(thing) by mblase Wed Apr 03 2002 at 15:56:33

The Quest is now closed.
111 albums and CDs were contributed to the nodegel.
Your blessings have been distributed. Thanks to everyone who participated!


Long ago, we had an Everything Quest for bands and artists. This time, I want to go after the music itself. I'm looking for original, insightful writeups about your favorite albums and CDs.

Here's the sort of thing I'm looking for:

  • Name of the album or CD, who performed it, release date, genre, and list of songs
  • Subjective opinions about the music itself, especially as it relates to the album or CD as a whole
  • Interesting history of the album or CD and what led the artist to make it
  • What makes this album or CD unique in its genre, in its era or in the artist's discography

The key words here are "original" and "insightful". Here's what I don't want to see:

  • Name of the album or CD, who performed it, release date, genre, and list of songs and nothing else
  • Recopied text from the liner notes
  • Cut-and-paste text from the band's official or unofficial Web site or newsgroup FAQ
  • Cut-and-paste reviews from the All Music Guide, Rolling Stone, or anywhere else
  • Pages and pages of lyrics

If you want your writeup to be eligible for this Quest, you can use other people's text, but you'd better rewrite it in your own words or set it apart as a quote, and always attribute your sources. Even so, I'll expect to see at least a two-to-one ratio of original content to cut-and-paste.

There have been a few different, but equally successful approaches to noding albums and CDs on E2 to date. Some people write a review, others write a "biography", and still others go through song by song describing how each piece fits into the whole. Pick the one that suits you best, or go for broke and do 'em all at once. I'm even willing to accept multiple writeups on the same album or CD -- provided that each writeup is original and unique and discusses it as a whole.

Don't just limit yourself to pop and rock music, either. Jazz, classical, electronic, folk, seasonal, ambient, soundtrack -- it's all good. Compilations are acceptable, but discouraged.

This Quest will begin at 0:00 April 5 server time and will end one week later at 0:00 April 12. The usual rules apply:

  1. It's my Quest, so I get to judge whether your writeup meets the above criteria. If it doesn't meet them, however, I will also do my best to explain why.
  2. Only new writeups created for this Quest will be accepted. The date stamp for your writeup must be between the above times. Writeups submitted before 0:00 April 5 server time will not be accepted.
  3. Remember, I'm looking for writeups about albums or CDs, not bands or composers or individual songs.
  4. A blessing of +10xp will be bestowed for every writeup for this Quest, in addition to the usual assortment of votes and C!s from your fellow noders.
  5. Extraordinary writeups will get up to +30xp. Submissions that are found to rely on cut-and-paste content will be cursed at -10xp.

Readability counts for a lot, so either learn your E2 HTML Tags or use the Text Formatter. At the other extreme, needless and excessive formatting is discouraged.

Finally, a note about namespacing: Don't Do It. Your node titles should be identical to that of the album or CD as you might find it at Amazon.com or CDNow. Don't make nodes like "Pink Floyd's The Wall", just use "The Wall".

Since I'm not an e2god myself, this Quest is sponsored by the benevolent Jet-Poop, who will be dispensing blessings on my behalf. However, I will be maintaining and judging the Quest, so /msg all submissions to mblase. Make your own softlink to this node, and I will hardlink it below when I receive your message.

Submissions, in reverse chronological order:

Postscript:

This Quest was actually fun to host, and I'm glad I did it. Like any subject worth noding, CDs and albums have been dealt with very well on E2 before this Quest, but I felt like too many people were still settling for track lists and liner notes. This was my way of drawing attention to the fact that, yes, there are other and better ways to writeup your favorite music.

Many thanks go out to Jet-Poop for sponsoring this Quest on my behalf, Rancid Pickle for being a good sport about holding his own Quest at the same time, dTaylorSingletary whose own exceptional CD writeups first inspired me to this Quest, and of course to each and every individual noder who participated.

A handful of people have asked me to add writeups of theirs to this Quest even though they weren't written or originated in the Quest's timeframe. I know other Quests have been lenient about that sort of thing, but I chose to stick to the rules as I laid them down at the outset. I hope no one was offended by this; well-written writeups are always a credit to themselves, whether or not they appear in this little space.

I shall be hosting Quests again in the future. I'm glad this one was as rewarding as it has been.

Category:

I like it! 4 C!s

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