This Is Why

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Lore & Background

Discussions about a sixth Paramore album began in 2020 while Hayley Williams was promoting her solo album Petals for Armor. Williams hinted the next album would be more guitar-driven, stating, "We've found ourselves listening to a lot of older music that we grew up being inspired by." She further commented on the sound in 2022, likening it to Bloc Party: "From day one, Bloc Party was the number one reference because there was such an urgency to their sound." In January 2022, the band confirmed they had entered the studio. The album was recorded as the band's first to have a title track. Critics described it as a "jittery post-punk record" with influences from Foals, Bloc Party, and Talking Heads. George Griffiths of the Official Charts Company called it a "confidently jagged, hard post-punk soundscape," while Billboard described it as "a tight, post-punk juggernaut that zeroes in on pandemic-fueled anxieties." The back half of the album was noted as feeling "tonally different from the front, more personal and relational and coming closer to their pop-punk roots."

In Their Own Story

In September 2022, Paramore archived all posts on their official Instagram page and unveiled a new design for their website, featuring a timeline of dates that would be updated. These dates saw the launch of the band's official Discord server, the announcement of new tour dates in Los Angeles and New York City, and video snippets of the band working on new material. On September 16, the band announced their first new single in four years, "This Is Why", released on September 28. The same day, they announced the album of the same name for February 10, 2023. Paramore performed the single on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on November 4. The second single, "The News", dropped December 8, 2022, followed by "C'est Comme Ça" on January 12. On February 6, 2023, the band debuted "Running Out of Time" at their album release show in Nashville, releasing a music video for it on February 16. A music video for "Thick Skull" was released on March 1, 2024. A remix album, Re: This Is Why, was released October 6, 2023, featuring remixed, reworked, and rewritten versions of songs from This Is Why by different artists, plus an unreleased demo from the After Laughter sessions.

Reader's Guide

This Is Why received widespread acclaim, holding a score of 85 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 20 critics' reviews, indicating "universal acclaim." Matt Collar of AllMusic wrote that the album "pulls the artistic and emotional threads of their career into a cohesive, ardent whole." Ims Taylor of Clash praised the songwriting, noting Williams is "both elegant and sandpaper-coarse, depending on what is called for." DIY called it "another bold and brilliant transformation for the trio" and "Paramore's most ambitious record yet." Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote that "the agitated drumming and angular guitars meld with the big riffs and stop-start dynamics of pop-punk and an acute understanding of pop songcraft." NME found it "as in tune with the textures of today's forward-thinking rock as much as it is a love letter to Paramore's brilliantly caustic early days." Pitchfork noted the band "reach for the propulsive sounds of post-punk" but found the album "front-loaded with lyrical missteps." In June 2023, Alternative Press included the release in their top 25 albums of the year to date, calling it "anything but reserved." In December 2023, NME ranked the album as the fifth-best of the year.

Did You Know?

• This Is Why is Paramore's first album to have a title track.
• The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with 64,000 album-equivalent units, 47,000 of which were pure album sales.
• Paramore became the first female-fronted rock band to win the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album for This Is Why.
• A remix album, Re: This Is Why, was released on October 6, 2023.
• The album's sound was influenced by Bloc Party, with Hayley Williams stating, 'From day one, Bloc Party was the number one reference.'