Highly Biased Band Biographies
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Category: Site News, Newbies, Help and Improvements
Forum Name: Help us improve the site
Forum Description: Help us improve the forums, and the site as a whole
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=58935
Printed Date: February 24 2025 at 09:12
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Topic: Highly Biased Band Biographies
Posted By: Conor Fynes
Subject: Highly Biased Band Biographies
Date Posted: June 21 2009 at 18:35
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Hello,
I'm sure I cannot have been the only one to notice this, but most of the band biographies on the site are incredibly biased, personal, and give personal opinions.
It really detracts from being an effective biography when it's essentially a review in itself. The band biographies feel more like sales pitches, asking me to check out the band rather than giving useful information.
For example:
Correct way: 'Dream Theater's 'Train Of Thought' album was released in 2002, taking the band only two weeks to completely compose.
Incorrect way: The fantastic 'Train of Thought' album was released a few years ago, and I think any progressive music fan that's worth their salt should check out this masterpiece!!! And it only took them two weeks to write, what geniuses!
It's a major issue I have with the site, and I'm hoping that this issue can be remedied... Perhaps commision a team to edit/rewrite the biographies to take out opinion and just leave the biographical details and facts?
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Replies:
Posted By: Ricochet
Date Posted: June 21 2009 at 19:08
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Sure, cut down the obvious biased infos, but let the descriptions flow, otherwise "cold facts" biographies are un-PA-esque from my perspective. ------------- 
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Posted By: TGM: Orb
Date Posted: June 21 2009 at 19:40
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Mm. I think there's a balance between helpful enthusiasm and excess accolades we're aiming to achieve with the bios (and I say this as a moocher-collab who is no good at these things). I mean, yes, factuality is the prime point, but useful information getting an impression of the band's career, their perceived highs, their most important works etc.. Anyway, I think a bio should probably be written by an avowed fan, who's well-acquainted enough with the material to give a momentary overview, a brief comment on what was well-received and maybe the merits of the less well-received ones (a little personal opinion is both fine by me and pretty much unavoidable), and objective balance with importance, context, and novel background information. I mean, I could write the above paragraph about Dream Theater, it wouldn't have the expertise, appreciation and contextual knowledge (as someone who doesn't really listen to prog metal or metal in general) to write a fair overview. Yeah, the problem here is just about threefold. One: there are a lot of bios, and a lot of those are of bands that we haven't a lot of information on. Two: it takes a bit of time and effort making finickity edits, and it somewhat cheapens the original honest work to remove a comment because it looks sort of approving or negative. I think most collabs would rather just get on with the work. Three: I think personal opinion creeps into any good bit of biographical writing and giving an appropriate introduction to a band, Dream Theater, Gnidrolog or whichever, requires a fan's understanding of the So, basically, I think we could do with keeping the personal opinion in a moderate way; maybe worth trimming or tidying up on a couple of the more extreme cases (I mean, yes, biographies are biased, yes, they're sometimes outdated, but the enthusiasm's half the charm). |
Posted By: debrewguy
Date Posted: June 22 2009 at 13:49
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There are currently projects being started by genre teams to review & re-write some bios. But please keep in mind that the lesser known acts don't always have a ton of info out there on the web. I did some work for the post rock team. You'd be surprised how many bands' bio info was limited to something like "X are unlike anything else. Joe, Jim, And Ethel strive for difference. " I.E. no answer to When Why Who What Where & How. Hard to write a bio then. On the other hand, limiting yourself to Founded in 19xx, by $, *, & ^, ; current members - % # @ & (. Play (inseert your genre here). ------------- "Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice,” Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case. |
Posted By: Henry Plainview
Date Posted: June 22 2009 at 15:48
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The Neal Morse and Tool bios always irritated me for their overt fanboyism, but it is a widespread problem that, due to the nature of internet business, probably won't be changed very soon. But for most of them it wouldn't even take that much work, they would only have to delete the more overindulgent praise ("[Tool] often spend quite a few years writing and recording their albums in order to make them perfect and there is often a gap of 5 years between each studio album but they are always masterpieces." "It was almost impossible to better the last album but they pulled it off."). Although the Tool bio could also use a total rewrite because it's extremely choppy. ------------- if you own a sodastream i hate you |
Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: June 22 2009 at 15:56
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It's a short biography on a prog site. Maybe if you're writing a book you might have to care, but this is really not a big deal at all.
------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: Raff
Date Posted: June 22 2009 at 16:16
| I have to admit I agree with the thread starter, having often noticed exactly the same thing. Personally speaking, I think bios should be as neutral as possible, though not soulless. However, this is a very complex issue, and one that has been touched upon occasionally, without finding a viable solution. With over 4,000 bands in the database, and people working for free, you will agree with me that it is not something particularly easy to handle. |
Posted By: aapatsos
Date Posted: June 22 2009 at 16:39
| ^ I agree. I too find some biographies being ''subjective'' and this could be slowly amended. I understand the workload is huge though... I will try to lend a hand as well... |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: June 22 2009 at 16:40
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As Claude said, we are rewriting a lot of bios from Symphonic, but mainly those that are really terrible or contain absolutely no information.
As I told Bob (Easy Livin) a few days ago, I unsderstand that bands like Abbhama from Indonesia, who released a cassette in 1979 and have no web site at all, habve little info (It took me several days to find the info, but know many sites have it because they used the infop we provide).
But to have a bio for Ange apparently copied and that appears word by word in 20 sites, is unacceptable, specially because there are tons of info about the French band.
If the biographer says it's a good, great or fantastic band, I don't care, that's the personal and human touch, unless somebody writes ·"This is the best band ever", well I don't touch the bio.
Iván ------------- 
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Posted By: NotAProghead
Date Posted: June 22 2009 at 16:52
I agree. Completely. Additionally, I see that some bios contain lots of spelling errors. And it looks awful on our "ultimate prog resource". There are different reasons - for some authors English is not native language, others can't write without mistakes. I think it's worth to check newly written bios before publishing them. Another question is: who will make this job? Personally I'm ready to participate (even if my English is far from perfection  ). It can be organised in the following way: each new bio appears in collabs area, afrer correcting errors (and sometimes the style) it appears on the band's/artist's page. Yes, we can't know everything about all bands, but at this stage it is possible to correct speliing and to exclude sentences like "any prog fan should check this band out". And, for existing bios, we have report threads, where everyone can tell about mistakes and too subjective opinions.
------------- Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour) |
Raff wrote:Posted By: Desoc
Date Posted: July 02 2009 at 16:18
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^Agree with thread starter, Raff and NotAProghead. Clearly subjective bios have less information value, since the opinions are disturbing the actual facts of the bio. Obvious opinions should rather be left for the reviews.
And while we're at it, perhaps a "standard fact base" should be implemented? Fx number of members, personell changes, activity period, etc? (Obviously it should be optional as it would take loads of time to gather all this information for even a decent number of bands.)
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Posted By: Conor Fynes
Date Posted: July 02 2009 at 16:27
| I would consider myself a decent writer, I could lend a hand at rewriting/editing some of the biographies, if desired... |
Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: July 02 2009 at 16:29
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I've noticed this myself in Biographies. Not very professional souding some of them. A biography should give the facts...and no more. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: CPicard
Date Posted: July 03 2009 at 08:04
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Well, somewhere I thank myself for having written a few biographies without really knowing the music of said bands: it helps me staying neutral! Seriously, I guess having been a student in history could help me to focus on the facts and avoid "fanboyism". Well, I hope. |
Posted By: Conor Fynes
Date Posted: July 04 2009 at 16:29
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This is an <abridged> example of what a Biography should look like.
Conor's Example Band was formed in 2012 by three young musicians in Vancouver (<name 1>-guitar vocals, <name 2> bass <name 3> drums)
...
In 2018 they released what was to be their most critically acclaimed work, 'Conor's Example Album Part II...'
I shouldn't have to sales pitch to people about why Conors Example Band should be their favourite.
To put it simply... write it as if it was a specialty wikipedia article. Theres plenty of room for opinions and bias in REVIEWS =D
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Posted By: The Quiet One
Date Posted: July 04 2009 at 16:41
Depends from which point of view you look ProgArchives: - If you look it only as a "prog-pedia", only containing facts, then fine. - Then you can look PA with the big community it has here in the forum and I think being only facts it would make the website soul-less like Raff said. Of course, like Ivan said, it mustn't say "This is the best band ever!", but a bit of personal opinion from the volunteered writer should be allowed |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: July 04 2009 at 16:50
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yeah biographies should be unbiased and neutral till you start writing them on a regular basis and you find out a bio that reads like a police report is not really something that is useful or interesting.. an objective bio sounds good in theory but frankly it stinks, doesn't give a sense of the music, and comes off as mechanical and cold. This isn't Wiki or godamn RYM, it's a prog site that carefully and lovingly documents Progressive Rock.. wait'll you start writing up band bios on a weekly basis and after you've done 30 or 40, you can talk |
Posted By: The Quiet One
Date Posted: July 04 2009 at 16:52
^ What he said
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Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: July 04 2009 at 17:08
It's funny David when I wrotr the STYX bio, a member of this forum said nothing when I wrote very good things about the band, but protested when I wrote this:
This is nothing but realistic, Mr Robotto is probably the weakest track ever recorded by STYX
No Administrator asked me to modify my bio, but to avoid problems witha member I recytifie it for;
Only then the guy ceased to complain, but honestly, I stay with terrible rather than that over elaborate paragraph.
Iván
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Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: July 04 2009 at 17:38
| but see I think that was a wise and professional change to make..the content - other than the important points as dates, background, influences - is not as important as the approach; the best bio is the one that is best written, whether the author wants to be mostly objective or subjective (maybe a bit of both is best) is not as important as helping the reader with a clear history of an artist and their work |
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: July 04 2009 at 17:41
Well said David. ------------- ...that moment you realize you like "Mob Rules" better than "Heaven and Hell" |
Posted By: debrewguy
Date Posted: July 04 2009 at 18:14
I have done 5 bio re-writes for our symphonic team - Ange, Akacia, Acuity, Chronos Mundi, and Chance. Ange was easy to write with many informative sites and articles. the rest ... well, Chance & Acuity - i could find nothing on the web, even after googling the two founding members names. Akacia was an improvement only in that I could find a little extra , but here is the whole re-write that I proposed to Ivan "AKACIA is a Christian hard/symphonic progressive rock band hailing from Massachussets,USA, who have been around since 2001. After leaving his last band, Mike Tennenbaum decided to assemble his own group of musicians to make music that reflects his love of the music of Yes, Genesis, ELP, King Crimson and the like . Combining 70s symphonic prog, with jazz & hard rock, they play a style that could be called retro prog. So far, they have three releases, all on Musea. " The guy / band has their own website with absolutely no "facts" other than each band member being a great musician & an interesting person. But no mention is made that the other guys are in the band or just played on the album, or actually, the info seemed to indicate that they didn't play on the album. Now take 4000 bios, take a guesstimate that 400 of them are going to be "successful" internet searches like these 3. Then calculate how many hairs you have left on your head after a 2 hour search only to find a short fawning blurb on the website of the independant label that has but one artist, which happens to be the owner of the label. Most of these amateurs have no clue about facts, much less the 5 Ws - who, where, when , why, what, & how. The why & what always seem to be cliche copy about the great band that they are. They have no problem posting the 10 reviews from completely unknown music fan sites that seem to believe that the group is the second coming of a prog supergroup , though. So, anyone who reports a uninformative bio should be more than welcome to do ferret out all possible info , write the bio, present it for acceptance. Or at least forward a summary and then we can write it. The post rock / post metal team can also give numerous examples of supposedly intelligent people who can't string together a reasonably informative bio. "We're great, we're like nothing else. We've been together since two years ago "(?) ------------- "Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice,” Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case. |
Posted By: DamoXt7942
Date Posted: July 04 2009 at 18:21
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As everyone has said here, also I consider a biography should be not remarkably subjective, not with much emotional expression, not with a strong passion. However sorry honestly I say, it's a bit difficult for a bio-writer to write as above mentioned because in most cases he should be a fan of the artist, at the same time with a lovin' feelin'. At any rate, we, who will write biographies here, should keep it in mind that we always try to write them as objectively as we can. ------------- http://www.facebook.com/damoxt7942" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: July 04 2009 at 18:35
Love that type!  |
Posted By: DamoXt7942
Date Posted: July 04 2009 at 18:41
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And I always appreciate the members (Ivan, Claude, and many collabs and Errors & Omissions Team) checking and fixing lots of biographies. We all members should give & take any information we have noticed here I think. ------------- http://www.facebook.com/damoxt7942" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: July 05 2009 at 02:05
Thanks Damox 
Now, as Claude said, we are redoing bios ibnSymponic, this weeks Alex (Moving Pictures), Claude and myself have re-done 15 bios and moved one band and in some cases we jahve to do miracles adding a lot of Chit Chat because lack of info, for example:
This is what I found for Caja de Pandora:
There was no info about the band, members, history, dates, except a vague reference otheir style and IMO inaccurate.
I know this is not great
But at least says a bit more about the band, even when there's a lot of unnecesary words only to make the bio more easy to read, being that they have bno official website except a review of the bandthatcalls them amateurs.
Iván -------------
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Posted By: debrewguy
Date Posted: July 05 2009 at 12:07
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And Ivan was lucky. For Chronos Mundi, one of the few things I found was one Commercial site's description of them as a Neo band like Tempus Fugit.
------------- "Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice,” Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case. |
Posted By: crimson87
Date Posted: July 05 2009 at 17:08
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My humble opinion is that most of you take things way too seriously. I mean , it's just a little piece of writing. |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: July 05 2009 at 17:53
Probably, but when we are asked to do something, is better to do it the best you can.
Most surely you don't know this, but is very common to receive mails or PMs from the band members asking to correct some points or add new information, they take our bios seriously because Prog Archives is trusted, and our responsability is to honor his trust doing our best effort.
This is an advantage of being in charge of a sub-genre that has more than 500 bands, we notrmally write bios of bands the less known bands (The most popular bands have decent bios in most cases because there is a lot of info) and hardly we can be fans of 200 or more bands.
Iván
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Posted By: Plankowner
Date Posted: July 05 2009 at 22:53
| Well let me honestly say, you never know how a bio is going to turn out when you start one.. Hopefully each one you write will be different, informative, and give you a clue what they sound like. |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: July 05 2009 at 23:39
That's totally accurate, specially when you write a bio of an unknown band with little (if any) information.
You start with two or three facts and what you get from listening theitr music...Then you find an important historic fact on another Prog site and you have to research it,............Then you get your version, but out from nowhere you get a paragraph from an obscure site and you have to change it even more.
Most of the times is a surprise even for the author.
Iván
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Posted By: Plankowner
Date Posted: July 06 2009 at 00:17
| Yep, I can't tell you how many interviews and reviews I've read for a sentence worth of description. |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: July 06 2009 at 00:56
LOL you also check intervoews.
 We all have done it.And adding photos is even harder in some cases
Look at his beauties
 If you make an effort you can see their faces.
  The trick is that this band has the exact same lineup than Lucifer's Friend but without John Lawton, so I found a photo of the second band that had Lawton in one border, and removed him using Photo editor (You can still see his left leg).
Of course there are several collages of members of a determined band found in 5 or 6 different sites.
This is the magic we have to make sometimes.
Iván -------------
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Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: July 06 2009 at 01:15
^ oh yeah, done that on several occasions ..and how about when there are three bands from Germany called Odin that all play various forms of symphonic folk-metal 
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Posted By: DamoXt7942
Date Posted: July 06 2009 at 05:29
 You're welcome, Ivan. One of progressive searchers here from lots of biographies was me before joining PA members.  I do feel, then and now (and maybe in future), ProgArchives.com was/is/will be authorized by lots of progressive rock fans and musicians. (Also in Japan, PA is regarded as one of the most famous progsites all over the world.) That's why the biographies here should be objective, informative, and enjoyable as possible. I do consider Ivan's above-mentioned review be a good example, with all of 5W1H, some of his opinions for the band and Symphonic Progressive Rock, and a spice of his passion. (Exactly, writing lots of biographies is a hard and pressing work, I feel...even writing Brast Burn's obscure bio in my blog... )------------- http://www.facebook.com/damoxt7942" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: debrewguy
Date Posted: July 06 2009 at 19:55
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Add to that the fact that PA is always open to someone doing some work on their own time
------------- "Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice,” Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case. |