As its title suggests, The Party is a concept album set at a house party, consisting of a series of vignettes taking place over the course of a single night.[5][6] 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.[7][5] Although each song presents a different character, many of them have personal or autobiographical elements.[8]
The album was originally recorded and produced independently, with Shauf completing the album before meeting with any record labels. After presenting it to Anti-, however, he re-recorded and edited much of the music before releasing it.[5] 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.[4][6][9]
Shauf performed two songs from the album in a Tiny Desk Concert released the same day as the album.[10]
Reception
The Party was met with positive reviews, with particular praise for Shauf's storytelling and character studies.[4][6][11][12] On Metacritic, 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".[13]