<\/p>\n
Hayley Williams – Credit: Zachary Gray*<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Hayley Williams has always been bold \u2014 from her brightly-hued hair dye to her kickass attitude as the lead singer of Paramore. When it comes to music, the singer is equally unafraid. She belts her heart out and spits brutally honest lyrics across the band\u2019s discography and her own solo albums, 2020\u2019s Petals for Armor<\/em><\/a> and 2021\u2019s Flowers for Vases\/Descansos<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> But never has Williams sounded as brave as she does on her third album, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party.<\/em> \u201cI\u2019ll be the biggest star at this fucking karaoke bar,\u201d she declares on the moody title track. The song\u2019s chorus repeats one line over and over again (\u201cCan only go up from here\u201d) as Williams gives up on shooting for the moon and settles for a more modest version of fame. It\u2019s ironic that a song about a literal ego death should be a highlight of Williams\u2019 strongest solo work to date. On Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party, <\/em>she\u2019s headed well beyond the stars \u2014 and she knows it.<\/p>\n \u201cEgo Death at a Bachelorette Party\u201d and 16 other songs were surprise-released<\/a> at the beginning of August after the singer initially uploaded the collection of songs on her website via an old-school web player. Despite being long enough for a full LP, the collection wasn\u2019t marketed as an album. (Even though it totally was). But now, after Williams gave Ego Death<\/em> a properly long name true to her emo roots, and an official track list, the project finally feels complete.<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n The track list was a major piece of this puzzle. Once Williams uploaded the 17 singles<\/a> to streaming platforms just a few days after the web player, fans immediately created their own track lists through playlists. An overzealous Haleyhead even compiled all of the fan-made trackl ists into a website<\/a>. Just like the web player, the experience felt plucked from the early-aughts days of Limewire downloads and the detailed labor of CD and cassette mixtapes. Williams said<\/a> she wanted to shirk the weighty responsibility onto fans and gain inspiration from the way they received the music. But one listen to Ego Death<\/em> and it\u2019s apparent the unconventional rollout was by design. Every heartfelt lyric and song transition details how Williams has clawed her way out of major loss and grief to uncover a new version of herself.<\/p>\n Not only did Williams finally select a track list and provide an album title, she also shared a new song, \u201cParachute.\u201d It\u2019s cacophonous and raging with regret, packing its deepest blows in the second verse. \u201cYou were at my wedding<\/a> \u2026 You could\u2019ve told me not to do it,\u201d she shouts. That kind of romantic trauma is a theme throughout the record. Her rough vocal take is filled with hurt; Williams strains her voice as each word turns into a yell. It makes the wail she uncorked on Paramore\u2019s \u201cAll I Wanted\u201d pale in comparison. There are plenty of other lovesick melodies on Ego Death,<\/em> from the Lost in Translation<\/em>-inspired \u201cDream Girl in Shibuya\u201d to the Weezer-esque \u201cDisappearing Man.\u201d But \u201cParachute\u201d sums up the scope of the heartbreak that defines much of the album best, especially as it closes out the LP. It follows the tender \u201cI Won\u2019t Quit on You,\u201d a hopeful moment where Williams promises she won\u2019t give up on her relationship. On \u201cParachute,\u201d that hope is lost. But even so, with tracks like \u201cWhim\u201d and \u201cLove Me Different,\u201d the singer shows she\u2019s not afraid to open the metal cages to her black-tar heart and show all its boundless love.<\/p>\n Throughout the album, there are similar hints of desired optimism. The sun peaks through the blinds and Williams is desperate to feel its warmth once more as she struggles with her loss. The cover alone is a perfect example of this dichotomy: it\u2019s a black-and-white close-up image of Williams with a yellow square around her face, echoing the aesthetic of the 17 singles. Even on some of the most depressing tracks, like the meditative \u201cGlum\u201d or antidepressant ode \u201cMirtzapine,\u201d lyrics like \u201cIn the wake of your sunshine, I\u2019ve never felt more glum\u201d are pushed up against vibrant beats and clashes of powerful guitar.<\/p>\n At 17 songs, Ego Death<\/em> might seem bloated. But this album marks the first time Williams has ever owned her work outright, and who can blame her for wanting to make the most of that? (In 2024, the musician\u2019s decades-plus, controversial<\/a> record contract with Atlantic ended.) This newfound freedom is a revelation for Williams, who calls out the \u201cdumb motherfuckers that I made rich\u201d on the trip-hop-tinged \u201cIce in My OJ.\u201d Even with the lengthy track list, every song feels purposeful, each its own reflection of the musician\u2019s unique sonic landscape. Williams reaches for all of her influences and sprinkles samples of them onto Ego Death<\/em> songs. From French alt-rock band Phoenix on \u201cLove Me Different\u201d to post-Weezer jokers the Bloodhound Gang for the chorus of \u201cDiscovery Channel,\u201d and even a nod to TLC\u2019s \u201cWaterfalls\u201d in the lyrics of the title track, the album is a kaleidoscope of the music taste Williams has cultivated over the years.<\/p>\n Ego Death<\/em> is also notably more percussive and louder than the rest of the singer\u2019s solo work. Producer Daniel James worked on Flowers for Vases<\/em> and returned for Williams\u2019 third LP. With help from Paramore touring musicians Brian Robert Jones and Joey Howard, as well as Lorde producer Jim-E Stack, who has a hand in \u201cTrue Believer,\u201d every track is propulsive no matter if it\u2019s diving into synth-pop or alt-rock. Gone is the sparse production of Petals<\/em> or the quiet dissonance of Flowers.<\/em> Here, the music is alive and banger-ready.<\/p>\n If Williams\u2019 first two LPs saw her dipping her toe into solo work, Ego Death<\/em> is a full plunge. Never has she sounded more certain or free. There is a kind of death here, one where the musician leaves behind bits of her past self, but more than anything, the album feels like a baptism. Williams emerges from the depths of her focused creation ready for a new life, where the possibilities are endless.<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hayley Williams – Credit: Zachary Gray* Hayley Williams has always been bold \u2014 from her brightly-hued hair dye to her kickass attitude as the lead singer of Paramore. When it comes to music, the singer is equally unafraid. She belts her heart out and spits brutally honest lyrics across the band\u2019s discography and her own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1985179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[357132,306459,349837],"class_list":["post-1985178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-ego-death","tag-hayley-williams","tag-track-list"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Hayley-Williams-Powers-Through-Grief-to-Deliver-a-Solo-Masterpiece.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1985178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1985179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1985178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1985178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1985178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}