Revisit Paramore’s cover of The Strokes song ‘Someday’
The Strokes and Paramore were two of the most successful acts of the 2000s. Although the two bands might have represented the pinnacles of different genres, both outfits remain world-famous, with the quality of their songs so esteemed that they continue to be relevant today.
The story of The Strokes is a famous one. The band were one of the pioneers of the indie rock revival of the era. Full of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, their tale was immortalised in Lizzy Goodman’s oral history, Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001–2011, which was turned into a documentary earlier in 2022.
Taking cues from earlier New York pioneers such as Jonathan Richman, Television and The Velvet Underground, their accounts of the minutiae of modern life in the big apple became anthems for a whole generation, inspiring legions to pick up the guitar and try their hand at music.
Some of the biggest acts of the decade, The Killers, LCD Soundsystem and Franz Ferdinand, have all cited the monumental impact of The Strokes, with their most prominent fans coming in the form of Sheffield’s Arctic Monkeys. Over their career, the Yorkshire band have spoken about the effect Julian Casablancas and the rest of The Strokes had on them. Their debt to the New Yorkers was then crystallised in their 2018 song ‘Star Treatment’, wherein frontman Alex Turner croons, “I just wanted to be one of The Strokes”.
Another band that The Strokes had an impact on was Paramore. This might come as a surprise when noting that the Tennessee outfit is hailed as one of the leading lights of the third wave of emo, a scene that appeared to be aesthetically and musically opposed to the indie revival. However, there was more that united both movements than separated them. Namely, these were a love of good music and an acute understanding that the normies of the world will never know what is up.
In fact, after announcing their upcoming album, This Is Why, Paramore frontwoman, Hayley Williams, made her love of 2000s indie clear by effusing about Bloc Party and Foals. When discussing the band’s long-awaited sixth album back in 2020, she told NME: “We’ve found ourselves listening to a lot of older music that we grew up being inspired by.”
Then, when speaking to the same publication in 2022, she likened the new album to Bloc Party: “From day one, Bloc Party was the number one reference because there was such an urgency to their sound that was different to the fast punk or the pop punk or the like, loud wall of sound emo bands that were happening in the early 2000s.”
Many of Paramore’s fans were surprised by Williams’ comments. However, the band had already made their love of the indie boom clear years before, in 2017. On the live circuit that year, Paramore covered The Strokes classic ‘Someday’ from Is This It on numerous occasions. Staying true to the original whilst making it slightly more upbeat, Williams and the boys didn’t have to say anything about the impact that The Strokes had on them. It was clear in their decision to cover the song.
Watch Paramore perform The Strokes’ ‘Someday’ in Copenhagen below.
