“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.
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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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