Hayley Williams is a force.
I have only one, the latest, album
by Paramore, and if this one record
is any indicator, these cats form a
incredibly talented and versatile band,
but Hayley’s vocal performances are
unhinged and over the top in the most
wonderful way, bursting with energy,
as wild and as spunky as anything
Debbie Harry ever did, and far more
skilled. Paramore makes a bombastic
kind of pop music, often times heavy
enough to head bang to, with a fair amount
of synth. There’s also a few sensitive things
here that demonstrate an impressive range.
Dense arrangements, deftly performed.
This drummer, guitar player and
bass player might be out shadowed by
Williams’ presence, but they are clearly
crack musicians who provide the ideal
backdrop for this singer, and the credits
attribute the writing to the band as a
whole, which makes me think there are no
expendable guys in this band. I liked this
album, This Is Why, so much, I am surprised
I did not go out and immediately look for
more of their records. I did, though, pick
up a couple of solo records by Hayley
Williams, which, sadly, I won’t be able to
write about until I get to the W’s.
Suffice it to say right now that these
are also exceptional records.
Notes on the vinyl edition: This Is Why, Atlantic Records, 2025, black vinyl. Here’s a new twist: my brand new turntable refused to play this record. Even the lead-in skipped, so I could put this album on and music would never play because the stylus was stuck in that lead-in groove. If I moved the needle ahead a few seconds into the first song, lots of skipping. I thought, you know, after having my brand new turntable now for a few months without any issue, that there must be something wrong with this record–even though it played on my previous turntable just fine. What I do remember, though, about playing it on the older table was that it was a noisy record. Lots of icky artifacts, but no skipping. Okay, before I took the record in for a deep clean, I decided to try it out on the turntable in our ADU. What do you know? No skips. Those artifacts were back, though, but no skips. If purchased separately, the stylus on my new turntable would cost three times the amount of the one in the ADU. So it must just be super sensitive to a shitty pressing. I conclude that my copy of this album is a shitty pressing, so shitty, that I have to play it on a turntable that is not nearly as good simply to listen to the thing from start to finish. So tonight I’m out here in the ADU, playing this Paramore album on a cheaper U-turn table with a more affordable stylus and listening through the Andover Audio Spinbase and Sub. I could do worse. I’m glad the ADU was tenantless. Otherwise, I would have had to stream this record in order to write about it! I hope this isn’t a regular occurrence. I’ve listened to a bunch of records on the new table. This is the first time, maybe the last time, I’ve had trouble.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 