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Human Performance

2016 studio album by Parquet Courts

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 9, 2025
Entity authorityQ23044926
Source-derived summary

Human Performance is the fifth studio album by American indie rock band Parquet Courts, released on April 8, 2016 on Rough Trade Records.

The album was preceded by the singles "Dust", "Berlin Got Blurry", "Outside", and "Human Performance". It received a nomination for Best Recording Package at the 2017 Grammy Awards.

Background and recording

The band wrote much of Human Performance while recording the album at Dreamland Recording Studios in Hurley, New York, New York: "We were living there, working around the clock, and there was never any time where we couldn’t be loud. It created an environment where we all encouraged each other to explore." Vocalist and guitarist Andrew Savage likened the experience to recording The Beatles' White Album: "I imagine it’s what recording [that album] would’ve been like except the whole band was getting along and nobody’s girlfriend was there."

Artwork

Receiving a nomination for Best Recording Package at the 2017 Grammy Awards, the album's artwork is by co-lead vocalist and guitarist A. Savage. Regarding its cover art, Savage noted: "I painted that in my own separate state of mind. I do a lot of artwork that has nothing to do with Parquet Courts, but it was around the same time that I started working on the Human Performance art, and it kind of just started screaming at me from the corner.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Human Performance” as 2016 studio album by Parquet Courts. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Human, Performance and studio.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2016, 2017—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2016-04-08. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Human, Performance and studio providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Human Performance”, the useful work is to connect “2016 studio album by Parquet Courts” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q23044926. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016 and 2017.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Human Performance”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Human Performance primary sources, Human Performance archive and Human research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Human Performance”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Human Performance” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.