“Paramore. Are you serious? You like Paramore? What are you, some top 40 loving middle school girl?”
2 or 3 months ago, this could have well been my reaction to someone telling me that they are a Paramore fan. I pride myself in the music I listen to, and feel like I have a generally wide range of musical influence. But within the over arching “Rock” genre, I like quite a bit. I find myself listening to hardcore screaming metal and soft melodic Sufjan Stevens in the same day. Now, know this: almost none of the music I listen to is played on the radio.
But the thing is, Paramore IS played on the radio. My own opinion is that it takes no talent to be top 40 and that anyone with the Mac I am typing on now and a pretty face can be popular. But finally, a band that is MASSIVELY popular is actually good. Hayley Williams is an incredible singer (and is only a teenager) and the rest of the band are no scrubs. Jeremy Davis is a great bass player, and has some really cool bass lines (check out Fences, that is one pretty sweet bass line). Drummer Zac Farro does a great job too, changing up things on most every song and not really running any one beat into the ground (like some popular drummers tend to do). His brother Josh plays lead guitar and is no slouch. Sure they use power chords and distortion like most popular bands, but at least they are varied and there are a few licks in each song.
But the main reason Paramore is so good is Hayley Williams. She has to be one of the best girl rock singers I have had the pleasure to listen to in the band. Without her, Paramore would essentially be Fall Out Boy, putting the same crap out there over and over again with different names (that try to be funny). Williams has a sick range and pulls every single song out of the ordinary dump of popular music. Like I wrote in my post about how catchy Misery Business was, she could make grown men want to belt out her (surprisingly well written) lyrics. Plus, I will always applaud a Christian band for finding their way into the secular world.
If you are like me, popular music is something you laugh about and make fun of. Don’t let your hate of it make you miss out on a great band. Some may say now, “Well, if you found a good band in Paramore, how do you know others aren’t great?” Well for the most part (this is coming from seeing top 40 radio decline over the last few years), my stereotypes are generally true. Paramore is one of the few exceptions. They actually have a lot of talent (or at least Hayley Williams does).
Check out Misery Business in my Top 5 Catchiest Songs Post and also check out their other hit (which found it’s way on to my favorite music game, Rock Band) Crushcrushcrush that is posted below.
Cory, Le Blog
2 comments:
Cool band, I've never heard of them before. I bought Riot! on iTunes.
You are awesome, I totally agree with everything you said, I could have never written it as well as you did though. Well done, sir.
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