15 years ago Paramore released their third album 'brand new eyes'

On September 29th, 2009 Paramore released their third album brand new eyes (written in lowercase). The album presented a more mature and angry version of the band, in comparison to their previous releases. A lot of the lyrics in the album reflected internal issues within the group - feelings of betrayal and hurt. The band called the writing process therapeutic as it helped them resolve old conflicts. The producer of the album was Rob Cavallo, who also worked on Green Day's American Idiot and My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade.

brand new eyes debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200 selling 175.000 copies in the first week and stayed on the chart for 32 weeks. Their first single Ignorance debuted and peaked at number 67 on Billboard 100 and left the chart the next week. The most successful single from this era is The Only Exception, which peaked at number 24 on BB 100. The song also received a first Grammy nomination for the group in the Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals category but lost it to Train's Hey Soul Sister.

Currently, their second most-streamed song on the album is a... non-single called All I Wanted, which gained popularity due to a TikTok trend during pandemic. The popularity of the song caused the band to perform the song live for the first time(!) in 2022, thirteen years after its release. Since then, the band played the song live a few times.

brand new eyes is the last album released with the guitarist Josh Farro, who left the band with his brother in 2010. Zac Farro rejoined the group in 2017 and remains a Paramore member to this day.

Tracklist:

  1. Careful
  2. Ignorance
  3. Playing God
  4. Brick by Boring Brick
  5. Turn It Off
  6. The Only Exception
  7. Feeling Sorry
  8. Looking Up
  9. Where the Lines Overlap
  10. Misguided Ghosts
  11. All I Wanted
  12. Decode*

* - track released for an international edition of the album.

Questions:

  1. Where do you rank this album in Paramore's discography?
  2. What's your favourite and least favourite song on this album?
  3. What's your favourite lyric on the album?
  4. What's your favourite live performance from this era?