Happy birthday Pam! Thanks for picking this week's album! This is what Pammy gets instead of a sappy Instagram post.
Not too many other Sunday birthdays for RC members this year, as far as I know. If you do have a Sunday birthday, however, let me know. You can have top priority in album-picking that week. As long as you don't pick Ed Sheeran.
PAM'S COMMENTS: One of the best things about having a birthday on a Sunday is that I'm not going to make you give me a direct quote when you pick the album.
Not too many other Sunday birthdays for RC members this year, as far as I know. If you do have a Sunday birthday, however, let me know. You can have top priority in album-picking that week. As long as you don't pick Ed Sheeran.
Record Club:
WEEK 216 — March 19-25, 2023
This Is Why
by Paramore
LISTEN:
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PICKED BY PAM
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ALBUM DETAILS
GENRE: Wikipedia gives a whole host of genres, including: post-punk, dance-punk, pop-punk, art punk, alternative rock, and new wave
RELEASED: February 10, 2023
LENGTH: 36:12
TRACKLIST:
- This Is Why
- The News
- Running out of Time
- C'est Comme Ça
- Big Man, Little Dignity
- You First
- Figure 8
- Liar
- Crave
- Thick Skull
LYRICS: Genius.com
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ARTIST DETAILS
PRONOUNS: she/her/hers for Hayley Williams, he/him/his for Taylor York and Zac Farro
ABOUT: Paramore formed in 2004 in Franklin, TN. Frontwoman Hayley Williams and drummer Zac Farro are founding members and are still with the band (though Zac took a hiatus from 2011-17). Zac's brother Joe Farro dropped out in 2011. Touring member Taylor York joined the band full-time in 2009. (Williams and York are currently dating.) The band hit it big with their 2007 single "Misery Business," and they were nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys that year.
DISCOGRAPHY: Paramore has more or less been a part-time band since the late-'00s. This is their sixth LP, but their first one since 2017's After Laughter. Since 2007's breakout Riot!, there was only After Laughter, 2013's self-titled, and 2009's Brand New Eyes.
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ADDITIONAL INFO
READING SOME SHIT: NME has the in-depth feature with Paramore, published the same day the album dropped.
WATCHING SOME SHIT: Here is Paramore performing a This Is Why cut on Jimmy Kimmel's show a few weeks ago.
RECORD CLUB WHEN THIS ALBUM WAS RELEASED: We were listening to Sunny War's Anarchist Gospel, and I still hear songs from this album pretty much every time I turn on WXPN. We got reviews from Joe, Gary, Rachel, Sam, and Melissa.
RECORD CLUB WHEN THIS ALBUM WAS RELEASED: We were listening to Sunny War's Anarchist Gospel, and I still hear songs from this album pretty much every time I turn on WXPN. We got reviews from Joe, Gary, Rachel, Sam, and Melissa.
PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: I love how Chrome turns links that you've previously clicked on into a different color. Most of the time, when I'm prepping the "Previously On" section for this write-up, I'm just searching around Wikipedia for purple links.
This Is Why I know that the producer on this album, Carlos de la Garza, also produced Young Enough. The members' individual Wikipedia pages give the musicians' "personal inspirations," and I saw purple links when Taylor York's was Fleetwood Mac, Zac Farro's was Death Cab for Cutie, and Hayley Williams' was No Doubt.
Williams was also apparently called the "Great Orange Hope" by John Mayer at some point. Hmm. She was in Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" video too. And she was born in December 1988, just like Zoë Kravitz, who isn't an RC artist, per se, but has somehow made an appearance on multiple albums, despite not being a full-time recording artist.
Wikipedia quoted various reviews that compared the sound on this album to Foals and Alanis Morissette. The mixing engineer, Manny Marroquin, also mixed Heaux Tales (and has a name that sounds a lot like "Mannequin" Pussy).
That's a lot of purple links. But that's not enough for me today. Let's see if we can connect Paramore to every other artist that Pam has ever chosen for Record Club (besides Foals and No Doubt, which were already connected):
This Is Why I know that the producer on this album, Carlos de la Garza, also produced Young Enough. The members' individual Wikipedia pages give the musicians' "personal inspirations," and I saw purple links when Taylor York's was Fleetwood Mac, Zac Farro's was Death Cab for Cutie, and Hayley Williams' was No Doubt.
Williams was also apparently called the "Great Orange Hope" by John Mayer at some point. Hmm. She was in Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" video too. And she was born in December 1988, just like Zoë Kravitz, who isn't an RC artist, per se, but has somehow made an appearance on multiple albums, despite not being a full-time recording artist.
Wikipedia quoted various reviews that compared the sound on this album to Foals and Alanis Morissette. The mixing engineer, Manny Marroquin, also mixed Heaux Tales (and has a name that sounds a lot like "Mannequin" Pussy).
That's a lot of purple links. But that's not enough for me today. Let's see if we can connect Paramore to every other artist that Pam has ever chosen for Record Club (besides Foals and No Doubt, which were already connected):
- The Ally Coalition's 7th Annual Talent Show in December 2020 featured Maggie Rogers and Hayley Williams, as well as the Chicks, MUNA, and Tierra Whack.
- Gigwise's "25 Sexiest Women in Rock" list features Hayley Williams and Cat Power. This is probably a worthy discussion to have if it's done right, but I'm not sure Gigwise comes off as anything but creepy here (they do have the "25 Sexiest Men in Rock" too, to be fair).
- La Luz's Floating Features and Paramore's This Is Why both start with the title track.
- Mic Drop Music did an article in 2021 about classic songs covered by modern artists. Paramore and Lake Street Dive have a cover on there. So do Adele, Iron & Wine, John Mayer, Miley Cyrus, Of Monsters and Men, Post Malone, Sufjan Stevens, and Florence + the Machine, plus Grouplove covers Robyn, and the Smashing Pumpkins cover Fleetwood Mac.
- Rolling Stone's list of Best Pop Albums in 2017 features Paramore and Jens Lekman (surprisingly, I'd argue). Lizard Person Demi Lovato, Kelly Clarkson, Dua Lipa, Harry Styles, Sam Smith, and Taylor Swift are all on there as well.
- Paramore and Iron & Wine are on the Twilight soundtrack!
- Josh Ritter and Hayley Williams are both on the 2020 compilation Good Music to Avert the Collapse of American Democracy, as are Death Cab, Jamila Woods, Real Estate, and King Tuff.
- Marika Hackman... I have no idea. Maybe that the Paramore Supply Company sells hack saws?
- Hayley Williams features on the B.o.B song "Airplanes." T-Pain has a song called "Airplane." Only one of them is about Usher yelling at T-Pain because, according to Usher, T-Pain had ruined pop music with autotune.
- Paramore and Jim James' My Morning Jacket both have the same font size on this year's Bonnaroo poster. So does Vulfpeck and Tyler Childers. The Beths' font is slightly smaller.
- Hayley Williams interacted with Halsey on the world wide web!!!
- Robyn has been a judge on Drag Race, while contestant Symone had a "Paramore-inspired look."
- Similarity in song titles on RC albums: "Overtime" by U.S. Girls vs. "Running out of Time" by Paramore.
- Album of the Year has a running tally of the best-reviewed indie rock albums of the 2020s. This Is Why is at #7 as of this writing. Empty Country is at #16.
- Paper Mag has a 2020 interview with Hayley Williams in which she says that she "wanted to be Missy Elliott" when she was a kid.
- Jack Antonoff says that Hayley Williams (and Taylor Swift) gave him advice before he released Bleachers' first album, Strange Desire. That album was produced by Vince Clarke of Erasure.
- Cheekface? Apparently Williams has a scar on her cheek? Which is on her face?!
- This Is Why and Crazy Rhythms both have fake-sounding French song titles: "C'est Comme Ça" vs. "Fa Cé‐La."
- In a Pitchfork interview, Snail Mail says that one of her "faves" is Paramore.
- Paramore and the Tough Alliance both have songs with the word "Holiday" in them.
- Hayley Williams and Reba McEntire both publicly mourned Loretta Lynn (as did Jack White and Dolly Parton).
- Hayley Williams sounds like Tori Amos, according to some random fucking reddit person.
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Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
2 comments:
Hayley Williams and Tori Amos are both fiery redheads
^ hi it’s me. Not anonymous!
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