"Real Emo" only consists of the dc Emotional Hardcore scene and the late 90's Screamo scene. What is known by "Midwest Emo" is nothing but Alternative Rock with questionable real emo influence. When people try to argue that bands like My Chemical Romance are not real emo, while saying that Sunny Day Real Estate is, I can't help not to cringe because they are just as fake emo as My Chemical Romance (plus the pretentiousness). Real emo sounds ENERGETIC, POWERFUL and somewhat HATEFUL. Fake emo is weak, self pity and a failed attempt to direct energy and emotion into music. Some examples of REAL EMO are Pg 99, Rites of Spring, Cap n Jazz (the only real emo band from the midwest scene) and Loma Prieta. Some examples of FAKE EMO are American Football, My Chemical Romance and Mineral EMO BELONGS TO HARDCORE NOT TO INDIE, POP PUNK, ALT ROCK OR ANY OTHER MAINSTREAM GENRE.
What does it mean Jesse?? More importantly, where is Paramore? Not here. Huh.
Makes sense considering OP knows their value and has placed them where they belong which is the "not emo" section. Kidding aside, they were never emo and no Hot Topic teen can prove me otherwise.
Plus the vast majority of music enjoyers don't have (or seek) the necessary context needed in order to back their claims and more often than not simply follow what's being told. One glance at cult-like comment sections and discussions in more popular genres (metal included) tells you everything you need to know.
Yet I cannot for the life of me sit by and watch all the awful, one-note and vague reviews of Paramore's latest album This Is Why fly by me.
Most common are blind praise pieces noting vast leaps in evolution and moving on from their "emo" roots which... hasn't been a thing since their self-titled (that came out a decade ago) and certain parts of Brand New Eyes if we wanna be picky which, as you'll notice the deeper we go, I am.
Basically, for me, if you're gonna do this, do it right or don't do it at all. So let's see some examples.
Pitchfork starts off well but starts dropping the ball the longer it goes. Alluding that Hayley's falsetto is inspired by "the wistful melancholy of Phoebe Bridgers" or comparing her "affectations" on "C’est Comme Ça" to that of Dry Cleaning and criticizing Hayley's approach for not having the "same irreverence and quotidian absurdity" of Florence Shaw is just silly. Hilarious actually given how these two operate.
Hell, lyrically they have similarities which could've been mentioned but if anything, these two examples paint a painful picture. Both Dry Cleaning and Phoebe Bridgers are new, recent and "trendy" bands, the former which I'm a fan of mind you but omitting obvious influences and using faulty logic is unfortunately common in bigger media.
NME gave This Is Why a perfect score and likened Hayley's bone-barring lyricism almost exclusively to the pandemic and mention "hard rock riffs". Hard rock? Oh and of course they end it with a "bang". To paraphrase the band fiNaLly reached a point they were chasing for the last ten years. If that is the case I don't know what After Laughter represents. Nor their self-titled after which pretty clearly stated its intentions. I could go on but I think you get the point.
The point being that I am truly tired of trite, half-assed and hastily assembled regurgitations that dominate the landscape. We've reached a point where something passable gets praised and I think something snapped inside of me when February arrived and I saw what the biggest names in music had to say.
It's one thing to misgenreder (pls laugh) an underground metal band but to completely miss the essence of Paramore, a band with a following larger than most bands can dream of truly baffles the mind.
So allow me dear reader to toss my hat-fro in the ring and attempt describing why this is good from a tr... fan's perspective.
To immediately get this out of the way and save some of your time (lazy!!!)... I fucking love This Is Why and still consider it the best album that came out this year at the time of writing.
And following their pattern of growth, This Is Why signifies another change in their sound. From a surface level...
You can leave now if you wanted a quick summation. The rest can stay (Chads).
Instrumentally, it doubles down on After Laughter's "shuffliest" and sharpest cuts such as "Told You So", "Idle Worship" or "No Friend". But unlike its 80's inspired funky, new wave instrumentation and (seemingly) upbeat demeanour, This Is Why seems to be looking further into the past by taking cues from post-punk as much as old school ballads with plenty of 50's and 60's inspired motifs as well as some early 2000's alt rock. Think Gang Of Four, Talking Heads, early Blondie, early Bloc Party, The Strokes and such.
The title track sets the stage by starting off on a seemingly limp foot achieved by guitar attacks coming from both the left and right. During these disorganized exchanges the first surf rock-inspired lick occurs and after a few more screeches the groove is set. What follows is an intricate dance. Initially I wasn't as thrilled given how sticky the predecessor's singles were but with time I really started appreciating its many nuances. Still think the chorus is a bit clumsy which is a trait unfortunately shared with "The News". However, as much as "The News" continues the established momentum, I immediately realized its lyrical content.
Usually Hayley focuses on herself or how she interprets things or emotions. They vary from relationships to concepts such as growing up. Here however she... criticizes the media?
That's new(s)! This is the point where I would leave a snarky comment such as "duuuh" which I just did (and in an ironic twist Pitchfork too) but... I can't help but feel it.
Obviously big media's incessant need to stay relevant by click baiting the shit out of us with inflammatory titles and complete lack of nuance is bad but Paramore, to my knowledge, never had a song with this type of lyrics. "Fake Happy" comes to mind initially as it tackles fake empathy but that a personal point of view to it and nothing broad stroke like this.
Some call "The News" angsty and "totally like their earlier stuff" but I think it's genuinely angry, frustrated, to a point where they felt a need to state it directly. Based. Keep in mind anger is nothing new to them but more on that later!
What follows though is my song of the year and a point where the album starts showing its true greatness.
"Running Out Of Time" is absolutely one of their best tracks to date and that chorus moves mountains.
True to their newer albums, "Running Out Of Time" has a self-aware sense of humor that is equally personal and general. I've always loved that about their lyrics.
Hayley, as she states, always runs out of time due to her poor time management skills, to a point of fabricating nonsense in order to protect her image as a responsible person. She feels bad, to a point of questioning if she's just selfish and not as good of a person but in actuality she doesn't feel that bad in order to change it. Why? Because she's imperfect like everyone and this is something Paramore started tackling more and more of. More on that later he once again states with a smile on his face.
When it comes to why I love this song as much, it's necessary to address the importance of "the pocket". This illusive musical construct represents someone's ability to stay within the rhythmic confines of whatever's being played to an amazing degree. This usually relies to rhythmic sections but anyone can be in the pocket if they're good enough.
Taylor York, the unsung hero and the man responsible for keeping Paramore alive, showcases how a guitarist can enter this magical realm by his stellar work here.
The demented surf-rock-like licks and squeals in the bridge and spacious chords sneakily slapping you during the verses are just some of the thing that makes this an instant classic. So, with something this electric and energetic, as well as what preceded it, a counterweight is bound to happen... and it doesn't cause "C'est Comme Ça" follows. Arguably the most "hyper" song they've written since... "Anklebiters" or "Now", I think now would be a good time to address the pacing. Pacing kinda weird ngl. Moving on.
So af... OK OK I hear absolutely none of you, I'll impart some wisdom.
Which is... yeah it's a bit weird having all these bangers back to back and then follow that up with slower and more personal tracks innit? It works mind you as the switch feels sudden yet warranted and stuff like "Liar", "Crave" and "Thick Skull" work much better after the initial fire. It's a set up and the key to it is "Little Man, Big Dignity" which marries the 80's inspired bursts of After Laughter and this newer guitar-driven approach that This Is Why exhibits. And when I say guitar-driven I don't mean it in a "oh look at that riff" type of way. I mean it in a "oh snap look at how the guitars help providing a clearer pulse and assist with extra harmonies or undermining the same for a spicy effect" type way.
Not the smoothest of sentences but it' so subtle and cool!.
Hm, noticing how this could turn into a song-by-song analysis so let's talk Paramore and anger. And Hayley. And Zac a bit later.
How ironic is it, that with all her imperfections being openly stated in her lyrics, Hayley is still perceived as this perfect goddess by a lot of fans. Comments like "I wish I was this talented" or "I wanna be like her" is commonplace these days but they suck. They suck because these people discredit themselves to a point of feeling unworthy and untalented and place unrealistic expectations that are a result of hard projection and a narrow idealistic look on things. On "Idle Worship" Hayley implores to stop seeing her as this superhuman and stop wasting all your faith on her.
Hayley is spiteful, impatient, disorganized, stubborn, loyal to a tee, still insecure as we all are to a certain degree. And that's good because we got something to work on.
She exclaims on the amazing closer:
"Hit over the head, epiphany
Over my head, repeatedly
Thick skull never did nothing for me
Same lesson again? Come on, give it to me"
Hayley also states how she is a magnet and attracted to broken people which brought her in multiple unpleasant situations, some brought up by fans which alluded to her "habit" of relationships with band members. She's been dating Taylor since 2018 now so that is extra rude from these "fans".
So her accepting what she is and understanding her flaws and how she won't be able to change some of 'em as well as how that affects her, her relationships and everyone else is the key feature of This Is Why. After Laughter also had acceptance and moving on in it but on here things are much more direct and no one is hiding beneath irony, jabs and fake happy instrumentations.
And we should all strive to change those ugly parts of us, no matter how futile that seems seeing how these things were always a part of you.
And that frustration she always carried was always present in Paramore's music, it still is but it grew up. As did everyone in the band. As did you. As did I.
THAT's the magic of this band and why I got pissed at people missing something so obvious.
Then again, Paramore always walked a very thin line between directness and subtlety and have done so brilliantly. It's just that this line got thinner with age as they realized how not addressing something directly only furthers the inevitable.
All this makes "You First" that more powerful as there's a note of dejection in her acceptance.
"I never said I wasn't petty
You can bet I don't regret it for a second
It's a pleasure, it's a reckoning
Never said I wasn't petty
I'll do better when you're better
Let me revel in your defeat"
Damn straight. I love when she shows her claws... gods I sound so nerdy but she hasn't been my longest crush (10+ years) for no reason as you can see by all this lore I'm spitting. But wait there's more!
On aforementioned "Big Man, Little Dignity" Hayley once again shows her spiteful side and she's very specific about her words. The cadence in what they're sung feel personal, directed and absolutely 100% honest. The band said this song was about men who are not being held accountable for their actions which ties in perfectly with Hayley's comments about how she wishes no woman/girl experiences what she has during the early 2000's when they broke through.
Yet, the sharpness of certain words and letters points to this problem permeating to this day. Unfortunate but far from shocking. But that's another can of worms entirely.
Originally wanted to comment on "Liar" and "Crave" lyrical content seeing how they represent another shift but I'll rather leave that to you to discover.
Instead I'll rather nerd out about Zac Farro and his drumming for a bit. I mentioned how "shuffley" and "mathy" things can be on This Is Why but the true genius of his playing lies hidden alongside a mountain of insane subtleties from all members.
His snare placement on "Liar" is so fucking dope. He alternates between one and two hits which not only fills the space perfectly for everything else but it also sounds like a heartbeat. Radiohead could never. Those kicks and cymbals as well are mega tasty. And that harp during the bridge plus all the guitar parts? Fuck me up.
"Crave" also had me uuuu-ing at how musical he is. Like Paul Seidel of The Ocean Collective Zac fully understands what he should and shouldn't do at any given moment during a song's runtime, regardless of its energy. That my friends is the highest level of drumming. Keeping your ego in check, playing with the form and being seamless whilst recognizable. Giga based.
Honestly, the more I think of all this, the more insane it feels. And by "it" I mean everything. I didn't "grow up" like many have with Paramore but I went back out and in enough times to remember certain periods of my life clearly. It's been a wild ride and I am still becoming a genuine person and Paramore is doing the same.
All the pressure, line up changes, personal tumultuous periods, fights, popularity and you still come on top and on your terms... That sums up their essence perfectly me thinks.
And while I'll always judge anyone who only listens to their earlier stuff but I really can't blame them that much given how each album perfectly encapsulates them, the time they've been in and in turn you and where you were when that specific album released. From my days of playing Warcraft 3's Night Elf campaign while "Emergency" blasted in the background when I was like 13 to me walking in rhythm with "Ain't It Fun" to my chemistry instructions during middle school or listening to "26" while being 26 and working during the entirety of summer while it's 37+ degrees outside and wondering if I'll fail with my life, Paramore have been there. And given how I already have some nice memories with This Is Why you can be sure more will come. Long may you reign Paramore.
Oh and Pitchfork, NME and others... eat my ass. Peace!
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