''The Party'' is the fifth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by Canadian musician Andy Shauf. It was released on May 20, 2016 under

Anti- Anti- is an American record label founded in 1999 as a sister label to Epitaph Records. Founded by Andy Kaulkin, Anti- first gained attention by releasing Tom Waits's Grammy Award–winning '' Mule Variations'' in 1999. Other veteran recordin ...

Background

As its title suggests, ''The Party'' is a

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

set at a

house party A house party is a type of party held at the home of the party's host. Organization A house party might be organized several months or just a few hours in advance. News of a party may be spread by personal invitations, word of mouth, pos ...

, consisting of a series of vignettes taking place over the course of a single night. Shauf has stated that he began the album by working on unrelated songs, but that about halfway through the process, he decided on the theme of a party. Although each song presents a different character, many of them have personal or autobiographical elements. The album was originally recorded and produced independently, with Shauf completing the album before meeting with any record labels. After presenting it to

, however, he re-recorded and edited much of the music before releasing it. Shauf wrote, performed, engineered, and produced the entire album himself, with the exception of the string arrangements, which were written and performed by Colin Nealis. Shauf performed two songs from the album in a

Tiny Desk Concert ''Tiny Desk Concerts'' is a video series of live concerts hosted by NPR Music at the desk of former '' All Songs Considered'' host Bob Boilen in Washington, D.C. The first ''Tiny Desk Concert'' came about in 2008 after Boilen and NPR Music ed ...

released the same day as the album.

Reception

''The Party'' was met with positive reviews, with particular praise for Shauf's storytelling and character studies. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a normalized score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 83 based on 9 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The album was shortlisted for the 2016 Polaris Music Prize. In 2017, it was nominated for Adult Alternative Album of the Year at the

Juno Awards The Juno Awards (stylized as JUNOS), or simply known as the Junos, are awards presented by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to recognize outstanding achievements in Canada's music industry. The Grammy Awards are the United S ...

. Shauf was also nominated for Recording Engineer of the Year for "The Magician" and "To You", and for Breakthrough Artist of the Year. The same year, Shauf and the album were nominated for multiple

Canadian Independent Music Awards The Canadian Independent Music Awards, also known as the Independent Music Awards or Indies, are national awards presented annually to musicians to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. They were first inaug ...

and

Western Canadian Music Awards The ''Western Canadian Music Awards'' (WCMAs) is an annual awards event for music in the western portion of Canada. The awards are provided by the Western Canada Music Alliance, which consists of six member music industry organizations from Brit ...

. In discussing his more recent albums, some reviewers have noted ''The Party'' as the first album to win Shauf widespread recognition.

Track listing

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Party 2016 albums Anti- (record label) albums 2010s concept albums Andy Shauf albums