Watered-down, non-alcoholic Emo.

I've just listened to an album by Paramore called Riot! and I feel the need to write about it, or more specifically music of that genre in general. It seems to me there's a formula that certain (mainly) American rock bands build their albums around. I don't want to completely pick on Paramore, but as it's fresh in my head I'm worried that I probably will.

To start with the album needs to be less than forty-five minutes. The first song needs to be a real kick up the beam-end to get you jumping up and down with the second being pretty much the same to make you think that this album will RAWK all the way through. Typically song three or four will be a slow-ish one; the bandís way of saying "We don't just rock out kids, we can play softly too" and then the CD will pick the pace up a bit and carry on rockin', usually with another one or two slower songs scattered somewhere in there.

Paramore did not disappoint me on my theory. The album has very little originality.

That's not to say that it's a bad album. The song writing and the singer's voice saves it from my list of bad CDs never to be touched, but it's the layout and production that bothers me. It's so clichéd that I felt that I had heard the album before; even the album art for Riot! reminded me of another album. I thought Riot! would either sound like Evanescence or Fall Out Boy and it sounded like a mix of both. Fall Out Boy with a female singer.

Can any band American band of that genre (a genre which I have named 'Watered-down, non-alcoholic Emo') break this formula? I want to end this blog saying that I will keep listening, but I probably won't. Again, for fear of offending anyone, I don't dislike Paramore. I have only heard one of their CDs which didn't exactly blow me away.

Tomorrow this blog turns the ripe old age of one year old. I might post something, who knows?