ADRIAN THRILLS: Emo rebel who grew up to be rock's 'great orange hope'

ADRIAN THRILLS: The emo rebel who grew up to be rock’s ‘great orange hope’

Paramore: This Is Why (Atlantic)

Verdict: Punk-pop stars come of age

Rating: ****

The Rolling Stones: Grrr Live! (Mercury Studios)

Verdict: Grrreat

Rating: *****

Despite fronting a band that has twice topped the UK albums chart, Paramore singer Hayley Williams isn’t a household name in this country just yet. As one of rock’s most effervescent voices, however, she’s left an indelible mark on two of today’s biggest female pop stars.

Billie Eilish cites her as an inspiration and invited Williams to sing with her at last year’s Coachella festival.

And when teen sensation Olivia Rodrigo topped the UK singles chart with Good 4 U, Williams (alongside her ex-guitarist Josh Farro) was belatedly given a co-writing credit due to the song’s similarities to Paramore’s fast-paced 2007 fan favourite Misery Business. It’s easy to see why she’s made such an impact: Paramore’s signature blend of big choruses, emo-punk guitars and juvenile angst is tailor-made for grumpy teens everywhere. The Nashville outfit, at least in their early years, were loud and direct.

But Williams, 34, who started singing with Paramore in 2004, is no longer the rebellious young upstart. Her band, now a slimmed-down trio featuring drummer Zac Farro and guitarist Taylor York, have been beset by internal wrangles. Her two-year marriage to fellow musician Chad Gilbert, of New Found Glory, ended in divorce in 2017.

It’s easy to see why she’s made such an impact: Paramore’s signature blend of big choruses, emo-punk guitars and juvenile angst is tailor-made for grumpy teens everywhere

All of which begs the question: what do emotional punk singers do when they grow up? For Williams, the answer lay initially in a low-key solo career.

Locked down in Nashville, she released two excellent solo albums, the second of which, Flowers For Vases / Descansos, took the acoustic pop of Taylor Swift’s Folklore as its template.

Now, back with Paramore, she’s resuming the mantle of rock and roll firebrand. Not that new album This Is Why owes much to the formulaic emo-punk of yore, or even the glossy pop fare of 2017’s After Laughter. The dial has shifted again, this time to more considered lyrics and angular art-rock (think the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Bloc Party). With Hayley’s lithe soprano to the fore — and Farro and York supplying an urgent, shape-shifting backdrop — it retains Paramore’s knack for quirky, accessible pop.

The crunching chords and bouncy hooks remain, but there are also dreamy harmonies and even sprinklings of decidedly un-punk woodwind. Liar and Crave are moody ballads.

As a songwriter, Williams is no longer so self-absorbed. Her anxieties are still there, but there’s been a sharpening of her droll wit. Running Out Of Time is a wry dig at the me-generation and its fondness for excuses: ‘I was going to take some flowers to my neighbour, but I ran out of time… there was traffic, spilt my coffee, crashed my car, otherwise I would have been here on time.’

The News voices her weariness at the 24-hour news cycle, but avoids pontificating. ‘I’m so far from a front-line, quite the opposite,’ she concedes. ‘I’m safe inside, but I worry and I give money, and I feel useless behind this computer.’

On C’est Comme Ca, there’s a look back at lockdown: ‘In a single year, I’ve aged 100 / My social life: a chiropractic appointment.’

After joining Taylor Swift for shows in the States, Paramore will hit the UK in April.

My hunch is that these songs will come into their own onstage, with Hayley, who changes her hair colour almost as often as her outfits, living up to John Mayer’s description of her as ‘the great orange hope’.

The Stones were on a roll as they celebrated their golden anniversary in 2012 and 2013 with the 50 & Counting tour. It was a jaunt that took in North America and London’s O2 Arena before finishing with a triumphant Glastonbury and two further open-air concerts in Hyde Park.

The band, who made their live debut in 1962, released a hits collection, Grrr!, in 2012, and their latest LP, Grrr Live!, is billed as a ‘definitive live hits album’.

That’s partly true: most, but not all, of their biggest songs are here; as with most Stones gigs, though, a few fascinating deep cuts have crept in, too.

The album is taken from a show at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, and is out today as a double CD (£12), 2-CD/DVD (£19), triple vinyl LP (£55) and digitally.

With Mick Jagger an age-defying force of nature as he amps up his Mockney vowels for U.S. fans, it’s a testament to the band’s enduring power that songs which have been sung live so many times still sound fresh.

The hits come thick and fast. The album begins with Get Off Of My Cloud (‘Blimey… how ya doing, aw-right?’) and careers to a hits-heavy finale that includes a nine-minute You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Satisfaction. There’s some inevitable overlap with a 2013 live album from Hyde Park, but these performances are largely superb.

Grrr Live! is also a reminder of the solidity given to the band by drummer Charlie Watts, who died in 2021. Whether providing an authoritative anchor to the loose-limbed weaving of guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood — he is pin-sharp on Start Me Up — or rattling off drum rolls with expert comic timing to augment Jagger’s stage patter, his role was vital.

Amid the hits, lesser-known tracks such as Dead Flowers, a country tune from Sticky Fingers, add colour. The Stones are also joined onstage (and it’s still very much their stage) by local heroes Bruce Springsteen (on Tumbling Dice), and Lady Gaga, who sings (and sometimes over-sings) the Merry Clayton lines on Gimme Shelter. Jagger is impressed: ‘Lady Gaga… brilliant!’

There’s the odd misstep. Miss You, with crowd-teasing call and response sections, doesn’t translate well to a live recording (maybe you had to be there). But Grrr Live! captures the world’s greatest rock and roll band in their late-period pomp. ‘We’ve got a great show for you,’ says Mick. It’s hard to argue.

Paramore start a UK tour on April 15 at Cardiff International Arena (ticketmaster.co.uk).

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