key issue with the humour is that there aren't a whole lot of jokes in here. Although you have a humorous backbone to the article - that of Drake being a fictional character - the prose itself contains very few humorous twists or gags, and little to no one-liners. While it's absolutely fine to write in a subtle, straight style, it can, in extremity, become dull and lifeless, which obviously is not good for comedy. Have a look at this article on a musician for instance. The joke count is very high, in fact pretty much every sentence has a punchline of some kind or - at the very least - sets one up. The idea that Drake was invented for a car advert raised a mild chuckle, but then you don't really run with it. You get the odd decent gag in the car-based section, with lines such as "the hatchback crowd largely preferred hatchbacks" and "in the past decade, hundreds of thousands of Nick Drake albums, and several dozen thousand Volkswagen Cabrios, have been sold". More little humorous twists like this would greatly benefit the article, especially in the later biographical section, where there really is a deficit of jokes. It was very long and very dry and I barely came across a single joke in there. It actually read pretty much like an actual biography. I'm not saying you have to go for a zany, punchline-laden article or anything, obviously subtlety is a good thing at the end of the day, you just need to play with the things you're saying - go against the reader's expectations whenever you can. That's the difference between making actual jokes and just talking about something funny - a joke will word things in a surprising way, whereas just explaining a humorous event to the reader (such as the invention of a musician by a car company) is rarely interesting to read. As to what kind of jokes you should have... well, it would be difficult to suggest anything in regards to that, mainly because the underlying concept would need sorting out first. This leads me nicely to the next section. |
| Concept: | 5 | The biggest problem with the article as a whole is probably in the way just leaps from being about cars to being about Nick Drake. In the early sections, Drake is fictional, whereas in the latter ones there is no mention of this, and it's just as if you're writing a standard biography about a real man. Like you say, it's disjointed. It's as if you came up with the idea of him being an advertising mascot then halfway through just got bored of it. Obviously you need to sort this out; make it consistent. I suppose there are a few ways you can do this. Firstly, you could remove the biography section and try to implant its details into the story about the car adverts - keep Drake an invention of advertisements, only revealing parts of his backstory when necessary, and only allowing short bursts of truth to poke through. This could be quite effective, if the article can be simultaneously about cars but also teach the reader about its true subject, although difficult to pull off, I'd imagine. Or alternatively, you could get rid of the whole car thing, and just go for a conventional, humorous bio on the guy. After all, this concept does seem kind of strange. It seems strained because it's not something you generally associate with the singer. I, for instance, know a bit about Nick Drake and have one of his albums, but I really have no idea what you're talking about in terms of the advert. I don't even remember seeing it before. To me, it all just seems to be a tenuous link, and in turn, the idea that he isn't real becomes a bit of a stretch that ultimately is unconvincing. It's up to you of course, but wherever you choose to go I think a lot of trimming is going to be in order, simply because at the moment you seem to have two totally different articles here. Even within the two separate sections there are inconsistencies. Although in the first half of the piece Drake isn't supposed to be real, occasionally you slip up and suggest that he is. In the first caption, for instance, you say he didn't have much success when he was alive. Against the rest of this paragraph however, this makes absolutely no sense. Decide exactly how you want to portray Drake, then go back and remove everything that doesn't fit in with your characterisation, regardless of how funny it is. Once you have a strong foundation, you should find it considerably easier to get more gags in there - either jokes about cars or jokes about the man, depending on the direction you choose. |
| Prose and formatting: | 9 | Your prose is fine; it's very clear and very confident, and you have no problem with spelling or grammar, so good work there. The only gripe I really have to mention here is with the formatting. The layout seems a bit messy. Images and videos are at times squashed together, and at other times the article looks bare. I think trying to cram them all down the right hand side probably doesn't help. Also, the last little block of lyrics is in a totally different place than the two before it. There's also an issue of white space at the top of the Conception paragraph - all of which just makes it look slightly scruffy. |
| Images: | 7 | None of the images are particularly good I'm afraid. There isn't much humour to be found in any of them, save for maybe the one of the "concept art". The others are fine, and the captions slightly better than fine, but unremarkable in most ways. They're also a bit too small considering the amount of detail in them, a fact that isn't helped by the sheer length of most of the captions. I think the lack of a clear-cut concept probably isn't helping here. If you're going to focus mainly on cars, it would be worth keeping the images consistent to this idea. Otherwise, funny images of Drake will probably do the trick. Obviously it depends on where you're going to go with this. |
| Miscellaneous: | 6 | My gut feeling as to the whole thing. |
| Final Score: | 33 | Ok, so like I said, the main problem is to sort out what you want to do with this. At the moment the article is in two halves, and you need to choose a direction. This should help you generate some new material too, as well as trim some of the flab. In terms of this new material I mention, it's really worth getting some more jokes in there too, as unhelpful as that probably sounds right now. I know you've been here for a while, and have written some great articles previously, so I know you can do this, and a lot of my lecturing here is quite likely stuff you know already. There are some really great ideas in here as well, despite the inherent difficulty in writing about musicians. If there's anything I've said here that you want me to explain better, or if you want my opinion on anything I might have missed, please let me know and I'll try to help. I hope the review is ok. |
| Reviewer: | --Black Flamingo 20:50, February 20, 2011 (UTC) | |