Switched on Pop - The New Wave of Paramore

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Six years after their last record, Paramore is back with new music, and their upcoming record seems to have an uncanny connection to the era of new wave. But what is “new wave” anyway? Is it just a period of time in music or something more?  In this episode of Switched on Pop, we explore some of the tracks from This is Why, out February 10th, and connect them to the works of everyone from Talking Heads to Joy Division. Songs Discussed Paramore – C’est Comme Ça Olivia Rodrigo – good 4 u Paramore – Misery Business Paramore – Ain’t It Fun Paramore – Pool Paramore – This Is Why Talking Heads – I Zimbra Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime Siouxsie and the Banshees – Happy House The B-52’s – Dirty Back Road Gang of Four – Cheeseburger Oingo Boingo – Just Another Day DEVO – Uncontrollable Urge Paramore – Hard Times Les Rita Mitsouko – C’est comme ça Talking Heads – Psycho Killer Selena Gomez – Bad Liar Paramore – The News Joy Division – Disorder Blondie – The Thin Line Blondie – The Tide Is High The Police – So Lonely Paramore – Pressure Paramore – Told You So Boy Harsher – LA  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm producer

Rianna Cruz. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan and I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. So I'm going to play you guys a song and I want you to tell me where we are in time when you hear this. Late 1970s French rundown discotheque. July 2nd, 1983. What was happening on July 2nd, Nate? It just seemed like a good summer, you know, a nice summer day. in the new wave 80s. Just went out on a limb there. You guys are just 40 years too early. This is the newest Paramore single Secomsa.

Ooh, fun. Wait, this is Paramore? The band I best know as an early 2000s pop punk endeavor. Yeah, surprisingly, Paramore is happening again. They have a new album coming out called This. is why, and no pun intended, there's a few reasons as to why they're back. It could be in part due to just what you said, Nate, the female pop punk revival ushered in by artists like Olivia Rodrigo. She famously had to give songwriting credits to Paramore for that song because it was so similar,

talked about it on an early episode. So similar to Paramore's song, Misery Business, yeah. Exactly. And that has contributed as well to a general vibe of emo nostalgia. There was last year's inaugural when we were Youngfest featuring bands like Paramore coming back and and performing to waves of elder emoes. I said we were old, but we're not that old. Elder emo. Amazing. Even an elder emo, I think, is either your age or younger, Charlie.

Thanks. Or younger. They retire. It's okay. We're younger than Thai Dala sign and Kelly Clarkson. I just googled singers who are 40 years old. Wait, Kelly Clarkson's 40? Yeah.

She's doing great. They're aged. Love Kelly. All right, focus, people. Paramore. But yeah, five years after their last record, Paramore's back and with a rockier sound shown by Secomsah. Along with Secomsah, there's currently three Paramore singles at the moment, and they all, in similar ways, embody the sounds and energy of just what you said, the late 70s, early 80s, new wave. and rock-adjacent new wave music.

Of course, there's other things present, right? Like, I personally heard, like, dance punk, modern indie rock, thinking like strokes, ting-tings, that sort of thing. But all of those, if you trace them, right, they all come back to the new wave tree. So today I want to look at the new paramour songs, identify the new wave elements, and figure out what exactly is new wave anyway?

I'm so down for this conversation because, A, I want to know more about what Paramore's up to, and B, I've always been a little confused by the new wave designation. Where does it begin? Where does it end? What does it encompass? So I feel like I have a lot to potentially learn from this dive. I too am interested, but I am a little bit disgruntled about being an elder, what'd you call me? An elder emo? An elder emo. Okay, okay. But I'll go along with this ride. An Elmo, perhaps. So to recap, I'm sure the elder emo's out there already know this, but to recap, who is Paramoire?

They are a band fronted by Haley Williams that's been around since 2004, so it's almost been two decades of Paramo. Half of Kelly Clarkson. Half of Kelly Clarkson, exactly. Good for them. That's a long career. And over that time, they've released only six albums. There's been several lineup changes with the only constant member of the group

being Haley Williams. And their aesthetic is this dynamic female fronted pop rock. Their early records are rooted in pop punk like their hit misery business. Very little known fact. Nate and I both once, at the same time without knowing each other,

worked at an alt-rock radio station in college. I did the daytime shifts. He was late-night shifts. Late night was jazz, but daytime was like, Core Paramore sound. Very familiar. Yeah, it's a moment for sure. Yeah, but like you guys, Paramore also aged out of that pop punk sound and leaned more into the pure pop. You might remember, Ain't It Fun, off of their self-titled.

So we're talking pop marimba core. Love that marimba. What's going on? Once you bring the marimba in the mix, there's no going back. Yeah, you've left pop punk behind. I love this song. It's fun. It's fun. It's funky, it's got a marimba. It's like, what more could you want? It's such a good track. Well, good do you like that because they take that sound a little bit further on their most recent record after laughter, which is more of like a hybrid of indie, electronica, and this pop that they've honed in the 2010s.

This is a standout track. It's called Pool from 2017. Nate, you're right. It's kind of funky. They've got a great drummer. We've moved from Morimba Corps into winning. chime chorus, a song about the rain, and I love wind chimes in the background. I've never heard anything like that.

I mean, I can imagine it's hard to sustain that kind of angsty, emo energy as you, you know, naturally age and approach, you know, your Tidalasine age. Like you, I would think that, that Paramore in many bands like that, like start to embrace new sounds, new energies, new directions. I mean, I thought they were going to keep going into this new pop, sort of funky, adjacent sound. But I think like all of us,

the pandemic changed paramour. So they're back six years later, now it's 2023, with a new album coming, and the lead single, this is why, goes back to a guitar-driven sound, but with a twist.

Sounds like they've been hanging out with David Byrne, Chris France, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison. Those are the members of the talking heads if you're not pretentious. Noxious. Yeah.

Just FYI. Yeah. This song has such massive talking heads vibes. And it factors into the fact that all of these new singles have this new wave energy. Looking at the vocals on This Is Why, it evokes that of talking heads, of David Byrne. There's gang vocals in a half-spoken, half-sung chorus. You'd hear a gang vocal like that on. a song like I Zimbra by Talking Heads.

But it's not just the gang vocal thing. It's also the jagged percussion and these sudden bass hits that are very, like, the only way to dance to this is robot dancing, I'm pretty sure. Or like big suit jiggling. Yes. Big suit energy. Stop making sense. Absolutely. I mean, it also has some similarities, I think, to once in a lifetime as well.

Like rather than letting. the vocals pop forward in the chorus. They almost all go backwards. They go into the audience and everyone is singing along. It's cool to hear these Talking Heads references in Paramour's latest song. It makes me think of last year

when Lato sampled genius of love by the TomTom Club, a band from the 80s made up of two of the members of the Talking Heads, Crids, France, and Tina Weymouth. So it's like in multiple different contemporary genres, the talking heads are having this moment of revival. So aside from the chorus,

there's also other interesting musical elements that connect us to other great new wave acts. This is the beginning of This Is Why. Very spacey. Almost kind of like a jam band. I really like those tones. I thought Paramour was maybe taking note from a song like Happy House by Susie and the Banties.

I find. Or cut like Dirty Back Road by the B-52s. Dig it. The guitars throughout the whole song are also connected to New Wave because when we get back to the chorus, there's the jangle guitar in the odd rhythm, right? Like we said, the talking heads type sound. It's a rhythm that's jagged, but also fun. And that's sort of one of the hallmark sounds of New Wave.

A song like Cheeseburger by Gang of Four has a similar sort of jaggedness to it. It almost feels like you can hear the influence of 80s drum machines on how people are playing their instruments. It's gritted. It's a little bit robotic. Like New Wave takes the distorted sound and angsty vocals of punk, but puts them on top of this more kind of funky, syncopated rhythmic grid. Yeah. That's an, that's, I'm vibing with that, Charles. And one last great musical element we have to talk about is something you guys brought up before the marimba. The bridge of this song, I think, is going to have something that you guys will like. That's a fascinating percussion sound. It's like columba-ish. I can't quite place it.

Yeah, this is a really cool section, but I feel like I don't have a clear music historical reference point. Well, when I sent this song to my group chat, one of my friends said something along the lines of, oh, I see Paramore took the Oingo-Boingo pill. Oingo-Boingo. The Danny Elfman led 80s new wave band. Okay.

Yeah, listen to the beginning of Just Another Day. Ooh. Ding, ding, ding. What year do you say that was? Just Another Day came out in 1985. Okay, so now I'm thinking

that that percussion sound is maybe a synthesizer, like a DX7. It sounds like a synthesized percussion sound. Maybe that's why I can't quite place it. I, of course, absolutely could be wrong here. But in the case of Oingo-Boyango, that sounds like a digital synthesizer making that. And it sounds so like the paramour.

That is a great fine, Rihanna. I love Danny Elfman. What can I say? Boingo core revival imminent, I predict. And neat because I didn't know where to place their use of these percussion elements. Like, I didn't know what they were doing in their earlier tracks, but it's clear that they're pointing to some earlier reference points,

that it's not just weird. What is the sound that's throw it in our track? It's, no, no, no, no. Ongobongo's been doing it for 40 years. So, yeah, it's clear that what we're hearing is placed in the 70s and 80s. But like you said before, Nate, the definition of a new wave is very nebulous. So we should try to figure out what is new wave anyway. quote, new wave. What does that even mean? We got to paint a picture. At the beginning of the

episode, you guys said that you were in the late 70s, early 80s, Charlie, you said you were in a run-down French discotheque. Yeah, maybe a British band coming in to Paris, singing some very bad French lyrics with a poor accent followed by some spoken vocals and jangly guitars. they had to get across the channel to escape the undending assault of Margaret Thatcher's economic policies and hang out in Paris and smart cigarettes. That's where we are, right? What a Misan Sen here. We don't want to read your screenplay, okay? We just, that's another podcast.

But Rihanna, New Wave, we were getting someplace interesting. Let's try and return. So, yeah, New Wave is less of a genre, but more of like a moment. in time and an era. The term New Wave itself, according to the new Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock, says that New Wave is

so loose and wide-ranging, the terminology is quote-unquote virtually meaningless. But... Okay, conversation is settled. Great, done. I'm going to go back to France now. Episode over... Credits. Yeah, we could put determining factors

onto the sound. Think like funky haircuts, cool patterns, androgyny, maybe even a comically large suit or two. Basically, anything that current art school students walking around Brooklyn are wearing. Anyway, back to the sodics. So, as

we talked about, New Wave has a couple of defining factors. There's the choppy rhythm guitars, as we talked about before, and they have a slightly discordant quality, thinking of, like, the music of Devo. That was their song, Uncontrollable Urge, which

fun fact, is the theme song for the MTV show Ridiculousness. It's like punk, but really fun. Uncontrollable urge also has the defining vocal characteristic of New Wave, which is like the sort of erratic, speak-singing, sort of neurotic vibe to it. Who needs auto tune when you're not even going for a pitch? It's great. The way he tries to fit the word uncontrollable into the miracle scream,

and he has to kind of always shove it into their uncontrollable urge. There's a... a certain playfulness, I think, and humor to this song. It's a little bit funny. It's a little bit tongue-in-cheek. And I feel like that's a part of New Wave is like a certain kind of ironic detachment. A lot of New Wave had that ironic detachment, like you were saying, with lyrics that were neurotic, even like slightly paranoid, where like the artist's personas in the genre tended to skew dorkier. So the lyrics went in that direction.

It's the opposite of the long hair. glam rock god, which is happening simultaneously. Right, though. It's not like you have Brett Michael sing it, like, oh, like nothing but a good time in New Wave. New Wave is all about, oh, like, everything's a mess. I feel like I'm going crazy. The world's out to get me type vibes. I feel that way when my producer is constantly making fun of me, but I'll get by. I'll go hang out with the cool Brooklyn kids. I just got to get a big suit. The B-52's devil in my car, but it's producer on my call. Oof. It's getting it hot in here. All right. Getting us back on track.

A lot of new wave songs, of course, have something that the new Paramour songs don't, and that's synthesizers. However, the past few years, Paramore has been doing this whole new wave bit with mostly guitars, and it's been pretty successful. Check out Hard Times from After Lafter. And moving forward to their most recent singles, we listened to Secomsat at the top. of the episode. I'm definitely getting some psycho killer. I'm on this French beat.

What's-ke-se. Love the French beat. And the song, actually, Charlie, could specifically reference a French pop new wave track of the same name by Lerita Mitsuko. At this point, Rihanna,

I feel like you and Haley Williams were in the same undergraduate course on the history of popular music from 1970 to 1980. and Haley Williams went and made a record, and then you went and analyzed that record, and you came to all the same conclusions.

We were copying each other's notes, actually. That's very cool to hear the la-la-laws of the French New Wave original replaced with the na-na-naz of the Paramour version. Whether or not that's an intentional reference, I mean, any of these, whether or not any of these Paramore references are intentional or just sort of in their musical ether,

it's really cool to like hear some of the historic context for the sound that they're reaching for. Charlie, you briefly hinted at it before, but the song that I'm hearing here is absolutely Psycho Killer. Psycho Killer has multiple elements that Secomsa by Paramore also has. There's staccato vocals and a use of multiple languages. I love hearing the influence. that this song continues to exert in the 21st century, because I remember when Selena Gomez referenced Psycho Killer

in her song, Bad Liar. At the very start, you hear the baseline of Psycho Killer. It's like, this song is just ramifying in so many unexpected ways through contemporary popular music. I was walking down the street the other day, trying to distract myself, but then I see it. Even then it has like the rambling nature that sort of connects it back to Psycho Killer at large.

And that sort of rambling weird cadence is something Haley Williams has on Paramore's other single from this record, The News. It's kind of like if they're earlier pop punk has the energy and excitement of punk and new wave, but with the polish of pop, with this new record, they're removing some of that polish. and you can hear grit, you can hear dissonances, not everything is tightly tuned.

I like hearing her raw vocal like that. I found the sound to be kind of adjacent with post-punk, which was happening simultaneously as New Wave. Word. Take Joy to Vision, for example. That's disorder, and here's the chorus of Paramours the News. It's got that vocal sound, but it's also got those chorus, guitars, which sound very post-punk. as well. If I let my brain sort of just relax

a little bit, I can forget that the song was released in 2020 or 2023. It's just like, it sounds, when you hear those back to back, it sounds so much of that era. It's really interesting. I mean, it makes sense that we can

cite these sounds as being from the 70s and 80s because there's a precedent of some bands in New Wave following that trajectory of having harder, more punk influence, sounds in their earlier career and then moving to poppier, new wavy sonics. Take a band like Blondie, for example. This is the thin line off of their self-titled first record.

There's like some dark energy to that. That reminds me a lot of something like misery business. Yeah, it's really unpolished. That is the, I've just taken seven guitar lessons, kind of pick up an instrument, just throw some energy behind it, shout some vocals into a microphone, into a cheap console it sounds like, and just go and play. Right. It's very DIY and very punky compared to four years later when Blondie released the tight high. This episode is entirely just to play marimbo the entire time. I'm absolutely certain. That could not be a bigger shift, though. That's a cover of a 1960s reggae song by

the Paragon's. And it is one of the last things I would have expected to hear after that first track you played us from their debut album, Rihanna. It makes sense in the new wave context, though, because bands like Talking Heads and many others

were appropriating from Caribbean sounds. That was a big part of what was going on. You think especially of the police, very influenced by reggae and rhythms that were not native to the British punk scene originally. But in the case of Sonics,

Blondie and Paramore are kind of similar bands. They're both anchored by a charismatic frontwoman who has become synonymous with the brand of the band at large. And the progression of their sound mirrors the progression of Paramours. This is a song called Pressure

off of Paramore's first record from 2005. Heavy, serious, angsty. Even has those like hardcore drum breakdowns. New Paramore is definitely less angsty. This is told you so off of after laughter. Three syllables. Ma.

Rimba. Same progression. Paramarimba. There's a little rabbit hole I think we could dive down here. Like, Zach Farrow is Paramore's drummer. Did he do undergraduate degree in Marimba performance or something? because at this point, it's gone beyond just something kind of like, ha, funny, like, wow, Baramore uses a lot of marimus.

Like, this is a deep, this is, I'm getting conspiratorial here. Are they endorsed by, you know, whatever? Big marimba. Big marimba. Right, exactly. It's big marimba behind Baramore's entire career. What is happening here? I, for one, really like this more mellow sound.

It resonates with my more matured identity. I'm following this. I like it. Whether or not it's funded by Big Maramba. So with Big Marimba's little grubby hands everywhere, why is this sort of new wave pop revival happening at large? That's definitely something I've been asking myself, Rihanna, because on one hand, a lot of contemporary music reaches for some retro credibility now, right? Like disco, pop punk, emo, funk, whatever it is, a lot of. contemporary music's like let's let's reach from something in the past and kind of give our song uh it's like a reference point of familiarity like a little credibility but i feel like there's something more at play here this isn't just an arbitrary decision to reach back to this new wave moment

there's a historical similarity a little bit here Nate said disco we've been living in a disco revival moment ever since i would put it at forever because disco never went away but also you know daf punk's random access memories and Dula Lipa's future nostalgia. It's been living in our ears through Lizzo. And after disco's demise, New Wave had a moment. And so it kind of feels like not only is it let's grab a random cool thing to grab onto, but there is almost like a reliving the past natural historical progression happening,

that this is the sound that you want to hear after you've been listening to a lot of disco. Yeah, there's been like other bands that have done this sort of New Wave revival. kind of gig. But obviously they don't have the size and the fan base of a band like Paramore. Like a band that I really like is Boy Harher. And they do a sort of synth-based dark take la Depeche mode on the whole new wave sound. Their song, LA is a really good example. Yes.

Give it to me. I need neon. Spandex. Workout. VHS. You hear Workout. I hear like, dark New York underground club.

This is definitely reaching for that more synthesized sound of New Wave that Paramore is not really commandeering. Right. The revival of the New Wave guitar sound is something that I honestly haven't heard from a band like Paramore before, which is really cool to me. And if New Wave is back in a big way, and if it continues to come back in a big way, maybe I just got to go out and buy, you know, a big suit. That's 5xL, you know.

Wait, I have the answer. It's very clear. It's just interest rates. When interest rates are rising in the 1970s, you get New Wave. Interest rates are rising now. And clearly, it's all big Marimba is pushing this monetary policy. And thus, New Wave has returned. It's macroeconomic.

It's that simple. Well, whether it's economics or whether it's aesthetics, New Wave could possibly be coming back. So we should keep our ear to the ground and see if any other artists decide to go down the spandex route. So what is your favorite new wave track? Hit us up on social media at Switched on Pop, Twitter and Instagram. Let us know of any cool gems that you want us to hear. I'll be starting an elder pop punker.

Is that what you called me, Elder Popper? What was it? Elder Emo. I'll be creating an Elder Emo. support group on our social media. We are at Switched on Pop, Twitter, Instagram, and I want TikTok as well. You can see our very goofy faces. Whether you're an elder emo or half of Kelly Clarkson, check out our website at

Switchdownpop.com. We've got a couple of things there you might find interesting. First of all, all of our episodes. Second of all, links to playlist of the songs we talked about. And third, merch, we're talking totes. We're talking hoodies. You can't be an elder emo without a hoodie. It's just, it's necessity.

And y'all will be back in another week with a brand new episode. All that remains is for us to talk about the people who help make this fine program that you've been listening to. Charles? Switched on Pop is produced by Rihanna Cruz. This week we're engineered by Chris Shirtleff, edited by Art Chung illustrations by Iris Gottlieb, community management by Abby Barr. Our executive producers are to Shot Karwa and Hana Rosen and a member of the Box Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture.

We'll see you next week. And until then, thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.