Music Monday #15: Riot! by Paramore

"I got a lot to say to you, Yeah I got a lot to say, I noticed your eyes are always glued to me, Keeping them here and it makes no sense at all"
- 'Crushcrushcrush' - Paramore

'Riot!' by Paramore was released in 2007 but it wasn't until 2008 that I was introduced to this album.  This album was a gift to me from a guy I met in London who was obsessed with the band.  We had been bonding over our music tastes and he was convinced I would love this album and bought it for me in HMV back when record stores still existed, do they still exist?  The three years I spent in London at University expanded my horizons in many different ways, my music library was influenced during that time by many different people and this little gem is yet another reminder for me that curators can introduce you to much more than you would find on your own.

Crushcrushcrush was a track that hit home for me at the time, I was at the tail end of my second year of University emerging from the mind-fuck of the love chain in which I had been entangled.  Paramore tapped into an anger I felt and a frustration with the concept of dating and trying to find someone in general.  This ultimately gave way to a period of time I affectionately refer to as my "slut phase" where my literal reaction was to say "Fuck this, relationships are too complicated" and pursued nothing more than pleasure accepting that emotional needs could be satisfied by friends and family and guys would be reduced to nothing more than fuck buddies - spoiler alert this didn't end well for me as I have probably mentioned previously.

'Misery Business' epitomised the feeling of getting fucked over by making commitments that you keep but others don't and the anger in revelation that you feel when you learn the truth.  This song in particular drew parallels with the head-space I occupied emerging from that love chain. 

No track more than any other on this album however touched me more than 'That's What You Get' with the lyric "That's what you get when you let your heart win" which completely summed up how I felt exhausted by the unreciprocated emotional attachments I had formed for guys.  Unrequited love had become a cliché in my life and I was tired of it.  To top it all off however, despite spending years chasing guys, wanting a relationship when none of them wanted one with me, the second I give up on that idea and went out to explore my sexuality without limits, without wanting any commitment, that of all times was when guys started wanting something more with me, but I had been jaded and had become a pessimist and refused. 

Who knows where any of those potential relationships could have went but that's what happens when the world fucks you over, you change your perception of the world and you move on, you become the person those experiences transformed you into.  I longed for guys who weren't emotionally available and when I became one of those guys it was only then that other guys took an interest in me, the whole idea was fucked up to me and I didn't have the time, energy, or the patience to be able to process any of it, so as ever I turned to music and buried myself in the sound to drowned out the world and Hayley Williams has a voice that can drowned out the world with ease.

To round off the album 'Born For This' summed up my anger with the lyric "Everybody sing, Like it's the last song you will ever sing, Tell me, tell me do you feel the pressure now?" this was the mindset I adopted, to live for the moment like it was the last moment in every moment, and for a time I lived by that belief and pursued pleasure above all else.