RIOT!

by

Paramore

Edit

Paramore's known for attracting a pretty young crowd, and that's understandable given how young the band itself is. But I'm a 35 year old guy who's gotten just as hooked on them as any of their teen audience. This is just some great rock music, with great hooks in almost every song and some amazing musicianship all around. Hopefully they'll continue to mature and continue to broaden their fan base as they progress.

The MVI DVD was my first Paramore purchase, and it's a great buy. I have to give special mention to the fact that there are actual mp3's on this disc for you to download to your PC - no DRM involved. That's gotta be something pretty new for Warner Music (the band is signed to Fueled by Ramen, but Warner apparently handles the distribution), and I hope that they continue doing it and that more labels follow suit. There are a ton of other great extras on the DVD, including live and promotional videos (the two things I cared about most) as well as other stuff I was less interested in like wallpapers, AIM icons, and screensavers. It also includes the lyrics to all of the songs on the album, which is a good thing in this case - the printed liner notes are written in a style that's pretty hard to read.

Just to be clear about what this comes with, since I think the Amazon page is a little confusing, this package comes with both a DVD and a regular audio CD that includes the full album plus bonus tracks. (Amazon shows "disc 2" above as only including the bonus tracks, which is not the case. It's the full album.) In other words, *both discs* have the full album - the only difference is the format. And of course the DVD has all the extras.

I was worried initially that there was going to be some sort of surreptitious installation of various tracking programs installed when I put this DVD into my computer - you know, like the major labels usually do these days. I'm still not 100% convinced that isn't the case, but I will say that their terms of use and privacy policies seem adamant that there is nothing of the sort, and it seems that the entire DVD interface is just a Macromedia Flash file - it's like viewing a Flash web site. You can also just watch it as a standard DVD if you like. The way their terms of use is worded makes it sound like they know about all the stuff that went on with the Sony rootkit fiasco and they don't want anyone to think that's going to happen with this DVD. I certainly hope that's the case, as I've now watched it on my PC probably half a dozen times already.

There's really no reason to buy the standard CD over the MVI DVD given all it comes with. You're really just getting a lot more with this package for only a couple bucks extra. It's totally worth it.

When I first purchased this CD, I wasn't sure what I was going to get. The bottom line: it's an aquired taste. The beats and lyrics are very catchy and fast-paced, but the down side for me is Hayley William's voice. Some love it, others not so much. To me it sounds as though she's straining her voice to reach higher notes, and it just leaves a sort of screechy feeling that eventually becomes highly irritating. She does have a good voice though, but I think she'd be better off performing a different style of music...

The best song, in my opinion, would be "Let the Flames Begin" tied with "Misery Business". The first is very different than Paramore's usual stuff, and has a darker, more intense (though very danceable) tone and beat. "Misery Business" just begs whoever is listening to sing along.

If you don't mind singers with a sharp-edged voice that doesn't stop, and love pop-punk, than I recommend this CD for you. Otherwise you might want to rent it at the library first to see if you like it.