Talk:List of deaths in popular music

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This article was nominated for deletion on 15 March 2012. The result of the discussion was No consensus.

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Untitled

I decided to create this page today when trying to remember if an artist had died or whether I as confusing them with someone else. I couldn't find any good reference lists of deaths in rock. So I decided to create this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Argeiphontes (talk • contribs) 23:23, 21 August 2006

Style Content

To make the content easier to read how about either alphabetizing each name in the proper decade list or at least put the list together in date of death order?

What I would like to see first

is for the concerns pointed up in my drive-by tagging to be addressed.

If the information within is simply a rehash of The Dead Rock Stars Club or The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars or similar, this presents two major problems, namely

clearly it is either outright theft of intellectual property or Original Research, and thereby ought to be immediately deleted
it is not WP's place to defer to the whims of a handful of self-styled authorities, and any example of such deference ought to be immediately deleted

When a WP entry becomes even a fraction this gargantuan, the slate of supporting authoritative sources for its simple existence MUST expand as well, and I would argue exponentially. Three or four sources might cut it for a hundred-entry list, but not here. If that bare handful is both sufficient for the topic AND accessible by anyone who can read WP, then the list is redundant and should be immediately deleted, as it adds nothing to knowledge, with no good reason for other WP articles to refer to it directly, making it a rather ironic dead end. A quick estimate says there are more than 3,400 entries at the moment, so it would not be unreasonable to expect at least a dozen credible sources, minimally being well-established and widely respected credible (paid) critics who presently support the thoroughness of sources such as TDRSC etc. Anything less, to any degree, speaks to the necessity to delete this list.

The title itself is a shuck, a multiple bait-and-switch. There's a clear difference between "people who have died IN rock and roll" and "people in rock and roll who have died." As well, for the latter, "people IN rock and roll" is nothing at all like "people in some way associated with rock and roll, maybe for a few seconds and many years ago." Someone who retired altogether from music, lived a long happy life, and died a peaceful death surrounded by family certainly did not "die in rock and roll." (Probably-living example: Paul Arnold, founding bassist of The Zombies.) To claim "well, they influenced someone!!" is disingenuous at best; as other have pointed out, influence is insufficient, set aside J.S. Bach: Joe Walsh referenced both "Bolero" and "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" in "The Bomber"; that in no way turns either Maurice Ravel nor Vince Guaraldi into "rock and roll."

My thanks to those masochists who have labored long to add refrences to each article. However, simply putting an endnote number under Cause of death rather starkly points up the ultimate uselessness of this list: why not simply have the name followed by a link to an outside publication?

In brief,

justify the mere existence of this list, citing multiple credible sources
explicitly state the criteria applied for exclusion AND inclusion of specific instances
point up in the intro section that this is NOT a list of persons, but a list of Wikipedia articles about individuals who someone believed (perhaps ephemerally) fit the list's criteria, and that there are many more individuals who would qualify except for not having enough of a fanboy following to rate even a ten-word Stub

…for starters.
Weeb Dingle (talk) 18:08, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see:-

The whole thing spilt into decades.
An accurate name for the article. It's stretching definitions way too far to describe many on this list as being anything to do with rock and roll. What's wrong with List of deaths in music 2010s etc?
For a consensus to be reached as to the role of those listed - musicians, DJs?, managers? impresarios?, song writers?
For every entry to be referenced. Describing those who add these as masochists is not helpful. They the basis of any good wiki article. We have enough hypothesisers, we need contributors.
For non notable (in the understood wiki sense) entries to be deleted.

--Egghead06 (talk) 16:27, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Weeb Dingle's comments:

The article is well-read (over 1100 views/day recently), and so presumably found useful by casual readers. Whether or not it meets - or would ever meet, even if improved - WP:GA or similar criteria is irrelevant in my view. If the view is that the article should not exist, feel free to nominate it at WP:AFD for further discussion, including contributions from non-involved editors.
Agree. See my multiple posts suggesting just that. All we have to do is agree the criteria.....
It is a WP:STAND, like (say) Deaths in 2017. Nothing wrong with that.

Regarding Egghead06's comments:

If absolutely necessary... but focus on criteria first, and see if that reduces the list significantly.
Fine.. but a fairly trivial point. Many "deaths in music" would never be considered for inclusion on this list, and are not included.
Agree.
Agree.
Agree.

--Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:43, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Missing the point(s), clearly.

"Describing those who add these as masochists is not helpful." Meant affectionately; I'm high-functioning OCD, and I find that display of effort no less than awesome.
Check Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Most viewed. As (for example) Barack Obama had 2.3 million hits 05 Nov 2008, "over 1100 views/day recently" (daily average 1,118) is lower by more than three orders of magnitude, making this list less "well-read" than "not completely irrelevant" considering its sheer bulk.
The comparison to Deaths in 2017 is a failed analogy, as it is chockful of red links throughout, therefore clearly NOT requiring a Wikipedia article for every entry, thus not the same notability as any other list. To be a Wikipedia List page, each entry must have an article. If an article is required, then this is a list of articles, not of deceased individuals, and this ought to be made clear wherever the policy holds (a further downside of the policy being to encourage proliferation of otherwise useless Stubs merely so that fans can get their faves onto said list). I do see this as an unaddressed problem, and I am addressing it.

(A saving grace of Deaths in 2017 and similar is that they at least will reach something like closure, whereas List of deaths in rock and roll will only continue to bloat, becoming ever more useless except as a trivia graveyard.)

My (perhaps faulty) understanding is that, to appear on a list such as this, an entry MUST be "established by reliable sources" as belonging here; that would likely be the "in rock and roll" part. Each name must therefore have an outside "champion" standing clearly for its inclusion.
Those entries that lack both an article and a "champion" should be removed, by anyone willing, ASAP. Those with one or the other should be considered as probationary.
Am I doing something incorrect? Right this second there's 1,478 references in the list, yet the final References section only contains the note Template:Reflist. If this is what everyone is seeing, that makes EVERY reference on the list invalid.

Weeb Dingle (talk) 12:43, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Re the last comment. You are seeing the Reflist note as the article is just too cotton picking big to show the expanded version of all the references. Unless a consensus is reached on splitting, this won't go away.--Egghead06 (talk) 13:27, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A few points. Firstly, the current article says at the top: "In determining criteria for inclusion, this list uses as its basis reliable sources listing "rock deaths" or "deaths in rock and roll", as well as such sources as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame." That format was agreed through discussion on this page a few years ago, and it seems to me could continue, as setting out broadly workable criteria. I agree that we should include references to support individuals' inclusion in this list (such as inclusion in other "rock" lists, or in the Hall of Fame), as well as for the details of their death. Secondly, although I can see some point in trying to only include people with their own articles, there are cases where notable musicians do not have their own articles (for example, as leaders of notable bands), and in any case it would be a trivial matter to convert any redlinks to redirects. Incidentally, the Deaths in 2017 list does only contain people with articles, except for those who have died within the last month where it is reasonable to assume that articles will be created - where articles are not created, those names are removed. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:06, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

2nd Split proposal

This article is well over 800,000 bytes, that's almost twice as big as the next longest article. It desperately needs a split as the article is actually having problems loading. I propose a split based on decade like the first proposal, then we can decide on the inclusion criteria after the split, it would be far easier to edit the split articles than try to edit this monster. If nobody objects after a couple hours, I will begin the split. Rob3512 _chat? ^{what I did} 06:36, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The current size of the article is absurd and unhelpful to readers (or editors). Can I suggest that for the time being we need an article for each decade, rather than simply splitting off the 2010s. As I've said in previous discussion, I'm all in favour of setting criteria for inclusion here, but they would not be easy to agree, I think. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:04, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with above. Its current size makes it almost unworkable. Split by decade.--Egghead06 (talk) 08:20, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Very well, consensus. Starting the split. Rob3512 _chat? ^{what I did} 11:42, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I'm a little late on this proposal, but I fully agree, just to add to the above consensus. - Derek R Bullamore (talk) 12:10, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Done split completed, article split into "List of deaths in rock and roll (decade)". Rob3512 _chat? ^{what I did} 12:40, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We shouldn't have let the disruptive edits of a drive-by IP editor control the direction of this article. Always review the article history before making significant changes like this, which would have avoided creating a WP:Content fork at List of deaths in rock and roll (2010s). And Rob3512, what's up with waiting just six hours to determine that there was a consensus? wbm1058 (talk) 13:16, 7 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 9 March 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. 1-0 in favor, no opposition for over 10 days. (non-admin closure) Jeffrey34555 (talk) 00:41, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

– These articles list not just rock and roll musicians, but other popular musicians, associated with genres such as jazz, country, hip-hop, and so on. The corresponding articles starting with 2010 were already renamed in this way to reflect that. This move might be non-controversial, but let's see what other editors say. If there are no objections, I'm hoping that an editor who uses article renaming scripts can use the scripts to rename the articles and update all the links to the articles. — Mudwater^(Talk) 14:27, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see an issue moving them. Cahlin29 (talk) 04:25, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.