Disclaimer:
This is a quick disclaimer for any Paramore fans who may visit this page.
I’d like to say first off before I start the “review” that this is not an official review. I have no official knowledge of music. Or an English degree. I am begrudgingly a biology major and a music hoarder. You may simply call this a regular blog post of an album I’ve been listening to. Mostly, I just wanted to talk about my fandom for Paramore, the concept of the album, and my relationship with the songs by talking about how each track affected me.
History with the band:
I’ve been listening to alt pop-rock since elementary school until I became accepted by a friend group in the seventh grade through the release of “Misery Business”. What friend group? It was truly a band of rejects (hehe All-American rejects). I’ve seen the release of “Brand New Eyes”, the departure of the Farro Brothers and their comeback with the Singles Club. 2013 was the best year ever because every band I loved came back - Paramore with “Self-Titled”, Fall Out Boy with “Save Rock and Roll”, and Panic! At The Disco with “Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!” I died from happiness. Years later, both Fall Out and Panic! have come back with second albums, and Paramore sort fell deeper into touring and Hayley got married. Later on, I found that there was a lawsuit between Hayley, their record label, and Jeremy Davis, the bassist and one of the original members of the band, causing him to exit the group. I was sad that the band was still going legal battles within the group and I could not guess how Hayley and Taylor were feeling during that time while fans (like me) badgered them when they would come out with another album. Then Zac Farro came back! Honestly, I wasn’t sure about this, because I felt that Hayley had been through enough. But if they could decide to give Zac another chance, I thought I should, too. Besides, they did look kind of bare with just two members.
General Ideas:
Before the album came out, I listened to their Beats 1 interviews. They mentioned Zac’s return, how Taylor saved Hayley from leaving the band, and Hayley admitted that she had been going through some dark thoughts in the past three years.
During my first listening session of the album, I got a strong feeling that this album was about how to deal with friendships and the thoughts you have losing them. I believe now that it is about recognizing your dark thoughts and expressing them to the people you love in any way that is helpful to you. Paramore did It through making the album. I think this is the most emotionally vulnerable album Paramore had ever made. Paramore had been hurting and Hayley as a songwriter expressed this pain through Taylor’s, Zac’s, and their producers’ music.
My feelings about each track
Hard Times
This song came out for me at lunchtime in between my classes. I listened to it in the computer lab with my head down, screaming in my mind that this was going to be the lead single of the album. For days, I played this song non-stop. I felt like “Hard Times” was a fun little song about depression that described exactly how I felt at the time. I was having dark thoughts but I still wanted to dance and smile and laugh.
I feel like you know if you’re a Paramore fan you when a song could carry into popdom but you can still hear the angst. It was overt that Hayley had been hurting. In the lyrics, I felt that she felt like she was the cause of their downfall. Maybe because the lies of her diva-ness may have gotten to her. She hopes God could hit her with a sign to get her out of this mentality. The line, “Tell my friends I’m coming down”, when she was floating above her bandmates in the music video, it made her seem like people thinks she might have been mightier than her bandmates and she is coping with that reality.
Rose-Colored Boy
While the album came out, Pete from Fall Out Boy tweeted like that he really liked this song.
I agree. I found her annoyance for an optimistic man after she grown up and became jaded with the world so relatable. I don’t like people who are happy every day. It’s unsettling.
Sometimes people just need to live in their sorrow to find their way out. Just leave her alone. Your optimism sucks.
Told You So
The second single that came out with a music video. Honestly, I didn’t like it that first time I heard it because I didn’t like how the chorus sounded. But I realized one day I was listening to it unconsciously that I was dancing to it. I decided I liked the song. That’s it.
I think most headstrong women (myself included) love being right and hate to admit that they were wrong. But this is all for naught because nobody has much as they try be a “accurate” being. There will always be people to correct you, even if it is not in their right. You didn’t ask for it and they, in their haste to get you off the high horse they think you have, hurt your ego and do not respect your feelings.
Forgiveness
A soft, sweet song about not being ready to forgive someone for the way they threated you. This is a song to listen to when you feel small and vulnerable in the enormity of the world. I love how beachy and carefree the instrumental sounds, but the lyrics and Hayley’s voice makes it dig 10x deeper. I hope the persons the song is directed to reflects on their mistakes for hurting Hayley.
“Forgiving is not forgetting” – is a great line. She is taking a stand, saying that even if the person may have reflected on their actions and asked (sounds more like he demanded a pardon), she herself is not at a place to forgive anyone.
Fake Happy
I think any kid who listened to alt-rock/punk as a middle schooler in the 2000s learned a very important lesson: posers are losers. Therefore, you must never be one. But sometimes, you can’t help it. It may be because of your parents or your public reputation. You are pretending to be something you are not and every day, it eats away at you. You are pretending to be satisfied with the way people perceive you.
We seem to lie to ourselves and each other. It’s a manipulation skill. To convince people you are different or feeling the same as they do to fit in. to make others happy with was like a drug.
26
A song about depression, or in how I’d like to say a wave of doubt and sadness. The song shows how Hayley is trying to hold onto hope. That she trying to bring herself back and forget the bad things her depression says to her.
I’ve been communicating more recently with my doctor about being in these severe moods I have that last more than a week. And they always ask whether or not I have had thoughts of harming myself. I would never. The thought of getting a paper cut frightens me. There is an occasional thought on one of my more sadistic days, where I just want everyone to hate me, that I think “what would happen if I stood in front of a bus?” But most of the time, I just want that I want to live in darkness and dwell in my sadness until I can pick up the pieces of my shattered ego. I let the world break me.
Pool
This is my favorite vocal performance by Hayley on the album and some great lyrics to sing along to. I love songs that set up the story right away.
From reading the first couple lines, I understood that it was a more realistic, truthful, painful, heart-baring attempt to write the rekindling to an unsuccessful love story. Taylor said this was Hayley’s version of a love song. Because relationships with significant others is as equally as painfully as friendships.
I feel like if the song was performed with calypso drums, it would kill at PARAHOY.
Grudges
I like that this song is about Zac and that Hayley wrote out all of her thoughts on becoming friends with Zac again. It’s such a real-life friendship song. I also like the way she said “grudges”.
It kind of reminded me of “Brand New Eyes” for some reason, like an older sound. Maybe, because it was the last album they worked on together.
Watching their Beats interview, I liked seeing how Hayley and Zac were using this time to talk to each other and be candid. He didn’t even know she intended the song directly for him. I felt all nice and fluffy when I found that it was Zac who sings with her in the bridge. As a fan, it would be cool to see them perform this live as a small tribute to the Farro Brothers.
Caught In The Middle
As soon as this song, I said to myself, “This is ska, right?” Suddenly, I thought about what if Gwen Stefanie sang this song. No? Never mind, then.
It has a beachy, conscious vibe. This song explains that feeling you get when people tell you to enjoy this moment because the present is so important. You tell them like it’s easy for them to say that but it’s difficult to achieve peace within yourself. When your past hurts you and your future brings you anxiety, you fall deeper into an existence that is on autopilot. It kind of explains today’s youth. How the light and fire of our youth dims and the older generations criticize us saying that we’ve lost our intentions.
I really love this line because it’s true the only person who can tear me down is me. The only person I’m seeking approval from is me. When I disappointment myself, it is the biggest failure.
Idle worship
A lot of artists and musicians feel like this these days. We like them so much that, suddenly they have fans and people who support them. It’s cool at first but later you will get people who you don’t know questioning your choices, your moral code, and your privacy has now been jeopardized. There is a myth that surrounds you. A character you’re supposed to play. And you feel like it’s impossible you to shake it away because millions of people already believe a false personality.
Hayley is a regular person. The strain in her voice in this song shows it. There shouldn’t be a pedestal for her to be held in higher regard than other people who do want one but don’t deserve it. She doesn’t want to let people down, because in this new world, it’s hard to understand that the people we love who are in higher financial positions than us can make mistakes, too.
No Friend
Honestly, I skip this. I can’t understand what he’s said. I read the lyrics but my brain is turned off because I can’t hear him in the audio.
Tell Me How
I feel like this is a final tribute to the band members who left Paramore. It’s all in the song. Her soul, her heart, her passion, and her apology. They helped secure the band. They were there from the very beginning, since they were kids learning how to play. Without them, Paramore would not have evolved into the group we love to today.
I know Hayley can play the piano. I want to see the stage-light to be on her and have a very light accompaniment by the band. That would be so beautiful for the fans. Thank you.
Thought after the initial review.
Living in a Somali house, my depression has become a fault against me. I am not allowed to let the feelings wash over me because I seem to bring the entire family down. I wish my family could understand that leaving me alone in my shell with eventually lead me to poke me down head out myself. But most of the time, I just want that I want to live in darkness and dwell in my sadness until I can pick up the pieces of my shattered ego.
Don’t make fun. Don’t do anything that’ll make me jump of a cliff. Just hang with me and don’t speak.
Credits: From Paramore's twitter and their photographers
This is a quick disclaimer for any Paramore fans who may visit this page.
I’d like to say first off before I start the “review” that this is not an official review. I have no official knowledge of music. Or an English degree. I am begrudgingly a biology major and a music hoarder. You may simply call this a regular blog post of an album I’ve been listening to. Mostly, I just wanted to talk about my fandom for Paramore, the concept of the album, and my relationship with the songs by talking about how each track affected me.
History with the band:
I’ve been listening to alt pop-rock since elementary school until I became accepted by a friend group in the seventh grade through the release of “Misery Business”. What friend group? It was truly a band of rejects (hehe All-American rejects). I’ve seen the release of “Brand New Eyes”, the departure of the Farro Brothers and their comeback with the Singles Club. 2013 was the best year ever because every band I loved came back - Paramore with “Self-Titled”, Fall Out Boy with “Save Rock and Roll”, and Panic! At The Disco with “Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!” I died from happiness. Years later, both Fall Out and Panic! have come back with second albums, and Paramore sort fell deeper into touring and Hayley got married. Later on, I found that there was a lawsuit between Hayley, their record label, and Jeremy Davis, the bassist and one of the original members of the band, causing him to exit the group. I was sad that the band was still going legal battles within the group and I could not guess how Hayley and Taylor were feeling during that time while fans (like me) badgered them when they would come out with another album. Then Zac Farro came back! Honestly, I wasn’t sure about this, because I felt that Hayley had been through enough. But if they could decide to give Zac another chance, I thought I should, too. Besides, they did look kind of bare with just two members.
General Ideas:
Before the album came out, I listened to their Beats 1 interviews. They mentioned Zac’s return, how Taylor saved Hayley from leaving the band, and Hayley admitted that she had been going through some dark thoughts in the past three years.
During my first listening session of the album, I got a strong feeling that this album was about how to deal with friendships and the thoughts you have losing them. I believe now that it is about recognizing your dark thoughts and expressing them to the people you love in any way that is helpful to you. Paramore did It through making the album. I think this is the most emotionally vulnerable album Paramore had ever made. Paramore had been hurting and Hayley as a songwriter expressed this pain through Taylor’s, Zac’s, and their producers’ music.
 |
| @LindseyByrnes |
Hard Times
This song came out for me at lunchtime in between my classes. I listened to it in the computer lab with my head down, screaming in my mind that this was going to be the lead single of the album. For days, I played this song non-stop. I felt like “Hard Times” was a fun little song about depression that described exactly how I felt at the time. I was having dark thoughts but I still wanted to dance and smile and laugh.
I feel like you know if you’re a Paramore fan you when a song could carry into popdom but you can still hear the angst. It was overt that Hayley had been hurting. In the lyrics, I felt that she felt like she was the cause of their downfall. Maybe because the lies of her diva-ness may have gotten to her. She hopes God could hit her with a sign to get her out of this mentality. The line, “Tell my friends I’m coming down”, when she was floating above her bandmates in the music video, it made her seem like people thinks she might have been mightier than her bandmates and she is coping with that reality.
Rose-Colored Boy
While the album came out, Pete from Fall Out Boy tweeted like that he really liked this song.
I agree. I found her annoyance for an optimistic man after she grown up and became jaded with the world so relatable. I don’t like people who are happy every day. It’s unsettling.
“I want you to stop insisting that I'm not a lost cause
'Cause I've been through a lot
Really all I've got is just to stay pissed off
If it's all right by you”
Sometimes people just need to live in their sorrow to find their way out. Just leave her alone. Your optimism sucks.
Told You So
The second single that came out with a music video. Honestly, I didn’t like it that first time I heard it because I didn’t like how the chorus sounded. But I realized one day I was listening to it unconsciously that I was dancing to it. I decided I liked the song. That’s it.
“I know you like
When I admit that I was wrong and you were right
At least I try
To keep my cool when I'm thrown into a fire”
I think most headstrong women (myself included) love being right and hate to admit that they were wrong. But this is all for naught because nobody has much as they try be a “accurate” being. There will always be people to correct you, even if it is not in their right. You didn’t ask for it and they, in their haste to get you off the high horse they think you have, hurt your ego and do not respect your feelings.
 |
| @phojoh |
A soft, sweet song about not being ready to forgive someone for the way they threated you. This is a song to listen to when you feel small and vulnerable in the enormity of the world. I love how beachy and carefree the instrumental sounds, but the lyrics and Hayley’s voice makes it dig 10x deeper. I hope the persons the song is directed to reflects on their mistakes for hurting Hayley.
“Forgiving is not forgetting” – is a great line. She is taking a stand, saying that even if the person may have reflected on their actions and asked (sounds more like he demanded a pardon), she herself is not at a place to forgive anyone.
Fake Happy
I think any kid who listened to alt-rock/punk as a middle schooler in the 2000s learned a very important lesson: posers are losers. Therefore, you must never be one. But sometimes, you can’t help it. It may be because of your parents or your public reputation. You are pretending to be something you are not and every day, it eats away at you. You are pretending to be satisfied with the way people perceive you.
“Hey, if I smile with my teeth
Bet you believe me
If I smile with my teeth
I think I believe me”
We seem to lie to ourselves and each other. It’s a manipulation skill. To convince people you are different or feeling the same as they do to fit in. to make others happy with was like a drug.
26
A song about depression, or in how I’d like to say a wave of doubt and sadness. The song shows how Hayley is trying to hold onto hope. That she trying to bring herself back and forget the bad things her depression says to her.
“Reality will break your heart
Survival will not be the hardest part
It's keeping all your hopes alive
When all the rest of you has died
So let it break your heart”
I’ve been communicating more recently with my doctor about being in these severe moods I have that last more than a week. And they always ask whether or not I have had thoughts of harming myself. I would never. The thought of getting a paper cut frightens me. There is an occasional thought on one of my more sadistic days, where I just want everyone to hate me, that I think “what would happen if I stood in front of a bus?” But most of the time, I just want that I want to live in darkness and dwell in my sadness until I can pick up the pieces of my shattered ego. I let the world break me.
Pool
This is my favorite vocal performance by Hayley on the album and some great lyrics to sing along to. I love songs that set up the story right away.
“As if the first cut wasn't deep enough
I dove in again 'cause I'm not into giving up
Could've gotten the same rush from any lover's touch
But why get used to something new?
'Cause no one breaks my heart like you”
From reading the first couple lines, I understood that it was a more realistic, truthful, painful, heart-baring attempt to write the rekindling to an unsuccessful love story. Taylor said this was Hayley’s version of a love song. Because relationships with significant others is as equally as painfully as friendships.
I feel like if the song was performed with calypso drums, it would kill at PARAHOY.
 |
| @parahoy.com |
I like that this song is about Zac and that Hayley wrote out all of her thoughts on becoming friends with Zac again. It’s such a real-life friendship song. I also like the way she said “grudges”.
It kind of reminded me of “Brand New Eyes” for some reason, like an older sound. Maybe, because it was the last album they worked on together.
“And if you wanna call me up or come over
Come on, we'll laugh 'till we cry
Like we did when we were kids”
Watching their Beats interview, I liked seeing how Hayley and Zac were using this time to talk to each other and be candid. He didn’t even know she intended the song directly for him. I felt all nice and fluffy when I found that it was Zac who sings with her in the bridge. As a fan, it would be cool to see them perform this live as a small tribute to the Farro Brothers.
Caught In The Middle
As soon as this song, I said to myself, “This is ska, right?” Suddenly, I thought about what if Gwen Stefanie sang this song. No? Never mind, then.
It has a beachy, conscious vibe. This song explains that feeling you get when people tell you to enjoy this moment because the present is so important. You tell them like it’s easy for them to say that but it’s difficult to achieve peace within yourself. When your past hurts you and your future brings you anxiety, you fall deeper into an existence that is on autopilot. It kind of explains today’s youth. How the light and fire of our youth dims and the older generations criticize us saying that we’ve lost our intentions.
“I don’t need no help”
I can sabotage me by myself”
I really love this line because it’s true the only person who can tear me down is me. The only person I’m seeking approval from is me. When I disappointment myself, it is the biggest failure.
 |
| @LindseyByrnes |
A lot of artists and musicians feel like this these days. We like them so much that, suddenly they have fans and people who support them. It’s cool at first but later you will get people who you don’t know questioning your choices, your moral code, and your privacy has now been jeopardized. There is a myth that surrounds you. A character you’re supposed to play. And you feel like it’s impossible you to shake it away because millions of people already believe a false personality.
“Be sure to put your faith in something more
I'm just a girl and you're not as alone as you feel
We all got problems, don't we?
We all need heroes, don't we?
But rest assured, there's not a single person here who's worthy”
Hayley is a regular person. The strain in her voice in this song shows it. There shouldn’t be a pedestal for her to be held in higher regard than other people who do want one but don’t deserve it. She doesn’t want to let people down, because in this new world, it’s hard to understand that the people we love who are in higher financial positions than us can make mistakes, too.
No Friend
Honestly, I skip this. I can’t understand what he’s said. I read the lyrics but my brain is turned off because I can’t hear him in the audio.
Tell Me How
I feel like this is a final tribute to the band members who left Paramore. It’s all in the song. Her soul, her heart, her passion, and her apology. They helped secure the band. They were there from the very beginning, since they were kids learning how to play. Without them, Paramore would not have evolved into the group we love to today.
“Tell me how to feel about you now
Oh, let me know
Do I suffocate or let go?”
I know Hayley can play the piano. I want to see the stage-light to be on her and have a very light accompaniment by the band. That would be so beautiful for the fans. Thank you.
 |
| @LindseyByrnes |
“Remember how we used to like ourselves?
What little light that's left, we need to keep it sacred
I know that you're afraid to let all the dark escape you
But we can let the light illuminate these hopeless places”
- Idle Worship
Living in a Somali house, my depression has become a fault against me. I am not allowed to let the feelings wash over me because I seem to bring the entire family down. I wish my family could understand that leaving me alone in my shell with eventually lead me to poke me down head out myself. But most of the time, I just want that I want to live in darkness and dwell in my sadness until I can pick up the pieces of my shattered ego.
Don’t make fun. Don’t do anything that’ll make me jump of a cliff. Just hang with me and don’t speak.
Credits: From Paramore's twitter and their photographers
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