{"id":559418,"date":"2026-07-25T20:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T20:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/559418\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T20:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T20:53:13","slug":"how-paramore-blazed-a-unique-trail-in-the-world-of-2000s-emo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/559418\/","title":{"rendered":"How Paramore blazed a unique trail in the world of 2000s emo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Staring at a printout of the day\u2019s schedule, Paramore<\/a> vocalist Hayley Williams<\/a> lets out a scream that\u2019s equal parts excitement and terror. Warped Tour, the travelling US summer festival where set times are revealed the morning of the show, has pulled into the band\u2019s hometown of Nashville and in a few hours, Paramore will be playing a primetime slot on the main stage. It\u2019s been less than a year since the band put out their 2005 debut album, All We Know Is Falling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty nervous now. I\u2019m scared the stage will be this big and the crowd will be this big,\u201d Williams says, while motioning wildly with her arms. \u201cHow did we do this? How did we get this?!\u201d<\/p>\n

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So fearful that no-one would come to watch them play, she and her bandmates chalked up pavements around the Starwood Amphitheatre, advertising their band name and set time in huge font. They needn\u2019t have worried \u2013 Paramore pulled one of the largest crowds of the day. Williams, dressed in a purple dress, her orange hair a halo of flame, thrashed her way through the set of exuberant pop punk, while a sea of people bellowed back every word.<\/p>\n

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The noughties emo explosion was already in full swing by the time Paramore joined the party. They released All We Know Is Falling in a vintage year for the scene \u2013 alongside Fall Out Boy\u2019s From Under The Cork Tree, Commit This To Memory by Motion City Soundtrack, Almost Here by The Academy Is\u2026, and Panic! At The Disco\u2019s debut, A Fever You Can\u2019t Sweat Out \u2013 putting them firmly in the \u2018one to watch\u2019 bracket.<\/p>\n

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\"Paramore\n<\/p>\n

Paramore in 2006 (Image credit: Aaron Rapoport\/Corbis via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The band had formed when a 15-year old Williams moved home and subsequently met guitarist Josh Farro and his brother, drummer Zac Farro, at school in Franklin, Tennessee. Joined by bassist Jeremy Davis, together the group created jubilant pop punk that was fizzy as sherbet and had Christian undertones, set apart by Williams\u2019 powerful vocal and her magnetic stage presence.<\/p>\n

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From the very beginning, they had shown a precociousness and confidence well beyond their years. One of their earliest on-camera interviews took place during Warped Tour 2005 where, sprawled on the grass at Orlando\u2019s Tinker Field, a 16-year-old Hayley and 15-year old then-guitarist Jason Bynum, were asked if it was intimidating being on a lineup, which included established bands, Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo it\u2019s not,\u201d shrugged a remarkably calm Williams. \u201cWe\u2019re having fun and all the bands have been super nice to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest news, features and interviews direct to your inbox, from the global home of alternative music.<\/p>\n

Paramore: Pressure [OFFICIAL VIDEO] – YouTube
\n\"Paramore:<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

It was Paramore\u2019s second album, 2007\u2019s Riot!, that turned them into superstars. As they headed into the studio to begin recording, the band were unaware of the steep upward trajectory their lives were about to take. \u201cWe were just kids before Riot! came out,\u201d Williams recalled to Track Seven in 2017. \u201cIn fact, we were kids for a long time after that! I have a distinct memory \u2013 in fact, somewhere there\u2019s a video \u2013 of all of us\u2026 hanging out at the park. It was springtime, 2007, and we were literally playing in a field together. How much more innocent can you get? In many ways, it was the last uncomplicated season for us as friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few months later, the impact of the record became clear. \u201cWe were headed to a play a show at The Underworld in Camden and we were all looking out the window of the car we were in, and I saw the word \u201cRIOT!\u201d spray painted on the side of one of buildings, ways away from the venue,\u201d Williams continued. She called Riot! \u201ca lightning in a bottle sort of moment in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it was for us because it was done in the same sort of scribble, almost exactly like what was on the album cover. That moment, I said out loud, \u2018People get it! This is the best sign we could ever have\u2026 that other people are making it their own.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Paramore&rsquo;s\n<\/p>\n

Paramore\u2019s Hayley Williams in 2008 (Image credit: Gary Miller\/FilmMagic)<\/p>\n

An electric shock of towering guitars and sugar rush payoffs, Riot! still stands up today as one of the era\u2019s best records.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were underdogs because she was a girl, and at the time it was Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco and all these boybands that were rock,\u201d David Bendeth, who produced Riot! as well as co-writing some of the tracks, told Billboard. \u201cShe was like, \u2018I hope we cut through with this record,\u2019 and I said, \u2018Don\u2019t worry. We\u2019re going to beef it up. We\u2019re going to put bigger guitars on here.\u2019 And she said, \u2018I like it. I want it to rock.\u2019 I felt like when I finishes the record and we listened back, that we had created this monster that was built like a British tank. It was solid. You could listen to it all the way through.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s lead track, Misery Business,a huge, elastic sing-along about a romantic rival, allegedly about Hayley\u2019s real-life relationship at the time with guitarist Josh Farro, gave the band their first bona fide anthem. The song has since been reappraised by both fans and the band themselves due to lyrics they now consider to be misogynistic: \u2018Once a whore, you\u2019re nothing more\u2026 There\u2019s a million other girls who do it just like you \/ Looking as innocent as possible to get to who \/ They want and what they want, it\u2019s easy if you do it right \/ But I refuse, I refuse I refuse.\u2019<\/p>\n

Paramore: Misery Business [OFFICIAL VIDEO] – YouTube
\n\"Paramore:<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

In 2018, Hayley made a statement, putting her own unconscious bias under the microscope: \u201cI\u2019ll say this: Misery Business is not a set of lyrics that I relate to as a 26-year old woman. I haven\u2019t related to it in a very long time. Those words were written when I was 17 \u2026 admittedly from a very narrow-minded perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until recently, the band removed the song from their live sets. It is worth noting that Panic! At The Disco\u2019s breakthrough track, I Write Sins Not Tragedies, which includes the line: \u2018What a shame, the poor groom\u2019s bride is a whore\u2019 has never suffered the same level of scrutiny as that Misery Business has.<\/p>\n

The album sold 42,000 copies in the US in its first week. By a year later, it had sold 700,000 copies and earned the band their first Grammy nomination, for Best New Artist (they lost out to Amy Winehouse). That year, the band made their first UK live appearance at the Give It A Name festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were so many firsts for us with Riot,\u201d Hayley recalled to Time. \u201cIt was stressful and hectic and exciting all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Paramore\n<\/p>\n

Paramore in 2010 (Image credit: Nigel Crane\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s success introduced Paramore to an audience of millions, and cemented Hayley as a trailblazer in a scene that was inherently misogynistic by design.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope no young female experiences the shit that I experienced,\u201d Hayley told the NME in 2023. \u201cWhen we were teenagers, the way forward was to be tough all the time. Our entire scene was contributing to shitty treatment of women and anything that wasn\u2019t masculine. We were out on Warped Tour, this little Fueled by Ramen band acting like a hardcore band on stage. It was like if I didn\u2019t spit further, I felt like someone was going to throw me out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of emo\u2019s most soaring anthems touched on broken hearts, bitter breakups and unrequited romance. As a result, the scene\u2019s sizeable female fandom found themselves screaming along to lyrics by male bands, from Fall Out Boy, to The Used and Taking Back Sunday, that painted women as the villain. The press too, gave Hayley a rough ride. In 2005, Kerrang! came under fire from the band for publishing an interview with the band that marked Hayley out as dictatorial and shallow. In a scathing LiveJournal entry, the band clapped back. \u201cSorry if it offends anyone at Kerrang!, but I don\u2019t think there was one bit of truth in that article.\u201d<\/p>\n

In stark contrast, the buoyant second track of Riot!, That\u2019s What You Get, opens with the lyric: \u2018No sir \/ Well I don\u2019t wanna be the blame, not anymore \/ It\u2019s your turn \/ So take a seat, we\u2019re settling the final score.\u2019 Suddenly female emo fans had a figurehead, their own age, one who could hold herself amid a sea of men, who they could relate to. As Refinery29 writer, Alexandra Koster, wrote in her 2023 essay, Why Paramore Is More Relevant Than Ever, \u201cAs girls, we finally started feeling seen. We finally felt like we belonged in the moshpit. We felt like we were listening to music that was made for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the release of their third album, 2009\u2019s Brand New Eyes, Paramore had taken emo\u2019s relationship with the mainstream to new heights – their single Decode appeared on the Twilight soundtrack, while the track The Only Exception had featured in Glee. Yet, relationships had started to fracture within the band. Williams had been signed to Atlantic Records aged 14, but never had much interest in being a solo artist. Instead, after forming Paramore, she had fought the label to sign them as a band.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a heated conversation with a team of people [at Atlantic] in which I said I would be just as happy to play these songs in Taylor\u2019s basement for the rest of my life,\u201d she recalled to Vulture in 2020. \u201cIt was a very empowered moment. My voice was shaking. I was crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band were eventually signed by Fall Out Boy\u2019s label, Fueled By Ramen. Yet, despite efforts from Hayley to share the spotlight with her bandmates in interviews, even wearing a T-shirt onstage with the slogan \u2018PARAMORE IS A BAND\u2019, the inference that Paramore was merely a Hayley solo project was something they struggled to shake off, and came to a head in the years to follow.<\/p>\n

In 2010, to the shock of their remaining bandmates, the Farro brothers quit the band, claiming to be \u201chired guns\u201d and calling Paramore a \u201cmanufactured product of a major label, riding on the coattails of \u2018Hayley\u2019s dream.\u2019\u201d Since then, Paramore has been a messy revolving door of members \u2013 each of their first three albums was created by a different lineup, a trend that would continue until 2017\u2019s After Laughter.<\/p>\n

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\"Paramore\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Taylor Hill\/Getty Images for Boston Calling)<\/p>\n

Much like their peers, by the late noughties, Paramore had started shifting away from emo. Their 2013 eponymous album replaced fiery pop for slick pop rock, taking their career to new heights. But they remain one of the most important bands of the noughties emo boom, offering fans a uniquely different perspective on feminine angst at a time when being a woman in alternative scenes was both difficult and complex. Today, they\u2019re more relevant than ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo grow up in this scene was not a simple thing,\u201d Williams wrote in an open letter, published in 2022 ahead of Paramore\u2019s headline performance at to emo revival festival When We Were Young. \u201cTo be celebrating it (and to be celebrated by it) is not a simple thing. Nothing about this life \u2013 for you, me, or anyone \u2013 is simple\u2026 What I did know was that for every \u2018Take off your top!\u2019 or snarky punkzine review\u2026 For every dramatic headline pinned on my name, or any season of self-doubt\u2026 No one was going to define Paramore but Paramore\u201d.<\/p>\n

Originally published in The Story Of Emo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Staring at a printout of the day\u2019s schedule, Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams lets out a scream that\u2019s equal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-559418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}