On August 19, Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams took her solo project into another sharp turn with her new music video for “Glum”; it is one of Williams’ 17 songs first teased through a hidden audio player on her website last July. The tracks later reached streaming services on August 1 as standalone singles, forming a collection showing Williams redefining her own solo career.
On August 5, she premiered the first video from the set, “Ego Death at the Bachelorette Party,” which placed her in a countryside karaoke bar, shot through a camcorder-style filter. The clips leaned on snippets of Williams messing around in the countryside while indie-folk textures fill in the rest of the single, a thread she has carried into her latest music video “Glum.” Both songs highlight her willingness to toy with 1990s influences of singer-songwriter music such as Alanis Morissette or Dido without sounding like throwbacks.
On August 18, Williams hinted on Instagram that the 17 tracks might eventually form an album. “Fell asleep trying to post, didn’t save it to drafts, forgot which pics I wanted to include, basically just wanted to say thank you for listening to the 17 new songs,” she wrote on her post. “I have been at the creek listening to potential track-list orders and still trying to create my own. It’s almost as hard as posting a photodump.”
Even with the loose rollout, the songs have been praised for being immediate and melodic while still pushing her writing forward. “Glum” arrives as the strongest example yet. Co-directed by Paramore drummer Zac Farro with AJ Gibboney, the video was shot on 35mm Kodak film. It follows Williams through a remodelled house, an attic, and a garden, cutting between moments of stillness and flickers of movement. At points, she strums a guitar in a hallway, her voice carrying the same retro energy that shapes the production.
The visual cues of “Glum” feel like fragments of grunge band Hole’s “Malibu” or noise-pop trio Sleater-Kinney’s “Entertain” music videos, yet the focus remains squarely on Williams’ performance. The sound of “Glum” diverges from the sharper grooves of Paramore’s This Is Why in 2023 or the pop-leaning After Laughter in 2017. It also avoids the experimental alternative dance palette she explored on her debut solo record Petals for Armor. Instead, the track leans into mood and texture, expanding her voice as a writer and performer.
Released through her independent imprint Post Atlantic, the 17 songs mark Williams’ first solo release since 2021’s Flowers for Vases/Descansos.
