CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Open Door Policy (album)

2021 studio album by The Hold Steady

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 revisionJul 27, 2025
Entity authorityQ106041065 ↗
Source-derived summary

Open Door Policy is the eighth studio album by the American rock band the Hold Steady, released on February 19, 2021, through the band's own label Positive Jams. The album was produced by Josh Kaufman, who had previously worked with the band on their seventh studio album, Thrashing Thru the Passion (2019), and was preceded by the singles "Family Farm", "Heavy Covenant" and "Spices".

Released to critical acclaim, the album debuted at number 6 on Billboard's Top Album Sales chart and number 48 on their Top Rock Albums chart. At the end of 2021, the album received accolades from AllMusic, Uncut, Double J and God is in the TV, appearing on their end-of-year lists.

Background

The album was recorded in December 2019 at the Clubhouse Studio and The Isokon Studio in New York, with producer Josh Kaufman. Lead vocalist Craig Finn said in a press release: "Open Door Policy was very much approached as an album vs. a collection of individual songs, and it feels like our most musically expansive record. This album was written and almost entirely recorded before the pandemic started, but the songs and stories explore power, wealth, mental health, technology, capitalism, consumerism, and survival – issues which have compounded in 2020."

Musicians Stuart Bogie, Jordan McLean, Cassandra Jenkins, Annie Nero and The Walkmen's Matt Barrick appear on the album.

Release

On December 1, 2020, the Hold Steady announced they were releasing their eighth studio album. The album's first single, "Family Farm" was released that same day.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Open Door Policy (album)” is 2021 studio album by The Hold Steady. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Door, Policy and album, not as a finished interpretation.

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—2021, 2019, 2020—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Door, Policy and album is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “2021 studio album by The Hold Steady” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

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 Jul 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q106041065. The first chronological checks are 2021, 2019 and 2020.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. 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 “Open Door Policy (album)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Open Door Policy (album) primary sources, Open Door Policy (album) archive and Door 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 “Open Door Policy (album)”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Open Door Policy (album)” 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.