Paramore

Paramore Paramore is an American rock band from Franklin. Paramore formed in 2004 when Hayley Williams (lead vocalist) met brothers Josh Farro and Zac Farro. Hayley was off performing with a band called The Factory’, this is how she met soon to be bassist of Paramore Jeremy Davis. Meanwhile Josh and Zac would practise at the weekends. They were very apprehensive about a girl being part of the band, however Hayley started off writing for them and they were all very good friends, so they gave it a shot.So the band was then made up of Hayley Williams (lead vocalist), Josh Farro (lead guitar/backing vocals), Zac Farro (drums), Jeremy Davis (bass guitar) during 2014. Until the newest member soon joined, this being Hayley's neighbor Jason Bynum (rhythm guitarist)

However on the 18th of December Hayley, Jeremy and Taylor released a message on Paramore.net explaining that Josh and Zac were leaving Paramore. This was to change the whole dynamics of Paramore as they decided to still keep the band going but as a three now.

The band name ‘Paramore’ came from the maiden name of one of

their former bassists mother. Once the group researched the

meaning of ‘Paramour’ they

decided to change it slightly to

‘Paramore’ and it stuck.

Albums

1. All We Know 2. Pressure3. Emergency4. Brighter5. Here We Go Again6. Never Let This Go7. Whoa8. Conspiracy9. Franklin10. My Heart

1. For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic

2. That’s What You Get

3. Hallelujah 4. Misery Business5. When It Rains 6. Let the Flames

Begin 7. Miracle 8. Crushcrushcrush9. We Are Broken10. Fences 11. Born for This

1. Careful 2. Ignorance 3. Playing God4. Brick by

Boring Brick5. Turn It Off6. The Only

Exception7. Feeling Sorry8. Looking Up9. Where the

Lines Overlap 10. Misguided

Ghosts11. All I Wanted

1. Renegade2. Hello Cold World3. Mourning

1. Fast in My Car 2. Now 3. Grow Up4. Daydreaming5. Interlude: Moving On6. Ain’t it Fun7. Part II8. Last Hope9. Still Into You10. Anklebiters11. Interlude: Holiday12. Proof13. Hate to See Your Heart Break14. (One of Those) Crazy Girls 15. Interlude: I’m Not Angry

Anymore16. Be Alone 17. Future

This was Paramore’s first album called ‘All we know is falling’. The album is very simple, set in the woods, which has a link between on of the songs that featured in the movie ‘Twilight’ that drastically set off their careers. The movie twilight often has major scenes that are set in the woods as vampires they would often go their to hunt and in the film there are a number of romantic scenes. The noticeable change I have picked up on from looking at the album covers, is the way that the name band name ‘Paramore’ stands out in comparison to the second album, Riot.

The second album ‘Riot’ has a completely contrasting cover, from the colour choices to fact there aren’t any pictures. This shows to me they are finding their own identity. They also make the band name less noticeable on the front cover, it blends in considerably and unless you’re looking for it, I highly doubt you would even notice it was there.

Brand New Eyes cover shows that Paramore have chosen their brand ‘font’. As it is the same as the very first albums font. This shows a link throughout the albums, even though they are evolving as they get more known as a group. The buttery with detached wings links to the song ‘Brick By Boring Brick’, in which Hayley sings ‘She's ripping wings off of butterflies’. This shows that even though the album covers are all very different and their isn't always a clear link between them, every cover connotes to one of the songs within the album.

Monster Monster was released in June 2011, it was the first song to not feature Zac and Josh Farro. It was also the second single on the Transformers: Dark of The Moon Album.

Some Paramore fans believe that this music video is the most meaningful out of all the videos they have created as a bad. Monster is the first song they released since Josh and Zac left, therefore it symbolises them as a group and how they’ve had to work through this hard time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoTEnaAI9Fo

The opening scene is of the band all in water with their faces showing. There is a significant link between the lyrics and the water. ‘You were my conscience so solid now you’re like water and we started drowning, not like we’d sink any further’. So showing the band in water may have a link between how they lost some members and how she felt they were a solid group and Hayley relied on them. However since the breakup they started sinking, and they are stuck there, not able to move or ‘sink any further’. The use of this dark mysterious water makes the audience believe maybe the water is the monster, as it is dark and gloomy, pulling the band members down?

Moreover the captivating side shot shows each members reflection in the dark water. the lyrics ‘we started drowning’, plays on the mind of the audience as it looks almost as if that is the view underneath the water and they truly are drowning.

As I have already mentioned, there are a lot of ideas that the video for Monsters is base on Paramore’s breakup situation. I have based my analysis of the music video on this idea, as it has the most connection to the video. The mid shot of the group in the water displays that the group have their eyes closed, this could mean that since the breakup they can’t communicate as well as before? Or maybe even reenact the time they spent apart from one another when they first broke up. However the fact they are all laying close together shows they are still close and are ready to rebuild themselves as a group.

The line ‘Now that you’re gone, the world is ours’ is being sung passionately by the band in the hospital. There are often close ups of each members face to show give the audience a clear picture of the passion and anger in their faces. Maybe this line is about the members that left, ‘the world is ours’ they now feel that they are stronger without them and can take on the world with their new found strength and music career.

This makes me believe that the abandoned hospital is a place in which the band where to have healed. The band are seen once in white outfits all together in one room and then seen running through the hospital trying to escape.

When Paramore are dressed in white they are singing and it seems they are trying to wake up the other members and make them take on their demons. I made this connection between them being different characters as every time a member in white hits the wall of them enclosed room explosions set off. This is to wakes up and puts obstacles in the way of the characters in the alternate universe. This is use of pyrotechnics makes an amazing effect and looks extremely realistic. It also displays allows the audience to feels sympathy and worried for the characters lives.

Brick By Boring Brick

Brick By Boring Brick was released on the 23rd of November 2009 and co-directed by Meiert Avis and Chris LeDoux, members of New Found Glory and U2. The song was their second single from the album ‘Brand New Eyes’. It gained publicity from featuring in one of The Vampire Diaries episodes a popular teen programme. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A63VwWz1ij0

This girl has created a fantasy world for herself to escape the real one that she is living in

This line is from the narrator to the girl, they are trying to explain that life is all about how you look at it. If you look at life optimistically, it won’t be so bad.

She doesn’t know what to believe anymore and consequently is destroying innocence.

When you dream, don't get too carried away as you still have to deal with the consequences of the real world in the end.

This means that the girl should bury her fantasies, because they're hurting her more than helping her and she is losing touch of what is real and what isn’t

The girl left her imaginary world for a boy and ended up getting hurt because she was used to everything going her way, like in her fairytale world. This is a key line within the song, it shows

that if you live your in reality it will be boring yet boring. Whereas living in a fairytale world will be unstable and hurt you.

Here there is a debate of what is real, it seems like the singer is voicing her opinion of what is real also. Then not sure of what is the real definition of what is real, she decides to define what is ‘true’

At the beginning of the music video for Brick By Boring Brick the camera pans and zooms into his establishing shot. You can clearly tell the place isn’t real due to the filter on the whole place, which is kept throughout the video. This effect gives the idea that the place isn’t real and has a really fantasy edge to it. The colours running throughout are mostly orange hues, representing warmth and autumn. You can also tell the place is very isolated and there are a lot of fields in which you can go and investigate. Automatically you can link the lyrics to the visuals. There is a sense o fairytale and adventure, lacking reality. Hayley Williams the lead singer of the band is featured in the music video, as she does in most of the bands music videos. However she is dressed differently and has different coloured hair, contrasting greatly with her usual trademark orange hair. She has been made to look like ‘Alice’ from Alice in Wonderland, which I find extremely interesting. This character is known for her iconic adventurous side and lack of belief in the real world. Nevertheless she is not the main character within the video, she seems to be acting as the narrator. Almost acting as if she is Alice talking about past experiences, warning the little girl about loosing herself within a reality world as it can be dangerous.

The interesting fantasy effect is upheld with the filter wherever the little go wonders off to. She is wearing wings, which is also very striking as this isn’t realistic as humans do not have butterfly wings. Linking with the line ‘she’s ripping wings off of butterflies’. The use of over sized mushrooms shows the vast difference in size of the little girl and the big world around her, maybe she is out of depth?

The idea of size and scale is also portrayed during a low angle shot looking up at the castle. This scary shot shows how small she is inside and out and foreshadows the bad things that she isn’t prepared for, within the castle.

Once the girl then enters the castle she is met by the scary fictional characters shown above. These characters are accompanied by the lyrics ‘If it’s not real, you can’t hold it in your hand, you can’t feel it with your heat and I won’t believe it. But if it’s true, you can see it with your eyes, oh even in the dark and that’s where I want to be, yeah’. I feel this means she is finally realising that the world she is in isn’t real and it’s all psychological. Due to this realisation everything is going wrong and her demons are catching up with her and have stepped into her fantasy world. After her two worlds merging into

one, the girl realises that it’s time to go back to reality. She rips off her wings and tries to run away, however the earth is trying to pull her down and not let her escape. I feel that this reflects the debate going on in her minds, she is tied between doing what’s right and returning to reality and staying in her fantasy world in which she prefers.

The last shot is that of the little girl falling into the hole in the floor and Hayley Williams throwing her teddy in after her, then walking off. This showing that she has ‘buried the castle’, her fantasy world and return back to reality.

That’s What You Get

That’s What You Get was released on the 24th March 2008, on the 12th December it was certified Gold in the US selling over 500,000 copies. The video was directed by Marcos Siega and shot in Nashville, Tennessee on March the 2nd and 3rd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kz6hNDlEEg

Lyrics Analysis

The lyrics to this song have very clear meanings, however is very different to the typical love songs that were released around the same time. The song is about staying with someone that doesn’t care as much about you, as you them. Hayley sings ‘All the possibilities, well I was wrong’, she is explaining how the girl has feelings for a guy, however he clearly doesn’t reciprocate them. The song is also about the pain that comes with a relationship/ the pain of knowing your relationship isn’t what it should be. It explains that you need to let go and move on, however at the same time the relationship still brings the girl in the video false hope that something will change.

The lyrics ‘That’s what you get when you let your heart win’ explain that as much as she wants to let him go because she knows he doesn’t like her and is talking to other girls, she cannot because she let her heart win and fell for him.

We are then told that letting her heart win is a habit of hers ‘I still try holding onto silly things, I never learn.’ and she continues by saying it’s not her fault. She isn’t going to blame herself for liking him and getting hurt, ‘I don’t wanna be the blame, not anymore. It’s your turn’.

The music video itself is very hard to analyse. There is a girl a boy that are clearly being sung about throughout the video and towards the beginning of the video there is a split screen of both of them at their own houses. I shows the girl going to ring him and then follows onto long shots of them walking to meet each other. The split screen comes in very useful and a simple but extremely good shot. This is when he seems to be talking to other girls, you also get to see close ups of the girl that has feelings for him. This is good as you understand what he has done and how this action effects the girl.

Throughout the music video there are a variation of close ups and long shots of the memebers of Paramore singing. It becomes clear that they are in the same house in which the party is set where the boy and girl are. It shows that they are all friends and maybe they are performing for the party.

‘Fast In My Car’I have chosen to create a music video for the song ‘Fast In My Car’. For this song I have played on the idea of Cars. I would start off with a long shot of the whole band performing (as most of their most successful songs include at least one band member) in a dark room which eventually lights up with pyrotechnics and paint being splattered. Like in the picture below. Then the camera will zoom out and you will see that the image you were just watching was being displayed on a massive screen. It will then become clear by an establishing shot that the band are being played at a drive-thru vintage cinema. The band will be watching themselves play on this big screen sat in the back of a truck. The film that they are watching will be based on how Paramore got famous. They will look exactly as they do at the beginning of the film then blossom and get famous, performing at massive concerts. This will then give the version of Paramore that are sat in the van, inspiration to work hard and they will drive off over the San Francisco bridge screaming at the top of their lungs. The camera will pan with the car. Then as the song progressively slows down, the camera will be inside of the car, enabling the audience to see what Paramore can see and the car will be swerving left and right to avoid the car coming towards them-this will all be in slow motion, in time with the music.