A Podcast for the Elder Emo: Everything Is Emo with Hayley Williams Review

Written by Chelsea Whitaker

Hayley Williams, lead singer of Paramore, is hosting a new podcast called "Everything is Emo", discussing the 2000's emo music scene, the bands that created, and the bands leading it into the future. This review discusses the podcast format, nostalgia of 00s emo culture, and of course, the music.

Lead singer of Paramore, Hayley Williams hosts “Everything is Emo”, discussing the 2000's emo music scene, the bands that created it, and why it’s still so relevant today. She reminisces on memories of discovering each band, meeting and playing with some of them, and how the songs made her feel, and how they continue to make her feel years later. Each episode has a uniquely curated playlist built around the focus of the week, along with an “On Shuffle feature. In ‘On Shuffle’, Hayley chooses an album, hits shuffle, and plays whatever song comes up, a few times each episode. While she focuses on the music that started the “emo” scene, Hayley also makes a point of introducing new music that either fits into the genre, or shows heavy influence by it. 

As a person that is easily distracted, typical podcasts don’t keep my focus very well. An hour or more of someone talking about a subject will have me daydreaming about something that happened last week. So listening to a song, and then listening to discussion of that song, is the perfect thing for me. For a while, I’ve been searching for a podcast that talks about music, and specifically genres and how they came to be. This is basically my ideal podcast.

While I was definitely into the emo scene as a kid. There were so many subgenres and I was so broke growing up, that I only really heard what was on the radio. I was a little late for MTV, although it was definitely on rotation for me, but Fuse was where I found most of my music back then. My personal favorites from the time were My Chemical Romance, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, The Killers, Panic! At the Disco, Paramore, and Fall Out Boy. So listening to this podcast is so cool, to me. Because I’m finally discovering music, that was huge to some of my friends back in the day, this podcast is so cool to me. I feel like I get the chance to re-explore emo, as an adult, and explore the new age of the genre. Hayley talks about taking liberties in her definition of emo, and how we need to be open to looking into other genres adjacent to emo to really understand it. In my opinion, emo is different to everyone. There are so many groups of emo music that maybe you and I were listening to emo at the same time, but never listened to the same bands. And that’s what I love.
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So far, Hayley has discussed how all music is emotional, the early days of Paramore and her first taste of independence, music that hails on the fringes of emo, some of her favorite comebacks, and debuts from some of emo’s most iconic bands. Featured music from episodes so far includes Jimmy Eat World, Tegan and Sara, Linkin Park, Underoath, The Killers, Turnstile, Taking Back Sunday, Bright Eyes and more. The ‘“On Shuffle” segment has highlighted the Twilight soundtrack, ‘LP2’ by American Football, Panic! At the Disco’s ‘A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out’, ‘Funeral’ by Arcade Fire, and The Cure’s ‘The Wish’. Hayley has introduced to us new music by The Linda Lindas, Wet Leg, PLOSIVS, and Tomberlin. At this point in the series, Hayley has started accepting requests from fans, reading an email or playing a voice recording, and proceeding to play something that was requested, including listener favorites like Fall Out Boy, At the Drive-In, and Gym Class Heroes. 

In the latest episode (ep 5) Hayley mentioned an age-old, pre-Youtube, cartoon site, Homestar Runner. I used to love this site as a kid. I would sit at my prehistoric computer, and wait for the dial up to load, just to laugh at goofy cartoons. Do you remember Homestar Runner? 

I love this podcast for the design of it. I want a podcast with this design, song - discussion - song - on shuffle - discussion - etc, for each and every genre of music. I am so excited to hear future episodes of this podcast, and I hope you take the time to listen, as well. It’s available only on BBC Sounds, get the free app here. 

If you have listened, what do you think? Is this the perfect layout for your podcast experience? Do you totally love it or hate it? Has Hayley played your favorite song from 2005, yet? And the biggest question…what more do you want to see from this podcast? 

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Stream the podcast on the web here.