Paramore's Hayley Williams has launched a new emo-themed radio show as part of BBC Sounds' Back to Back series called Everything Is Emo, and here's the premise, in Hayley's words:
Not long ago, people started calling me a “veteran” of my scene and of the music industry. It sounds so funny to me because most of the time I still feel like a fan. The serious truth is I have, in fact, grown up in this scene for the last two decades. I guess that’s a pretty long time. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to publicly nerd out about bands and songs that make my favourite subgenre feel like home to me. And while it will be fun to take some trips down memory lane, I’m just as excited, if not more, to play music from new artists I’m discovering all the time.
Everything is Emo is meant to feel like a conversation with other fans of the genre, young and (ahem) old. There’s going to be plenty of interaction, which I hope will feel somewhat reminiscent of the message boards and forums I used to frequent as a teenage scene kid.
More than anything, I hope music fans and artists alike will be psyched to hear a highly considered spectrum of “EMO” in all its forms. And yeah, of course you’ll hear some Paramore.
The first episode is out now, and it features Hayley playing music by and expressing her love for a wide array of artists -- some of whom are regularly considered emo and some of whom might not be, because as Hayley says, "everything is emo" -- like Jimmy Eat World, The Postal Service, Wet Leg, Linkin Park, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, My Chemical Romance, and more. She also mentions Lime Garden as one of her favorite new bands, talks a lot about the Twilight soundtrack, and she works in personal stories that tie back into the bands and the genre too.
Listen to the full episode HERE and check out a clip and the full list of songs that Hayley played below.
Hayley also says that later on in the series, she'll talk about how Paramore's Taylor York got pulled over by a copy for listening to Kelly Clarkson, what the self-titled blink-182 album means to her, and why Dashboard Confessional reminds her of people crying on MTV. New episodes air every Friday.
Hayley also did an interview with Rolling Stone UK about the show, and here's what she says about the "everything is emo" concept:
Since day one, I was perplexed when I first heard about this word ‘emo’. I searched it on the internet and tried to understand because I was getting into music that wasn’t popular on the radio. I was discovering this whole other world and I wanted to understand it better because I wanted to know everything, I wanted to really be in. And emo has changed so much throughout the years. But one thing that’s never changed from day one: people are confused about what the fuck emo is.
One of the articles that I pulled up back then, when I was 13, had Ian MacKaye from Minor Threat and Fugazi being like ‘that’s so stupid, everything’s emo’. ‘Punk music is emo because people are expressing their rage or their frustration’ or whatever. And I’ve watched it evolve throughout the years, like you’re saying, one minute emo sounds like pop punk and then the next minute emo sounds like Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst doing a project together. Where we’ve gotten to now people are much more open to a lot of different versions of the word and I think that’s cool.
She also talked more about Twilight in the interview, as well as the early days of Paramore, making her playlists for the new show, more about Kelly Clarkson, and more. Read the full interview here.
Hayley also just joined Billie Eilish to perform Paramore's "Misery Business" and Billie even more recently revealed her favorite Paramore song: "All I Wanted."
Paramore also have a new album in the works. While you wait for that, catch up on our reviews of their first five albums.
Everything Is Emo Episode 1 Tracklist Jimmy Eat World - A Praise Chorus Panic! at the Disco - I Write Sins Not Tragedies Blue Foundation - Eyes On Fire The Postal Service - Such Great Heights Wet Leg - Wet Dream Linkin Park - Leave Out All The Rest Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps The Used - The Taste of Ink Paramore - I Caught Myself Lime Garden - Marbles My Chemical Romance - Helena
