Hello! 😊👋
Welcome to a new edition of the Daily Music Picks newsletter!
Today’s music pick is the latest record from pop-punk mainstays Paramore, a cynically entertaining piece of work.
Genre: Pop-Punk, Post-Punk
Label: Atlantic
Release Date: February 10, 2023
Vibe: 🫢
I’ll just come out and say it: Paramore doesn’t get enough credit for how well they assimilate the best of various genre conventions without losing their identity. From the emo-rock of Brand New Eyes to the power-pop of their self-titled 2013 release and the 80s sheen of After Laughter, they’ve never not made a uniquely Paramore record. Their latest, This is Why, sees them moving in another exciting direction. It’s a dark, cynical dance-punk album that examines pandemic-related scars with a startling degree of self-deprecating vulnerability. It’s a record about a world in flux by a band at yet another career-defining inflection point.
This is Hayley Williams’ most accomplished outing as a singer and lyricist. She dots these songs with admissions of self-sabotaging behavior (”You First,” “Thick Skull”), potshots at ex-lovers (”Big Man, Little Dignity”), and general concerns about the state of how we ascertain and share information (”The News”). The best encapsulation of the album’s energy comes in the first few seconds of the eponymous opener, where Williams makes her thoughts on your BS crystal clear: “If you have an opinion/Maybe you should shove it/Or maybe you could scream it/Might be best to keep it.” It’s pop-punk as emotional detox, flushing all the anger and evil out of their system as they step back onto the dancefloor and into the mainstream music conversation.
And, by communing with those deep-rooted demons lingering from our shelter-in-place memories, maybe Paramore can help us all exorcise them for good.
👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈
Got thoughts on this album? Did you love it? Sound off in the comments.