This piece was originally featured in AM02 — Issue Two of Ascribe. Click here to read it alongside the rest of the issue.
After taking a hiatus after After Laughter was released in 2017, Paramore makes an incredible comeback with This Is Why. It has everything one would want from an album, from high energy beats to emotional ballads to politically charged anthems.
This Is Why: The title track to the album is a perfect start to the album, encompassing all of the thoughts and feelings the band has had over the years. The world is a scary place of opinion and criticism, and with everything else that has happened in the world in the past couple of years, what is the point in going outside?
The News: An aggressive, loud, and politically charged track that makes you want to scream along with all of the pent up anger you have about the world and the constant information that floods you everyday.
Running Out Of Time: This song touches on WIlliams’ self-interrogation for the first of many times of this album. Taylor York and Zac Farro created this funky encompiant to this song, which fits the “I’m sorry, but I had to“ attitude.
C’est Comme Ça: ”C’est Comme Ça” is a banger track with danceable rhythms and verses that cut like a knife. The spoken word verses mixed with the repetitive chorus give this song a sound that I have not heard from anyone else. During the pandemic, all of us had a little too much time to ourselves where we revel in our own heads for days on end about everything you’ve ever done. A different view on life is seen in C’est Comme Ça. C’est Comme Ça translates to “it is what it is”; Hayley Williams discusses how she cannot control everything that happens in life and her comfort with chaos, needing it to live as she “run[s] on spite and sweet revenge”.
Big Man, Little Dignity: A humorous song that comments on the powerful men in society who are greedy, get what they want, and don’t care who they go through, as they can wipe their hands clean so easily. However, there is going to be hard-hitting realism.
You First: As we enter the second half of the album, we are greeted with an introspective song about Williams’ own internal struggle with good versus evil in her mind.
Figure 8: “Figure 8” is about the struggle of losing yourself to someone or something that is abusive, but you let yourself bend over backwards for it. The way Williams can harmonize with herself and the way York’s guitar can flow so effortlessly with her voice, along with a beautiful drum beat by Faro, show the connection this band has with each other and how they have only gotten closer after a 5 year break.
Liar: Liar is the soft, sweet song of the album. The song is about Williams’ feelings toward fellow band member Taylor York. Williams talks about the feeling of pushing down your love toward someone after you had been mistreated and broken down by relationships in the past. This song is nothing short of beautiful. A story about someone recognizing their own mistakes, while knowing the other person fully understood.
Crave: My favorite song off of the album because of the vocals in it. You can hear the yearning and desperation for these moments that are fleeting in Williams’ voice. The second verse talks about how even though Williams went through difficult times and struggled with mental health, she still craves those moments, and craves the past and every single part of it.
Thick Skull: Williams revealed that “Thick Skull” was the first song written for the album. It expresses the anger felt insight having to deal with the same lessons again, being ruined over and over by people. Williams is now caught in all of her mistakes, possibly due to all of the introspection that the album has uncovered, and is now feeling the guilt. York’s talent is especially seen in this song with a beautiful guitar solo.
The sound of this album is different from the others that they have released, but that is what I like about it. Paramore has been making music for almost 20 years, and the new sound reflects the new world and new minds. A day before “The News” came out on December 8th, Hayley said in the Paramore Discord server “I know there will always be folks that don’t love it when we switch up the sound on them, but I try to believe that anyone who doesn’t get it now will find it when they’re meant to.”
This Is Why is the hard-hitting introspective album that is about how the band feels at this point in their life. It is amazing to me that Paramore has always taken these important matters and lyricism and combine them with beautiful instruments, in addition to Hayley’s incredible voice, to make these songs that really stand out. This album airs out all of the repressed thoughts and emotions plaguing Hayley Williams’ mind, relieving the built of pressure, marking an end of an era for Paramore and onto a new one.
This album is full of incredible songs that will continue to be a part of my listening rotation.
The only part of this album I didn’t like was when it was over after only 11 songs.
You can listen to “This Is Why” here:
