This is essential information we never realized we needed to know. Which Wikipedia article titles have the proper syllable count and stress pattern to sing to the tune of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? xkcd has the answer.
FADER Five: Sango's Most Lurked Wikipedia Pages
The FADER, 4 September 2014 link
In our newly minted FADER Five column, we ask the artists and producers orbiting our universe to riff on a theme and serve up five gems of their choosing.
Any producer worth his drop will tell you a formative practice to the art is the dig. Whether for weird new synth patches or samples low enough to avoid lawsuit, beatmakers are faced with an infinitely expanding sea of sounds that already exist, and cull, edit, mix up and cut down to glean what they want and what listeners don't know they need. The internet works the same way, kind of. So it was no surprise when our favorite beatnerd Sango confessed that between DJ gigs and sessions with his Soulection crew, he wasted away hours diving down clickholes on Wikipedia, lapping up rare, random facts like old Baile-funk 45s. "I mean, I'm from Washington and I moved to Michigan," he explained with a cool laugh. "I like boring." [...]
Buckcherry Play ‘Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?
Loudwire, 10 September 2014 link
Buckcherry have just unleashed their new EP, ‘F#ck,’ and while out promoting the effort, guitarist Keith Nelson and vocalist Josh Todd graciously agreed to sit down for a game of ‘Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?’ In the video above, the two founding members set the record straight on the origins of the band, how they chose the name Buckcherry and the departure of certain bandmates. Nelson and Todd also discuss working with Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum prior to the formation of Velvet Revolver.
The world of Wikipedia can be a wild place. You see kids, before you could go online and read dubious, user-generated informational entries on your favorite subjects there used to be these things called “encyclopedias” — big, heavy, books that listed subjects in books in alphabetical order over the course of many volumes. Sound cumbersome? They were. Wondering why people would buy volumes and volumes of books of facts that would inevitably be outdated almost as soon as they were printed? Well, because no Internet.
The one thing that made encyclopedias handy is that the info in them was sourced from actual experts, fact checked by professional fact checkers who cross referenced the entries and edited by editors who like went to school for reading and writing and stuff. Though we have great reverence Wikipedia we do realize that sometimes contributors get facts wrong or just simply make s–t up, so in our “Wikipedia Fact or Fiction?” video series we sit down with a subject to hear straight from the horse’s mouth if the Wiki facts about them are actually factual or fallacies.
For this episode we sat down with SoSo Def founder, songwriter producer and executive Jermaine Dupri to talk about his upbringing and decades-long career in music. How’d he meet Kris Kross? How long did he wear his pants backwards? How long did he date Janet Jackson for? Is he really a martial artist? We answer these questions and more in our interview. Watch part one of it above and be on the look out for part two next week.
Prime Minister of UK (including Scotland until 2014) from 2010 to 2017. Widely seen as the catalyst behind the renewed decline of the UK, after a brief respite in the 30 years previously (see entries for Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown). On becoming Prime Minister in 2010, embarked on a fiscal austerity programme which delayed a recovery from the Great Recession until 2013, accelerated the privatisation of public services and encouraged social hostility to immigration and the poor. This proved to be a decisive factor in Scotland narrowly voting Yes to independence in 2014. (The other was his decision not to allow a third option for greater devolution.) His administration was then bogged down in negotiations with Scotland for the next two years, which caused increasing bitterness between the two countries. In the UK election of 2015 the SNP captured many Scottish Labour seats, but refused to form a coalition government with Labour, allowing Cameron to continue to lead a minority government with tacit support from the LibDems and (initially) UKIP. [... and then it gets worse ...]
The most terrifying part of this vision of the future is the notion that there will still be a Wikipedia in 2100.
Prime Minister of UK (including Scotland until 2014) from 2010 to 2017. Widely seen as the catalyst behind the renewed decline of the UK, after a brief respite in the 30 years previously (see entries for Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown). On becoming Prime Minister in 2010, embarked on a fiscal austerity programme which delayed a recovery from the Great Recession until 2013, accelerated the privatisation of public services and encouraged social hostility to immigration and the poor. This proved to be a decisive factor in Scotland narrowly voting Yes to independence in 2014. (The other was his decision not to allow a third option for greater devolution.) His administration was then bogged down in negotiations with Scotland for the next two years, which caused increasing bitterness between the two countries. In the UK election of 2015 the SNP captured many Scottish Labour seats, but refused to form a coalition government with Labour, allowing Cameron to continue to lead a minority government with tacit support from the LibDems and (initially) UKIP. [... and then it gets worse ...]
The most terrifying part of this vision of the future is the notion that there will still be a Wikipedia in 2100.
Out of date already. He will now be remembered (possibly, if his PR is good enough) as the prime minister who saved the Union.
"The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly" - Nietzsche
We’ve all relied on Wikipedia for information at one point or another, but we also know its pages can occasionally be pockmarked with errors. How accurate is Slash‘s entry? Loudwire found out during a recent edition of ‘Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?‘ As it turns out, the stuff Wikipedia editors have posted about Slash is actually fairly accurate, plus or minus the odd misattributed quote or misleadingly described event. But don’t let that fool you into thinking this episode isn’t worth watching, because it still finds the legendary guitarist opening up about noteworthy events from his life and career in his signature laid-back style. [...]
The world of Wikipedia can be a wild place. You see kids, before you could go online and read dubious, user-generated informational entries on your favorite subjects there used to be these things called “encyclopedias” — big, heavy, books that listed subjects in books in alphabetical order over the course of many volumes. Sound cumbersome? They were. Wondering why people would buy volumes and volumes of books of facts that would inevitably be outdated almost as soon as they were printed? Well, because no Internet.
The one thing that made encyclopedias handy is that the info in them was sourced from actual experts, fact checked by professional fact checkers who cross referenced the entries and edited by editors who like went to school for reading and writing and stuff. Though we have great reverence Wikipedia we do realize that sometimes contributors get facts wrong or just simply make s–t up, so in our “Wikipedia Fact or Fiction?” video series we sit down with a subject to hear straight from the horse’s mouth if the Wiki facts about them are actually factual or fallacies.
For this episode we sat down with SoSo Def founder, songwriter producer and executive Jermaine Dupri to talk about his upbringing and decades-long career in music. How’d he meet Kris Kross? How long did he wear his pants backwards? How long did he date Janet Jackson for? Is he really a martial artist? We answer these questions and more in our interview. Watch part one of it above and be on the look out for part two next week.
Part 2:
[...] With an illustrious career in entertainment that started when he was a ‘tween, you’d think his decades-long run as hitmaker and shot caller would be well-documented. However, a look at his Wikipedia page will show you it’s indeed documented but it’s the “well” part where the trouble arises. [...]
We already know that the Unit has collectively sold millions of records, gone toe-to-toe with some of rap’s biggest names and has put past internal rifts behind them — but what else do we know about the collective? If Wikipedia is your source for these soldiers’ dossiers then you might be a little misinformed. To make sure the record’s been set straight, we sat down with the Unit, sans 50, to go through their respective pages to separate the real from the fake in this latest episode of Wikipedia Fact or Fiction.
Have you Googled yourself lately? Or checked your Wikipedia page? If you’re an artist of any kind, perhaps it’s time, as too often rumors get mixed up with facts, creating a mess that nobody wants. And considering that the content on Wikipedia’s pages is written collaboratively and anonymously by volunteers, this means that sometimes the details of an artist’s life and career can get a bit, well, fuzzy. Jason Aldean sat down recently with the folks at Taste of Country, and together they went through his Wikipedia page as part of a series they call “Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?” Watch it below.
[...] While the guys in the band have created some of the most unforgettable music videos in the history of music videos, we here at Diffuser are more interested in their … Wikipedia page. That’s right — OK Go have a rich and colorful history, and seemingly, it’s all right there on the internet for fans to consume and digest. From their formation in the late ’90s all the way to ‘Hungry Ghosts,’ OK Go’s Wiki page is an apparent authority on the band. But how much of it is accurate? Are there any stretches of truth in there, maybe some outright lies? We decided enough is enough and invited frontman Damian Kulash and bassist Tim Nordwind to our studios to get to the bottom of things. [...]
Kulash says that Wikipedia had his birthday wrong, that he tried to correct it, but someone would always change it back to wrong. It currently says October 7, which is an awesome birthday to have.
His Wikipedia biography doesn't mention his arrest in Orlando, for not moving when directed to by a police officer. I seem to remember that getting a lot of buzz in the news, but Wikipedia has deemed it not part of the sum of human knowledge.
"...making nonsensical connections and culminating in feigned surprise, since 2006..."
Wikipedia was co-founded by Alabamian Jimmy Wales, so it seems fitting so many tales from our state can be found in the pages of the online encyclopedia. Although some purists say Wikipedia should not be used for reference because the pages can be edited by the general public, it has proved a great starting point for research and for finding interesting trivia. [...] Oak_Grove,_Alabama(T-H-L)
[...] A meteorite fell from the sky and hit a person for the first time. Although many people often say this occurred in the nearby, larger city of Sylacauga, but the meteorite struck the Oak Grove home of Ann E. Hodges when it crashed through the roof and fell on the sofa where she was napping. [...]
"Rhonda Bell Thomley Martin (1907 - Oct. 11, 1957) was an American serial killer," begins the Wikipedia entry for this Montgomery waitress who was sent to the electric chair after confessing in March 1956 to poisoning to death her mother, two husbands and three children. Authorities believed Martin killed two other children, but she denied those murders.
Nannie Doss, known as "The Giggling Granny," is thought to have killed as many as 11 family members, including four husbands, two children and her mother. She was born in Anniston in 1905 and died in an Oklahoma prison in 1965.
[...] According to legend, a shallow hole was dug beneath his feet so he could be hanged properly because he was so tall. After the hanging, the hole remained, no matter how many times it was filled. [...]
"William 'Will' Reynolds was an American mass murderer who shot nine people, seven of them fatally, in Tuscumbia, Ala., on April 6, 1902, before being shot dead himself," begins his Wikipedia page. [...]
The Wikipedia page for the Pickens County Courthouse tells the tale Henry Wells, an accused man whose visage was reportedly etched into a courthouse window by a lightning strike before he was lynched by an angry mob in 1878.[...]
The Wikipedia page for Choccolooco, an unincorporated community of about 2,800 people in Calhoun County, mentions the "monster" that terrorized local residents in the 1960s. In 2001, "The Daily Show" aired a segment on the creature, which was revealed to be a hoax that October.
[...] We all know that the well-meaning contributor’s to the Wikipedia often get the facts wrong or take liberties with people’s stories. As you’ll see even a superstar like Ne-Yo can have misinformation on his page but instead of letting any of that stuff get to him he laughs it off. Watch Ne-Yo set the record straight in part one of our interview [...]
It's no secret I find writing the introductions to these episodes the hardest part of creating the episode. [...] I've mentioned one of my tricks for finding ideas for the episode text comes from Wikipedia. Well, it appears the only interesting things happening around the number 106 are related to not-particularly-interesting years in the Roman Empire.[...] And if enough folks check out this episode perhaps we could get Wikipedia to accept an update to 106 as "an episode of OPen Metalcast noted for its high quality CC-licensed music and for bitching about Wikipedia". [...]
We already know that the Unit has collectively sold millions of records, gone toe-to-toe with some of rap’s biggest names and has put past internal rifts behind them — but what else do we know about the collective? If Wikipedia is your source for these soldiers’ dossiers then you might be a little misinformed. To make sure the record’s been set straight, we sat down with the Unit, sans 50, to go through their respective pages to separate the real from the fake in this latest episode of Wikipedia Fact or Fiction.
Tim McGraw is one of the most successful musicians of his generation, but the country superstar had to drop out of a singing group in college because he just couldn’t pass a music theory course. That’s just one thing we learned when McGraw sat down with Taste of Country’s Billy Dukes to clarify some of the entries on his Wikipedia page. Like most, there’s some fact, some sort-of fact and some outright fabrications on the user-updated site. [...]
