Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boom! (System of a Down song)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. Star Mississippi 19:20, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Boom! (System of a Down song)

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This page has been as possibly not meeting the notability guideline for nearly a year now, and it's clear that the sourcing has not improved much in that time. It didn't chart anywhere, and across the six sources, the last two are Discogs, which fails WP:UGC, one is a link to a Reddit AMA with Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan (likely an outdated one too, given that it does not specifically direct to anything about the song itself, at least on my end), and one is a link to watch its music video on MTV, which absolutely does not prove any notability whatsoever. The MTV News article does not discuss the song independently, and only the New York Times article comes anywhere close to meeting WP:SIGCOV, but even then it's in the context of music videos commenting on war (including the then-current one in Iraq) receiving airtime, or lack thereof, on MTV at the time. To me, given all these issues, this should just be a redirect to Steal This Album!, but rather than being bold and redirecting, I figured I'd open up discussion here to see what the community thinks. JeffSpaceman (talk) 21:16, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Albums and songs and United States of America. Deltaspace⁴² (talk • contribs) 21:21, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Steal This Album!. The bits about the music video are worth keeping. It still gets mentioned, e.g. at [1], the Slant Magazine review of Steal This Album discusses "Boom" briefly (as the only song from that album) etc. Geschichte (talk) 21:23, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~Redirect~~ to Steal This Album!. Completely failure of WP:NSONGS. What little content present could easily be covered at the album (though it's mostly unsourced or poorly sourced so a direct merge would not be ideal.) Sergecross73 msg me 21:25, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Revising to neutral. Looks more like it was a sloppy creation, but there is sourcing out there. Sergecross73 msg me 01:25, 21 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I do agree with the nominator's original reasoning for the article as it stood. Since the three comments above, I've added three sources to the article, including direct analysis of the music/lyrics which I think keep it on the right side of WP:NSONGS. Jonathan Deamer (talk) 21:55, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The song has been highlighted by many observers for its war protest aspect, outside of its appearance on the album. It has its own legs in that respect. MTV Europe banned its video, reported by The New York Times, despite the fact that MTV was playing the video in the US, as reported by Billboard. The song gets its own paragraph in CMJ magazine, written by Amy Sciaretto. The song gets its own chapter in the book Songs of Social Protest: International Perspectives, starting on page 303—see Chapter 19, written by Canadian scholar Clare Neil King. The song was given a full page write-up by Billboard Staff in March 2003. Loudwire gives the song a paragraph, and so does Spin magazine. The song gets eight sentences in the Routledge textbook Music in the Post-9/11 World, on page 1930 where it says that MTV never officially enacted the ban on the song, but it was "conspicuously absent from MTV's European playlists." One page of the book Rise Up and Sing!: Power, Protest, and Activism in Music is dedicated to the song: page 163. Ben Myers gives the song a thorough treatment in his book System of a Down - Right Here in Hollywood, concentrating on its war protest aspects. Binksternet (talk) 22:03, 20 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per above. The article was definitely in poor shape at the time the AfD started, but it's already been improved significantly and more than enough sources have been added/listed above to cover notability. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 07:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Agree with users above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.170.194.91 (talk) 09:25, 21 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - For a little historical perspective, in the early years of Wikipedia there were articles for almost every single System of a Down song, created by over-enthusiastic fans. Many of those have since been redirected to their parent albums as not being independently notable. On the contrary, this song really did get extra notice from the reliable media due to the controversy surrounding its video, and for making a certain political impact in its day. The sources located by the voters above are sufficient. Also, an unreliable source like a Reddit discussion link can simply be removed. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (TALK|CONTRIBS) 16:41, 21 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Good finds by the users above, especially this one which I think is well within the territory of WP:SIGCOV.--N Ø 17:13, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.