Paramore - Riot! (2007)

I should like Paramore more than I do. When I mention "my kinda music", this is actually what I'm talking about. I'm of course aware and enamoured with 'Misery Business', but that doesn't say much for my overall enjoyment of their work. On the other hand I don't quite remember trying to listen to their stuff. I might have come a little late to the party, since by the time I really started listening to music, they were arguably in a slump. By the time they released "After Laughter" in 2017 my attention had lapsed, and I had found other sources of music that were producing faster.

What musically draws me to the Emo/Punk genre is how easy it is to parse musically, and the lyrics. This album starts off pretty strong, now that I'm taking the effort to listen to it properly, with one of those typical Emo ballads not dissimilar in style to "Welcome to the Black Parade", fully complete with a Fallout Boy-esque too-long title that doesn't necessarily have much to do with the subject of the song. There's something really appealing to me about the audio mix that has heavily distorted guitars with noticeably clean drums and vocals, whereas I find most metal a little too busy and/or edgy after about the length of an album. I suspect, part of it is that I get to hear most parts of the composition at first glance, since similar qualities can put me off grunge on occasion. "That's What You Get", the second track on this album showcases this nicely, as I can always pick up the baseline nicely against the guitar and the somewhat convoluted lyrics, while rhythmically some non-trivial things happen. It doesn't make this song catchy exactly, as are arguably many of the tracks on this album, but still very tidy and structurally engaging.

The instrumentation on the other hand doesn't strike me as very notable, nor do the actual instrumental parts when picked against the whole. There are few solo lines that I can't place roughly on the fretboard, which as a novice guitarist, probably either indicates over-confidence on my part, or actual melodic simplicity, where I'd rather have some more harmonics going on. I can't quite comment on the drum parts which feel the most elaborate on a technical level, as I'm not a drummer, though in my experience with drummers, their beats can get pretty complicated pretty quickly. The vocals are very solid all around, which in this genre isn't too unusual. I think Paramore comes with a vocal quality that is perhaps a little prettier than MCR, Fallout Boy, or other of their contemporaries, which is a strength in itself. It allows them to more naturally insert balladic phrases into songs (e.g. track 6: "Let The Flames Begin"), and the singer can comfortably carry a song, if they need to. Such would be the case for "When it Rains", which sees very simple instrumental parts and structure supporting the vocals for themselves.

"Misery Business" is of course the break-out track of this album, and also the one that made me check the band out in the first place. It's very solidly a staple of young emo-punks of the 2000s, and I think it holds up pretty well to this day, through this juvenile, non-yet adult enough to feel empathy quality that a lot of the music in this genre approaches the subject matter of romantic rivalry with. It's here that the fact that the drum parts really hold most of the album together might become the most apparent, as it provides all the spice this song needs to have sustained itself for as long as it did. It's also got the strongest hookline of the entire album in my opinion, perhaps only rivalled by crushcrushcrush, though I don't feel like it's particularly strong competition. I'll circle back to this later though. Having listened to the rest of the album, I think Paramore must have known they had gold with this track, as it doesn't feature the slightly odd harmonic phrasings that they use in most of the other tracks. Many of their melodies take slightly strange turns that make them difficult to remember at first glance, but at least keep things interesting. It's not a Paramore-exclusive quirk, and perhaps more of a staple of the genre, as I've noticed it in other artists' lesser-known songs as well, but I found it particular noticeable here, perhaps because of the way I'm looking at the project as opposed of the unsorted listening experience I've had so far for the rest of the other artists I've noticed that with. This quality is also the reason why I feel the first track on this album is a strong

"crushcrushcrush" may have a weaker hookline, but it feels more in-tune with the rest of the album. It's instrumentation is more similar, and there's more of an interplay between different musical segments that can suddenly drop the tension for a few bars and break back out in a flash. This song has several interesting hooks, each weaker than the one that "Misery Business" has, but arguably more interesting to listen to, for either their complexity, or the unusual style for the genre. One hook is barely more than a rhythmic whisper, but it's perhaps the most memorable one, and not only because it lends the song its name.

"Fences" is a little odd in the context of the rest of the album, in the same way that "House of Wolves" feels a little out of place in the Black Parade album, for almost the exact same reason. The underlying beat of this song has a swing feel, as in the slightly aggressive swing-dance style of the classic jazz era. Perhaps there's some musical quality that comes with this compositional decision, but this alone seems to drive the rest of this song's individual style that contrasts against the more modern pop sensibilities of other tracks here. Because the guitar grunge drops out periodically from the instrumentation, the drums blend more with the bass, which adds to this swing-punk mix that I've found since "House of Wolves" worked far better than it has any right to.

"Born For This" is a decently strong closer, though perhaps a formulaic choice and composition, considering its placement. It's still got one of the stronger hooks which I feel is a good thing, and sometimes one is in the mood for a song with a stadium feel. Beyond that though, there's little to say here, which is why I seem to have mentally sorted it with the Bonus Track "Pressure". This might have been the guitarist's baby. It's melodically very simple, and the structure is very standard. What makes me appreciate the track though is the guitar lines that run the chorus and verses and for once steal the show away almost entirely from the vocals.

There's actually a lot to like for people with my tastes in this album, though I suspect those are more noticeable when heard in the context of the album. Interestingly though, the thematic connection between the disparate parts are about as loose as they were for "Past Lives", comprised of the classic emo-song topics, such as heartbreak and being overwhelmed by not being a child anymore. This makes it almost a necessity that I check out their other albums, not just out of purely intellectual curiosity, but because I suspect I might find songs I'd love there I otherwise would have overlooked.