So this weekend I was practicing guitar and looking for some inspiration on which song I wanted to cover next. Ultimately I got into a YouTube loophole after starting to dig into Brendon Urie’s acoustic vocals, and came across this video. The video absolutely baffled me as  completely forgot about how stupid talented Hayley Williams is.

Paramore is a pop-punk American rock band formed out of Franklin, Tennessee. In 2002, Hayley Williams and her family moved from Mississippi to Tennessee where she met brothers Josh and Zac Farro. They started jamming together and to quote Hayley, “They were the first people I met who were as passionate about music as I was.” After a few years of jamming together and adding of the bass player Jeremy Davis, the band Paramore was officially formed in 2004. According to Williams, the name “Paramore” came from the maiden name of the mother of one of their first bass players. Once the group learned the meaning of the homophone “paramour” (“secret lover”), they decided to adopt the name, using the Paramore spelling (thanks Wikipedia).

Well the band went ahead and dropped their first album called All We Know is Falling and it was a good start, except the bass player left mid tour for personal reasons. The album was kinda a miss to be honest. It reached 30^th on the Heatseekers chart, but never really gained steam, so the band started working on their second album, without Davis in the band. Well….kinda. the band got into a huge argument and then reinstated him as bassist JUUUUST before album work started, needless to say he was lucky here. RIOT! Was Paramore’s next album, and the band absolutely EXPLODED.

RIOT! Was released in 2007 and topped the Billboard charts at number 20 features Paramore’s hit single Misery Business. The name Riot! had been chosen because it meant “a sudden outburst of uncontrolled emotion”, and it was a word that “summed it all up” As of 2012, the record has been certified as double-platinum. Hell yeah.

Well not all was daisies after RIOT!. The band completed their third album Brand New Eyes in 2009  and then in December of 2010, Josh and Zac left the band. They wrote an open letter and called Hayley out saying that the band was, “a manufactured product of a major-label.” They accused Hayley of being manipulated by management and treating everyone else as a side project. I often go so back and forth on this, because the band would be nothing without Williams sound, but the band hasn’t been the same since the Farro departure in my opinion.

What makes the band so special in my opinion is the mixing of their instruments. Paramore is known for their wall of sound which happens due to how insanely precise and pushing their bass is. The Farro were such an insane talent in the punk rock scene and it hurt paramour after the departure

Ignorance – Paramore: Ignorance was the first single released from Brand New Eyes, the last album produced with the Farros. Take a listen at how prevalent the moving bass line is and how well mixed the guitar track is on top of it. You are able to hear every note so clearly, and then Haleys INSANE piercing vocals on top of it. The song is a treat and I hope you enjoy.

We often talk about how I think Brendon Urie is the best male singer of our generation. Well, if were being realistic, Hayley may be my female choice. She’s such a treat to listen to.

-Jon