Paramore

Forming as a fresh-faced gang of teenagers in Franklin, Tennessee in 2004, relentless gigging saw the schoolmates steadily rise from playing scruffy back-room bars to headlining arena tours. Led by red-headed ball of energy Hayley Williams, their debut album All We Know Is Falling Down (2005) helped win support slots with Simple Plan and a place on the 2006 Warped Tour. As venue sizes increased and festival slots became more prestigious, their second album Riot! released in 2007 built on the head-thrashing emo anthems that had become a staple of their live shows. Naturally accessible to the mainstream, the use of "Decode" on the soundtrack to the hit vampire movie Twilight brought them wider exposure, paving the way for third album Brand New Eyes to storm to Number 1 in 2009 in the UK Albums Chart. A performance on MTV Unplugged in 2009 showed Williams' lung-busting vocal range in full force, as the band explored the more heartfelt, austere side of their character. Williams announced in 2016 that Paramore were working on their fifth album. Despite Zac Farro's earlier departure, he returned to the studio to record the drums for the album but maintained that his role in the band was limited to studio work and that he would not be re-joining the band on tour. The first single off the album, "Hard Times," was released in 2017 followed by "Told You So" and the album After Laughter, a rhythm-heavy collection of songs that melded the saccharine pop-punk melodies of their earlier work with a healthy dose of new wave and synth-pop. Despite not as commercially successful as its predecessor, After Laughter garnered critical acclaim and was certified gold in both the US and the UK. The band would go on hiatus in the following years, only to return in September 2022 with the single "This Is Why," the title track of their sixth studio album. Released in 2023, This Is Why found the band resorting back to a more guitar-oriented sound and debuted atop the charts in the UK, Scotland, and Australia.

Please enable Javascript to view this page competely.