The album features several well-known guest musicians and producers, including Tom Waits, James Hetfield, Jim Martin, Fred Durst and Tom Morello. The band has regarded the album's production as tense and uncomfortable, with the members of the band not getting along well with each other during recording. Claypool has stated "Antipop was the most difficult record we ever made, because there was a lot of tension between the three of us, and there was some doubt at the label as to whether we knew what the hell we were doing anymore. But there was some great things to come out of it, like the tune we did with Tom Waits, 'Coattails of a Dead Man'. I love that song." After the release of the album the band went on a three-year hiatus from 2000 to 2003. Claypool said "We went on a hiatus, which is a fancy way of saying we just didn’t like being around each other and we wanted to break up but we didn’t have the balls to actually break up. I think we stopped before we totally shit our pants, but I think the closest we came was doing the Antipop record," While producing the song "Lacquer Head", Durst encouraged Primus to return to the more aggressive metalsound of their earlier albums Sailing the Seas of Cheese and Frizzle Fry for Antipop.
Reception
The album received mostly positive reviews from critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic gave the album a positive review, describing the album as "one of Primus' most ambitious and best efforts", noting that "some collaborations are among the best things Primus has ever recorded". Towards the end of the piece, Erlewine sums up his views by admitting that "they're not always successful, but no two songs sound the same and even if it's not to your particular taste, it's hard not to respect this." The band themselves were not pleased with how the album turned out, their dissatisfaction being a contributing factor to their brief dissolution. Les Claypool said "We were reaching the end of our creative rope. The well was just dry, so we just started sucking mud". In a 2015 interview, Claypool additionally characterized the album as "somewhat directionless", adding that "for the most part, it’s my least favorite Primus record.
Track listing
Around 38 seconds into the title track, the phrase "They're Here", from Poltergeist, can be heard right before the music starts playing.
