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Music

Sadness Hides in Plain Sight in Paramore's "Fake Happy" Video

The clip was directed by the band's drummer Zac Farro.
Lauren O'Neill
London, GB

"Fake Happy" is the best song on Paramore's very good fifth album, After Laughter, which was released in May this year. In a very smart move, the band have given "Fake Happy" the music video treatment, with a clip directed by Paramore's drummer Zac Farro (who, as a man of many talents, also plays in the musical project HALFNOISE).

I wrote a while ago about how "Fake Happy" is basically After Laughter's mission statement. Its lyrics about sadness and depression dwelling under the surface of a smile are basically an explainer for the record's technique of pairing difficult lyrics with poppy instrumentals—one which made for one of the best albums of the band's career.

The video features frontwoman Hayley Williams dressed in a glittery jumpsuit and Converse, like a kind of millennial superhero, moving through a New York full of people whose real faces are obscured by cartoonish, upside-down happy ones. It's a literal interpretation of the song, which is actually pretty great, considering that it's a song about being honest, and it fits in nicely with the band's colorful new aesthetic, too. Watch it above.

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