Care for a mention of Candle In the Wind 1997? The biggest selling single of all time. Robbie williams released some big hits as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.224.235 (talk) 22:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Please enter the albums in alphabetical order, otherwise it will be impossible to search. Thanks!!

[edit] Classical music section

I've undone an edit by Deb in which the line of text at the beginning of the section was deleted for the reason that it was "superfluous". Removing superfluous text is to be welcomed but I don't think this is superfluous. Without an explanation as to what the entries in the section refer to, there could be confusion – was this composition completed or begun in 1997? Or premiered? Or first recorded? Alchemagenta (talk) 18:53, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, you're right, and I should have explained. I deleted the introduction because it just said "The following works were composed..." or something like that, which is stating the obvious. We don't have an introductory line on any of the other sections. There is no more reason to have it on classical music than on any other section; it could be said of any musical work that it might have been written at a different time from when it was first performed. The "Year in music" pages are already very long and need the minimum of additional verbiage. Deb (talk) 12:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Not having explanatory sentences in other sections isn't necessarily a strong argument for deleting explanatory text in one section; I think we should be seeking clarity of information over and above homogeneity of layout. Classical music is, arguably, a special case. The sentence you deleted actually said: "The following classical music compositions were completed in 1997." The distinction this is making derives from the fact that, unlike popular music, classical music composition can take years of work to complete and that it may not be publicly premiered or recorded until some time later. Therefore, as I stated above, I think it's important to identify what the entry in this article actually represents: completion of composition, premiere performance or first recording, all of which are significant events in the classical music world. In terms of music history, I believe the year that the composition was completed is the most salient fact. I agree that the 'Years in music' articles are generally long and this fact has been raised occasionally on some of the articles' talk pages. I think, rather than excising explanatory text, if you consider the article too long it would be better to consider splitting the it as was done recently with 2008 in music where the 'Albums released' section was separated out to create the new article List of albums released in 2008. Alchemagenta (talk) 11:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with you on the above. If you go to the page for a classical music composition, you'll normally find that the date attributed to it is the date it was first performed in public - just as, with a book, the date given is normally the date of publication, not the date it was written. This is comparable to popular music, where the release date for a recording is normally very close to the date of first public performance. However, I would agree that, where there is a great difference in time between the two, a note should be made, eg. Symphony no 1 (1882) (written in 1860-65). (That's an imaginary example, BTW.) Deb (talk) 13:00, 14 January 2009 (UTC)