Sarah Knows Nothing About Music- After Laughter, Paramore

It’s music time again, baby. It’s been a hot minute since I tried delving into anyone’s music recommendations. I would say this is because I’ve been exploring edgy and interesting new avenues of music independently, but no, it’s mostly because of my aforementioned Buffy The Vampire Slayer rewatch. I’ve committed to listening to an episode-by-episode analysis podcast as well (Buffering the Vampire Slayer, it’s good, check it out if that’s ya thang) so really, my life has just been too vampire-centric lately. But good lord girl your whole life can’t be stakes and demons! Branch out! Literally the point of this blog! So this Saturday afternoon (well, it’s early evening but given my body clock it doesn’t feel like it) I picked out the second on the list of 8325 albums that my friend recommended to me (the same babe who showed me Dream Wife so hopes are high), and gave it a listen. The album- After Laughter, by Paramore. Let’s get it:

Before the album:

I have actually heard of Paramore! Yay I know something! I know they are in the higher echelons of noughties pop punk royalty, with a famous leader singer who is- shudder- a woman. What a time to be alive. I even know her name: she’s Hayley Williams! She is small and was famous for having red hair! God I am so knowledgeable. After that I struggle a bit. I guessed (correctly as it turns out) that they are American, and I know that either they or just Williams did a song called Airplanes with B.o.B. They are definitely one of the bands I would have pretended to know about when I was a young teenager, whilst actually just listening to Queen on hard rotation. God I was cool.

Very first thoughts

OK, very first reaction is faint surprise. As said above, I strongly associate Paramore with pop punk, very much the Panic! At The Disco/Avril Lavigne/Fall Out Boy school of music. But the first song on this album, Hard Times, is a little slice of 80s power pop. It even has synths towards the end! As the second and third songs roll around, this vibe does not die down at all. I am not listening to pop punk at all here. The guitars are less heavy, the tempo is a little calmer, and the melodies feel a lot lighter in tone. This is not what I was expecting, but it’s not bad at all.

As the album goes on

I was not wrong. Though there are moments in this album that do feel a little more hair-dye-heavy-black-eyeliner-and-band-t-shirts ready (mainly on Fake Happy, which to be fair has about as pop-punky a title as possible), the word I would use to summarise most of the songs here is ‘jangly’. The first three songs, Hard Times, Rose-Colored Boy and Told You So almost feel like they were written for a teen movie set in the 80s. The next track, Forgiveness, develops from the style of the previous songs slightly, and sounds to me like a Paul Simon song sung by Christine and the Queens. I see this as a good thing, don’t worry: this song feels the most well-constructed to me, and is probably my favourite on the whole album. Fake Happy and 26 slow the pace down a little bit, though it picks up pretty quickly for the most of the album’s second half. The songs never stop feeling spangly and light for the most part, and the ferocity I imagine I would get from Hayley Williams is mostly reined in- I feel the most energy from her voice in Idle Worship.

When the album finishes

This album is somehow slower but more upbeat than I was expecting. Given that this album is from 2017, and I am imagining the band as they were in the mid noughties when they started, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. They’re not making a pure pop punk album 13 years after debuting?? Shocking! Though I will say, as much as the melodies and instrumentation are very different from that genre, I won’t say the same for the lyrics. From Rose-Colored Boy’s “Just let me cry a little bit longer/I ain’t gon smile if I don’t wanna” to Caught in the Middle’s “I don’t need no help/I can sabotage me by myself”, the words definitely speak to a melancholic sense of self-loathing/depression that I associate more with the ‘Emo’ generation Paramore speak to. There is definitely a narrative of communicating with a former lover here, with many of the songs directly addressing a ‘you’ who seems to have caused a lot of pain, with a lot of simultaneous self-examination of the singer’s own struggles with sadness and expression of emotions. Song titles like Hard Times, Told You So, Caught in the Middle, Grudges and the final Tell Me How make this pretty clear. The upbeat tone of the music in the majority of the album provides a playful contrast to these lyrics, though sometimes I’m not sure if I understood why. But hell, it was mostly pretty fun.

Where would you hear this album?

As mentioned before, so much of this feels very teenaged, and thus I can see it on the soundtrack to a movie set in the 80s or 90s where a school kid or young student gets themselves decked out in a very expressive outfit in a room plastered with music posters and bright colours. Or if you’re talking about the first 4/5 songs, you would hear this in an alternate reality where Christine and the Queens and Paul Simon are in a band together.

Would it go on a playlist?

I’m definitely putting the more strongly 80s leaning songs on a ‘dancing round the room to express myself and pretend I’m a teenager’ list yes. And pretending I have big poofy permed hair whilst dancing to them.

D’ya like it?

It hasn’t blown my mind but yes this is a fun slice of easy pop/guitar music. It does make me want to delve deeper into Paramore’s earlier work to see if I can find anything a bit fiercer. And an album that makes you want to hear more from the band is always a successful one I think. Good job Hayley and pals.