Acoustic tracks on Paramore's Brand New Eyes revives the lost art of bare bones recording sessions

August 11, 1:10 AMOakland Music ExaminerDavid Woo

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Paramore's brand new eyes has four acoustic bonus tracks

The Grammy nominated Pop Punk band Paramore has not often been characterized by their acoustic sets. In fact, it is their hard hitting, head banging, amped up singles like “That’s What You Get” or “Crushcrushcrush” that earned the band’s nomination for “Best New Artist” at the 2008 Grammys (and of course, lets not forget the inspirational figure which female lead vocalist Hayley Williams makes for aspiring female rockers around the country). The release of the band’s new album, brand new eyes (officially titled with no capital letters), though characteristically as Pop Punk as ever, sees even further expansion on the band’s style, however. Though Paramore is certainly not the first band to record acoustic versions of amped up singles as bonus tracks, the extra material on brand new eyes is nonetheless a refreshing relief from studio edited compilations (the album features acoustic bonus versions of "Ignorance" and "Where the Lines Overlap," and additional acoustic versions of "Brick by Boring Brick" and "Turn it Off" on its Itunes release). Publicizing the album’s September 29th release at smaller, more intimate venues than their usual stadium concert halls, many of Paramore’s live sets feature no more than two acoustic guitars and Hayley on vocals (quite reminiscent of many Goo Goo Dolls sets, for those of you who read my previous article).

Unfortunately, this style of bare bones recording sessions is in many ways a dying breed; with Auto-tuning and Protools editing becoming more popular and more affective than ever, the beauty of the acoustic set has been quietly overlooked. It seems that, so thoroughly do bands occupy themselves with creating a “flawless” album that they often forget that there is in fact a certain beauty in the flaws; innovative improvisation at its finest occurs as a result of flaws. There is a reason why Pop music followers still attend live concerts, and it isn’t just for the flashy lights and fireworks, but rather the style of improvised musicality that cannot be created with studio editing. To be clear, I am by no means speaking poorly of studio affects (Auto-tuning is in fact quite an important musical revolution), but more accurately I would say that there is a certain quality that studio tracks simply do not capture. Though whether or not Paramore’s acoustic bonus tracks will be able to capture this quality still remains in question, it is refreshing to see musicians at least still making the attempt. And of course, anyone who has seen Paramore’s live acoustic sets will tell you that the band’s music remains quite impressive even without the flashy lights and amps.

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Thanks for reading!

David Woo, Oakland Music Examiner