Parahoy Minoy

Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and their shared brick shithouse of blow were the pinnacle of bandcest. Whether their greatest work was made because of or in spite of the strife someone else can argue all day long. What we’re left with is the work, and stripped of all mythology, it still fucks. There is probably nothing left to write about Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, but there is so much left to say about Paramore’s brand new eyes.

Paramore’s own mythology formed in the MySpace era. American teens shared their close readings, their theories, their rumors, faster than Rolling Stone could reach their mailboxes. Hayley Williams herself responded on LiveJournal to a Kerrang cover story to set the record straight about the article’s inaccuracies. Bands connected with their people, and created that effervescent thing we now diagnose as “parasocial relationships”. Fans had more immediate access to artists and their emotional lives than ever before.

Singer Hayley Williams and guitarist Josh Farro were childhood friends who became entangled during Warped tours instead of Christian summer camps. Only 19 years old when 2007’s Riot! made them scene stars, there was no hope the good times could continue forever.

The two broke up in 2007, but the band stayed together. brand new eyes’ lead single is the blistering “Ignorance”. The chorus includes the line, “Don’t want to hear your sad songs, don’t want to feel your pain.” Which Hayley says she mumbled in early demos, hoping her ex didn’t notice how pointed the barb was.

The opening track “Careful” held another line that divided the former lovers: “The truth never set me free so I did it myself.” Josh felt this was a sentiment disparaging the gospel— “The truth will set you free.” Even more direct, “Playing God” excoriates the holier-than-thou types Hayley felt spoke the loudest in spiritual communities. On the seventh track, Hayley insists she’s “got no time for feeling sorry.” Angst is all over the album.

Josh ended up leaving the band shortly after the album’s tour. He posted a video refuting the band’s official exit statement, criticizing Hayley and the record label. The video was taken down, reposted, and recirculated. This direct address to the fandom became a cornerstone of the band’s fan-curated oral history. To this day, Hayley contends with accusations of being the Yoko Ono of her own band. I was a latecomer to Paramore, and long before I ever gave them a fair shake beyond their singles, I somehow encountered this pervasive insistence that Hayley Williams was a Machiavellian industry plant.

(Sidenote: one of my greatest shames is when I inexplicably and confidently mixed up The Silversun Pickups and Paramore in front of my first ever girlfriend. She dumped me a few weeks later and she was right to do it.)

brand new eyes is probably the band’s best album—the singles alone cement that for me. There are only two songs I would describe as even partially sunny in outlook, and those fascinate me to no end.

The first, “Looking Up”, is a bit of a Trojan horse. The song covers the band’s whirlwind and charmed life, describing in abstract the hard times of touring, and how it’s ultimately worth it. “God knows the world doesn’t need anther band, but what a waste it would’ve been…” The chorus is almost embarrassingly prescient and hopeful, “I can’t believe we almost hung it up.” Just wait, Ms. Williams!

Then there’s “Where The Lines Overlap”. A joyful celebration of growth and hope with a refrain you can’t sing without smiling,

Hayley and Josh wrote this song about their new romantic relationships—not each other. For all the ill will swirling around the album’s angrier numbers, it seems impossible that such an upbeat and bright-eyed outlook could survive. And maybe we can try and psychoanalyze the song as some sort of veiled insult—“Look how happy I am with someone else.”—but I can’t deny the uncomplicated and genuine glee in Hayley’s delivery. So what if this one sunny tune wouldn’t repair the rift between its architects? To borrow a phrase from Phoebe Bridgers, it must feel incredible to bury the hatchet and watch it come up lavender.

Hayley and Josh wrote the song in a single day at producer Rob Cavallo’s house. Cavallo produced this and so many other iconic records of the genre and day—The Black Parade, American Idiot, among illustrious others. The man knew how to cultivate a stratospheric sound for bands looking to get even bigger. He also knew a thing or two about working with warring exes. He produced the not-great but not-the-worst Fleetwood Mac album Say You Will in 2003.

The bridge is made for stadium shows, “And now I've got a feeling if I sang this loud enough, you would sing it back to me.” This passage also presents an interesting evolution from the band’s first album, and the closing song there, “My Heart.” That 2005 song is one of the few to feature Josh’s vocals—he screams along to the outro in a manner not unlike Pete Wentz, where you’re like “That’s fine, I guess, but let’s not rely on it, capiche?” (The only other Pmore track he screams on is an alternate version of “Emergency” from their 2006 tour EP The Summer Tic) The volta in “My Heart” goes:

Never forget Paramore has its roots in Jesus-band-land. One might wonder if this shift away from the divine audience to the fans in the crowd contributed to the band’s eventual split. I’ve never been big into any religion, but I see the attraction of appealing to an unseen audience, one who maybe sounds a bit like the self. We might make music, art, anything as a response to our world and to others, yet ultimately I suspect we make it for ourselves, to preserve something that otherwise will not last, even if it’s just an afternoon with an old love. What do we learn when echoes are the only answers to our angst? We need each other.

I saw Paramore live last month. They were excellent. Even the new stuff hit. “Decode” is a nu-metal song I don’t care what anyone says. The riff for “Figure 8” is a poor man’s “Big Love” but I still enjoy it.

Cat pic for the real ones who made it through.