Paramore has been a huge part of my life since the age of twelve, thanks to discovering them through the Twilight soundtrack. It didn’t take long for them to become my favorite band, after obsessively listening to their songs, “Decode” and “I Caught Myself”, which also led me to going to their website and discovering their other singles through their music videos. It was the first time I ever discovered a female-leading band and it made me so happy to know that they DID exist. So Hayley Williams quickly became one of my biggest idols.
They were also the first band tee I ever purchased. In middle school, I wore probably two or three Paramore shirts a week and I had one of their songs as my ringtone on my little flip phone. We had lockers in my classroom and once, my phone went off when it was in my backpack. Paramore blasted through the locker vents. Oops!
That year was the year their third album, Brand New Eyes, released. I had just started getting into them right when the album was released, so you could say I found them at the perfect time. It didn’t take long for Brand New Eyes to become an album that I would continuously play all the way through.
Hearing the opening of “Careful”, I knew I was in for a good ride. Each song got better and better and it was, honestly, the first album I actually truly felt connected with. There were albums I loved before that one, but I felt something when listening to this album.
After listening to the final track, “All I Wanted”, I had a moment where I was left thinking, “That was it?” I wanted more and more from the album, but I was still left feeling satisfied. It was a great closing track.
The first few months of owning the CD, I listened to it on my CD player everyday and then, my dad got an iPod Nano for Christmas. Since my iPod was registered under his account, he would download songs and albums for me. I gave my dad all three Paramore CD’s and those were the first albums I had downloaded onto my iPod. I continued listening to Brand New Eyes every single day. Listening to the first two albums compared to Brand New Eyes, I loved them and I felt connected to them, but Brand New Eyes truly felt special to me.
Fast forward to 2021, almost twelve years since the release of the album and two more Paramore releases later, Brand New Eyes still takes the cake when it comes to Paramore and their albums. Songs like “Careful”, “Turn It Off”, and “Misguided Ghosts” were always the songs that resonated with me the most back then and even now, still do. I have moments where I’ll go back and listen to this album on a continuous loop, with absolutely no shame at all.
I still find myself connecting with it as an adult and I know that it will always hold a special place in my heart, as it is one of the albums that inspired my career as a music journalist. Paramore has always inspired me and I think my passion for music continued to grow over time because of them and my never ending love for them, which is why they’ll forever be my favorite band.