Hayley Williams Is the 21st Century’s Pop-Punk Prophet

Jenn Pelly, writing at NPR:

Williams has reflected, of late, about how the lack of young women musicians in her scene contributed to loneliness and self-loathing. “I doubted whether people would ever take me seriously,” she said. “I felt like I needed to be part of a boy’s club to make it. It really affected my sense of self and what I thought I owed people.” And so she would go twice as hard as the men she shared stages with. “I thought I had to be better than them to prove my worth,” she said. “I wish I’d learned sooner that [being a woman] is actually this incredible strength.”

There’s no other way to put it: Paramore are on the short list for the best band, and catalog, to come out of this music scene in the last twenty years.