Talk:Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

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Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 8, 2013.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 14, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
December 16, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed
January 14, 2007	Featured article candidate	Promoted
October 9, 2021	Featured article review	Demoted
Current status: Former featured article

Albums

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Text and/or other creative content from this version of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) was copied or moved into Wu-Tang Clan with this edit. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

Chorus/Song Ratio[edit]

The fact that not all choruses are rapped doesn't give this album a chorus/song ratio under one. This needs to be recounted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MasahiroHayamoto (talk • contribs) 22:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

False Links[edit]

The links to the Rolling Stone Music Guide and the Entertainment Weekly article are wrong. (Vlad the Impaler 18:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC))[reply]

I fixed the RS link. The EW link would not work for me, but when I removed it I found the Christgau link re-appeared and I decided I could live with that for now. If anyone finds a way to get the EW link back in, that would be awesome. The link refuses to work in the footnote as well. Here is the link:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/review/music/0,6115,308969_4%7C16405%7C%7C0_0_,00.html

I hope someone can figure this out, the review is very positive and important to substantiating this article's claims. Venicemenace 22:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Movies Referenced[edit]

does anybody know which movies they sample? ReverendG 01:56, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Shaolin and Wu Tang of course :)

Also Mystery of Chess Boxing, which features a character named Ghostface Killer. Robotsintrouble 01:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TAKE THE SWORD! The sword?! Project2501a 22:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Featured Article[edit]

We can make this a featured article if we had background information and more information on its conception.Noahdabomb3 20:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination[edit]

Is anybody willing to discuss my Featured Article declaration?Noahdabomb3 04:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey -- I'd like to help make this happen. I'm reviewing the objections or comments at the "featured article candidates" page, and I will be editing the article as best I can in coming days. After going over the existing article, it seems like all the raw material is here -- tons of information, pictures, quotations and citations. We just need to shape it a little bit and polish this diamond up. Evidence indicates that this article's stature is merciless, like a terrorist hard to capture. Venicemenace 15:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is so much good stuff in here, amazing work getting all this information. Venicemenace 22:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lyric?[edit]

One of the things I really like about the (FA-status) Illmatic article is the use of a lyrical excerpt. I'm wondering if that would be appropriate here as well, and if so, which verse should be used. Raekwon on "C.R.E.A.M."? One of GZA's verses? Masta Killa on "Chessboxin'"? Venicemenace 07:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Influence[edit]

"All Music Guide lists Nas' Illmatic, the Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die, Mobb Deep's The Infamous and Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt among the records of this era that reflected the Wu-Tang Clan's influence."

AMG doesn't mention any album names in the review, only those artists, and says 36 Chambers "paved the way" for these albums rather than influenced. Should this sentence still be used? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laalaaa (talk • contribs) 12:59, December 31, (UTC)

If you ask me, the actual statement by AMG is stronger than the existing sentence. Paving the way for an artist's career is a much bigger deal than influencing one of his albums. I don't think the existing sentence is inaccurate, or even contradictory to the ideas expressed in the reference, but maybe the sentence could be rewritten closer to Steve Huey's specific language. Venicemenace 22:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Audio samples box[edit]

I think the audio samples box would be better used (and possibly better Fair Use) to demonstrate the ideas discussed in the "Music" section rather than "Singles". Anyone else agree?

Copyedit underway; have some questions[edit]

Hi, I'm a member of the League of Copyeditors and am currently working on copyediting this article. You did a great job, but I have a couple of questions/notes:

In the Lyrical Content section: "While the content of lyrics on Enter the Wu-Tang generally varies from rapper to rapper, the basic themes are the same: urban life, martial arts movies, and marijuana, set in the harsh climate of New York City." This is an unclear sentence.

First, is the meteorological climate of New York the issue, or is "environment" a better word?
The setting of New York City appears to only apply to the marijuana in the current sentence. Would it be more accurate to say,

"While the lyrical content on Enter the Wu-Tang generally varies from rapper to rapper, the basic themes are the same: the harsh environment of New York City as a setting for urban life, martial arts movies, and marijuana use."

Or is this more accurate?

"While the lyrical content on Enter the Wu-Tang generally varies from rapper to rapper, the basic themes—all set in relation to the harsh environment of New York City—are the same: urban life, martial arts movies, and marijuana."

In the "Significance: Production" section: "The production on two Mobb Deep albums, The Infamous[32] and Hell on Earth,[33] are 'indebted' to RZA's early production with Wu-Tang Clan."

You need a source for the quote, "indebted".

Let me know when you insert that source, and which of the two meanings (or another one I didn't think of) applies to the the "themes" question. Once we get those added, I will call this copyedit complete. Thanks! Galena11 23:51, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've made the changes and ~~will ask another League member to proofread~~. The copyedit is complete and I've added the LoCE tag. Thanks! Galena11 16:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I like the idea of breaking up that sentence or the phrase "set in relation to", which seems kind of ambiguous. How about this:

"While the lyrical content on Enter the Wu-Tang generally varies from rapper to rapper, the basic themes are the same - urban life, martial arts movies, and marijuana - and the setting is invariably the harsh environment of New York City."

IMHO that's a subtle change but a big improvement. Venicemenace 16:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me! When you add it, I advise using em dashes (—) with no spaces, rather than the hyphens and spaces in the version above.Galena11 16:45, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Will do. Venicemenace 12:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hall and Oates??[edit]

Did the song METHOD Man actually sample Hall and Oates or do both artists simply spell the word "method"? Answer: No.Bobbygalaxy (talk) 21:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Album Title Meaning[edit]

Almost no one knows about the true and full meaning of the album's tile. It was influenced by a kung fu movie, and also the Supreme Mathematics and the human body. So I added the heart, numbers equations and the amount of 36 deadly techniques. I found all of this in an interview. If anyone doesn't agree with this, please talk to me before you do anything.(LonerXL (talk) 22:06, 22 August 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Does the title refer to the film "Enter the Dragon", as well as "The 36th Chamber of Shaolin"? I have read in interviews that they watched that movie (Enter the Dragon).

http://www.egotripland.com/making-of-wu-tang-clan-36-chambers-album-cover-photographer-daniel-hastings/

This should be demoted from featured article[edit]

There's repetition throughout:

identical chunks of text are present in different sections. e.g. exact schpiel about chart rank in the introduction is present again, verbatim, in the reception section.
internal links are broken and repeat themselves a lot, e.g. the link to East Coast hip hop renaissance is both broken and present twice; rappers' names are interlinked more than once

-ThrowingStick/Talk 15:06, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I removed links which repeated themselves in the same section, but is it not acceptable to have wikilinks repeat in different sections of the article?--Chimino (talk) 11:54, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Track 9 (the Method Man song) doesn't sample the Rolling Stones[edit]

I know this isn't that big of a deal, but for the sample section someone put "Get Off My Cloud" by the Rolling Stones as a sample used. Method Man makes a REFERANCE to that song, and that's it! That song was NOT sampled. There's a big difference between verbally referencing a song, than actually taking recorded fragments of a song, and incorporating them in your own. I tried to remove it, but wikipedia contacted me saying that I "vandalized" the page for doing so, and it immediately got switched back. --76.17.200.34 (talk) 01:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know there's been 3 years ago, but I'm gonna respond you :) You're right it wasn't straight sampled, but it's called interpolation and Method Man did it :) Tashivana (talk) 00:01, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jay-Z using "99 Problems" by Ice-T for his song of the same name is a perfect example of an interpolation ... the recent edits you added are pop culture references. --Blastmaster11 (talk) 22:50, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Edit war over the "Title Significance" section[edit]

All right, Dan56, this is a more verbose explanation of my rationale:

The section as written is misleading and violates copyright law, as it is nearly a verbatim quote, without attribution. Considering that my last edit brought it in line with WP and US legal policy, I'd have to say that it was extremely constructive. Further, the section as originally written spends almost no time directly discussing the possible meanings of the title; most of the section is just ramblings and hints that perhaps numbers have greater significance than is readily apparent.

I'm going to roll it back once more, but if you decide that you really have to "win" this edit war, then go right ahead. 174.24.148.57 (talk) 00:58, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What part is "verbatim quote"? Can you point out something specific? The article's reference to mathematics and significance of the numbers is the point, i.e. Supreme Mathematics. It's not ramblings by the writer, who is informed of the subject matter and discusses the numbers. It's not his opinion. It's also why the Wu-Tang Clan make reference to the mathematics with the title and their lyrics, as many hip hop acts from the early 1990s were associated with the Five Percent Nation and made similar references. Furthermore, you should not keep removing/altering the content without getting consensus do so, as it has turned into controversial content with our responses to each other. Opening a post here is the start. I've asked some other editors to comment and we'll see where that goes. Dan56 (talk) 01:12, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, it did not have to turn into an edit war had you not ignored my posts to your talk page. Your edit summaries regarding the removal claimed the source for the content is unreliable, practically discrediting the URB writer as "rambling numerology conjecture from a single source" or "pure speculation on the part of the Urb writer, making the source (for that purpose) unreliable. The author admits as much." You did not point anything specific out, probably since edit summaries are short, but could have here to begin with. With regards to the warnings templates being "insulting", as far as I know, you're a new IP user with 10 edits in about 2 days experience. If you do have an account like you claimed before, then please use it. Otherwise, do not be offended if a mild warning template is used. This article's content, particularly the content in question, has been subject to much vandalism before. Dan56 (talk) 01:22, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The information is sourced, leave it. Don't remove something just because you don't like whats there. Oz ^talk 09:21, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The section, other than being of ridiculously low quality, also now has no sources. The link is dead. Also, this being a more personal note, if you wish to argue that the numerology is relevant, you should find some sources and explain in the article why it's relevant speculation and not just rambling. Though my research is non-extensive, I haven't been able to find anything that links Wu-tang or any other early 90's rap group with numerology. 2.104.45.65 (talk) 22:31, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Major problems with samples cited[edit]

As some users above have noted, there are some problems with the samples area of the CD/cassette tracklisting.

For example, when Method Man spells out "M-E-T-H-O-D" on "Method Man," he doesn't do it in the same cadence as Daryl Hall on "Method of Modern Love," so it's presumptuous to call it a sample interpolation. Second, "Protect Ya Neck" cites three samples -- Albert King's "Cold Feet," Sly & the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song," and Lowell Fulson's "Tramp" -- that whosampled.com lists for "Protect Ya Neck (The Jump Off)" from Wu-Tang Clan's 2000 album "The W." The-breaks.com does not make a distinction between "Protect Ya Neck" and "Protect Ya Neck (The Jump Off)" on its Wu-Tang sample page, so it is not a credible source in this area.

These problems should be addressed. Infamous30 (talk) 00:23, 30 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What happened to the sample list:?[edit]

What happened to the list that was showing the samples used by RZA? Tashivana (talk) 00:39, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it was removed due to lack of credible sources...if I remember correctly, it was full of "interpolations" which were subjective at best.--Chimino (talk) 18:17, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Removal of FA status[edit]

I'm requesting that this article has its featured article status removed. It was given this status over a decade ago, and reading through the article there are quite a few unsourced claims as well as hints of original research. Aitch & Aitch Aitch (talk) 15:47, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to help fix the article to maintain its status, though I'm not an expert in the FA process. Please let us know what issues you found, or keep us updated on the outcome. Thanks --Chimino (talk) 23:49, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

FA in need of review[edit]

This older FA has not been reviewed since its promotion in 2007 and looks a right mess after the enthusiastic tagging. Since specific issues have been requested above, I will provide some below:

there are 16 citation needed tags in the text;
there's info in the background section that is not supported by The Boston Phoenix (ref 5), such as Words from the Genius, Cold Chillin' Records or Ooh I Love You Rakeem. That means that even more info needs a cn tag - I did not spotcheck the whole text;
by scanning the Talk Page, I can see that the "sampling" theme is highly controversial, with requests for clarification since 2008(!!) - also some talk of Interpolation (popular music). As such, I think that a way, way better source than WhoSampled (a user-generated website that says WhoSampled's content is built by a community of over 24,000 contributors. Make contributions to earn Cred - our very own points system. Join us now to add more knowledge and share it with the world! in their front page) is needed to support that "samples" column in the track list;
We can't say in Wikipedia's voice that the album "copies the refrain of Hall & Oates", with no source, in an FA of all places;
RZA's production on Enter the Wu-Tang had a profound and significant influence on subsequent hip hop producers., this is a loaded sentence that needs something more than the stuff in the provided interview;

Also, what I took from the interview that could potentially source the above sentence was transformed the sound of underground rap into mainstream formula, and virtually changed the face of contemporary music as popsters once knew it, which is reproduced verbatim two sentences after. So we're are using the same sentence to support an idea twice in the same paragraph;

9th Wonder, a producer and former member of Little Brother, is one of many whose vocal sampling styles are inspired by RZA; there is a source for 9th Wonder, it does not support the "many" (who?) though. We are extrapolating way too much from 9th Wonder here (he simply said Wails and moans, I learned from RZA. in the interview);
We are told that this hip hop production was influential, but then in the "Hip hop production" subsection, it does not say anything about the actual production, and what made it so distinctive;
Nothing in both Charts tables is supported by the refs there. That is no wonder because those are Billboard charts, and both the refs go to the same Allmusic page;
Refs need work, there are 3 of them that link to the same Allmusic page (23, 58 and 59), two of them named Billboard.

Article needs some work. RetiredDuke (talk) 16:03, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

International CD[edit]

The European release of 36 Chambers considers "Conclusion" to be an addendum track just like the original US release does. The only difference is that on the international release "Conclusion" is added to "Method Man (Remix) Skunk Mix" instead of "Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber - Part II". Source: [1].

Hostagecat (talk) 03:52, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]