Party Music is the fourth studio album by American hip hop group the Coup. It was originally released on 75 Ark on November 6, 2001. It was re-released on Epitaph Records in 2004.
Album cover controversy
The original cover of the album, created in June 2001, depicted Boots Riley and Pam the Funkstress destroying the twin towers of the World Trade Center using what appeared to be a detonator.[9] The apparent detonator was actually an electronic tuner. The album was originally scheduled for release in September of that year, but after the September 11 attacks (during which, the twin towers were destroyed in real life), the band decided to postpone the album's release until November, so they could create a new cover art.[10]
In a 2001 interview with Seattle newspaper The Stranger, Boots Riley spoke about his fight to keep the album cover following the events of September 11:
There's been a whitewash in the media over the past couple days over what the U.S.'s role in the world is, and the fact that they kill hundreds of thousands of people per year to protect profit. Now how can I get to the point where I could be saying that on the world stage, and interrupt the lies that CBS, CNN, NBC, and everyone is saying? In my view, that [would be] by keeping the cover. Not because I think by looking at the cover you get all of this message that I'm telling you, but as a way to have a platform to interrupt the stream of lies that are being told right now.[11]
In 2024, the original cover was listed in Rolling Stone in a list of "The 50 Worst Album Covers of All Time" as the 46th worst album cover due to the attempt to keep it in spite of 9/11.[12]
Critical reception
At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 85 based on 11 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[1]
Spin included it on the "20 Best Albums of 2001" list.[13]
