Paramore's debut album, All We Know Is Falling, was built around an absence. Bassist Jeremy Davis left while the band were in Orlando to make the record, and Hayley Williams said they wrote the title track "about two days after he left". Davis ended up on one song out of ten, "Here We Go Again". Lucio Rubino of another band, StorySide:B, played bass on the other nine, and the sleeve is a red sofa with only a shadow on it.
The record was also built to arrive quietly. Atlantic's A&R man wanted to see whether the band could sell 100,000 copies without going to radio, and it never entered the Billboard 200. Twenty years later, in August 2025, the RIAA certified it platinum. (Some outlets write the title with a lowercase "is", but Wikipedia, MusicBrainz and the RIAA all list it as All We Know Is Falling.)
Album Facts
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Artist | Paramore |
| Album | All We Know Is Falling |
| Release Date | 26 July 2005 (US); 24 April 2006 (UK) |
| Label | Fueled by Ramen (Atlantic-distributed), catalogue FBR076 |
| Producer(s) | James Paul Wisner, Mike Green, Roger Alan Nichols, Nick Trevisick |
| Studio(s) | Wisner Productions (St. Cloud, FL); ARS Studios (Orlando, FL); Bigger Dog Studio (Franklin, TN); Stone Gables (Brentwood, TN); The Skyview Church of Tone and Soul (East Nashville, TN) |
| Genre / Subgenre | Pop-punk, emo |
| Track Count | 10 |
| Total Runtime | 35:51 |
| Billboard 200 Peak | Did not chart (Heatseekers No. 30) |
| UK Albums Chart Peak | 51 |
| Other Notable Chart Peaks | Billboard Catalog Albums No. 8; Scottish Albums No. 5 (2026) |
| Certifications | RIAA platinum (2025); BPI gold (2009); ARIA gold (2012) |
| Estimated Sales | Not found |
| Key Singles | "Pressure", "Emergency", "All We Know" |
Cultural Context
The Trades called Fueled by Ramen "one of the hottest independent labels around" in July 2005. Fall Out Boy's From Under the Cork Tree arrived on 3 May 2005 and debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 with 68,000 copies. Panic! at the Disco's debut followed on 27 September 2005 through Decaydance and Fueled by Ramen, peaking at No. 13. Paramore's own rollout, by Atlantic's design, was far slower.
Reviewers kept reaching for the same comparison. Alternative Press, Clickmusic and Gigwise all invoked Avril Lavigne, while The Trades called the comparison "sorely unfounded". Williams was 16 when the album came out, and Spin later put the band's ages at 15 to 17.
The Band's Story Up to This Point
Hayley Williams moved from Meridian, Mississippi, to Franklin, Tennessee, in 2002 at the age of 13 and met brothers Josh and Zac Farro there. She had signed to Atlantic Records as a solo pop singer in 2003, then decided against that route, saying she did not see herself as "the next Madonna". The band formed in 2004 around Williams, the Farros and Davis, and neighbour Jason Bynum joined later on rhythm guitar.
Atlantic's Steve Robertson said Williams wanted the label to know from square one that her favourite bands were Jimmy Eat World, Underoath and Sunny Day Real Estate. She did not want to be treated as a straight-to-Top-40 pop princess. Fueled by Ramen founder John Janick, Williams said, got hold of Nashville demos but was not sold until he saw them play, first at Taste of Chaos and then at a warehouse showcase.
"...we just wanted kids to discover the band without it being shoved down their throats."
Steve Robertson, Atlantic Records A&R, HitQuarters, 2009
Robertson described the plan as a "relatively inexpensive major label record" made with Fueled by Ramen, backed by "a couple of cheap videos" and a place on the Warped Tour.
Pre-production & Demos
Williams' solo demos were re-recorded with the band so they sounded "more authentic", according to Wikipedia's account. The label then reportedly judged the finished demos "terrible" and came close to dropping the band. Josh Farro gave his own version in a December 2010 blog post that Alternative Press confirmed was genuine: Williams and he had been writing "Hallelujah" and "Here We Go Again", the label liked them, and that "acted as leverage for the band to stay". "Hallelujah" was saved for Riot!, while "Here We Go Again" became track five.
"Conspiracy" has an odd pedigree. It is credited to Williams, Farro and Taylor York, who would not become Paramore's guitarist until 2007. Farro said in 2010 that the garage band he and Zac had with York before Paramore wrote it, and that Williams later asked to use it.
Creating All We Know Is Falling
All five members went to Orlando for a couple of months to write and record. Williams told Crush Music Mag in July 2005 that about two weeks in, with the band getting ready to record, Davis took them out back and said he had bought a plane ticket home. Other accounts differ on timing: Wikipedia says "a few days" after arrival, and Farro remembered it as halfway through a rehearse-and-write routine of eight hours a day. Farro's 2005 explanation was brief: Davis "had some personal issues to deal with".
"About two days after he left, we wrote the song 'All We Know.' We decided we were going to base the album off of that, which is also what the cover means."
Hayley Williams, The Trades, 2005
Josh Farro, in the same interview, was relaxed about it: "But we're fine with him now. Everything's cool. It was a good subject to write the record around." Williams said the remaining four spent about a month practising and writing as a four-piece, and met John Hembree two weeks before touring began. The sessions themselves took about three weeks, and Farro later called them "rushed". The work was split across several rooms:
- Wisner Productions, St. Cloud, Florida: "All We Know", "Never Let This Go", "My Heart" (producer James Paul Wisner).
- ARS Studios, Orlando: "Pressure", "Emergency", "Brighter", "Whoa", "Conspiracy", "Franklin" (producer Mike Green).
- Bigger Dog Studio, Franklin, Tennessee: "Here We Go Again" (producers Roger Alan Nichols and Nick Trevisick).
- Extra recording at Stone Gables, Brentwood, and The Skyview Church of Tone and Soul, East Nashville.
Green mixed everything except "Here We Go Again", which Nichols and Trevisick mixed, and Tom Baker mastered the record at Precision Mastering in Hollywood. In an interview published on 8 August 2005, asked what he would change, Josh Farro was already looking ahead.
"The energy. More energy and more of a rock feel to the music."
Josh Farro, The Trades, August 2005
Personnel & Credits
| Role | Player | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Core band | ||
| Lead vocals | Hayley Williams | Lyricist |
| Lead guitar, backing vocals | Josh Farro | Unclean vocals on "My Heart"; main music writer |
| Rhythm guitar, backing vocals | Jason Bynum | Replaced by Hunter Lamb in December 2005 |
| Drums | Zac Farro | |
| Bass | Jeremy Davis | "Here We Go Again" only |
| Additional musicians | ||
| Bass | Lucio Rubino | Every track except "Here We Go Again"; frontman of StorySide:B |
| Production and engineering | ||
| Producer, recording | James Paul Wisner | Tracks 1, 6, 10 |
| Producer, recording, mixing | Mike Green | Produced 2-4 and 7-9; mixed all but track 5 |
| Producers, recording, mixing | Roger Alan Nichols, Nick Trevisick | Track 5 only |
| Engineer | Dave Buchman | Track 5; surname also printed "Buchanan" in Wikipedia's credits |
| Studio drum tech | Nath Warshowsky | Every track except 5 |
| Mastering | Tom Baker | Precision Mastering, Hollywood |
| Artwork | ||
| Artwork | Electric Heat | |
| Photography | John Deeb | |
Taylor York appears only as a co-writer. Davis returned to the band after about five months away, replacing John Hembree, the bassist who had joined shortly before the first tour.
The Songs
| # | Title | Writer(s) | Length | Single? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | All We Know | Williams, Farro | 3:14 | Yes | About Davis leaving; recorded with Wisner |
| 2 | Pressure | Williams, Farro | 3:06 | Yes | Recorded with Green; later in The Sims 2 |
| 3 | Emergency | Williams, Farro | 4:00 | Yes | Screamed "Crab Mix" appeared on the Summer Tic EP |
| 4 | Brighter | Williams, Farro | 3:43 | Tribute to Lanie Kealhofer | |
| 5 | Here We Go Again | Williams, Farro | 3:46 | Label-pleasing compromise; Davis plays bass | |
| 6 | Never Let This Go | Williams, Farro | 3:40 | Recorded with Wisner; Billboard named it a highlight | |
| 7 | Whoa | Williams, Farro | 3:20 | The Trades' lone weak spot | |
| 8 | Conspiracy | Williams, Farro, York | 3:42 | Co-written with Taylor York | |
| 9 | Franklin | Williams, Farro | 3:20 | Hometown song | |
| 10 | My Heart | Williams, Farro | 4:00 | Josh Farro screams; recorded with Wisner |
"All We Know" opens the record and is the one that explains it. Williams told Crush Music Mag it was "almost like a letter to him saying 'I'll never forget you'". Gigwise called it a "download only single" in its April 2006 review, which was not kind to it, while Wikipedia dates the single to 16 December 2006, so release dates vary by source.
In Josh Farro's account, "Here We Go Again" was one of the songs that gave the band leverage with the label. It was the one cut recorded in Franklin rather than Florida, and the only one on which Davis plays. Trades reviewer Tony Pascarella, who saw the band play an acoustic set on the Fueled By Ramen & Friends Tour, called it "definitely my favorite" of the songs he had heard them play live.
"Brighter" was written as a tribute to Williams' friend Lanie Kealhofer, who died in a boating accident at 16. Kerrang! notes the album is dedicated to her, with the liner notes declaring "You shine brighter than anyone".
"My Heart" split critics more than anything else. Pascarella praised the screamo section as "rough yet very focused". Punknews' Jordan Rogowski called the closing growls "awful, awful background growling". Billboard, in 2015, pointed readers to "some unexpected, very 2005-era screaming".
B-sides, Outtakes & Lost Songs
"O' Star" (written by Williams and York) first surfaced as a bonus track on a Japanese edition of the album. It and "This Circle" then turned up on The Summer Tic EP, released 18 June 2006 and sold on the 2006 Warped Tour and the album's tour. The EP also carried a "Crab Mix" of "Emergency" with Josh Farro screaming, and a cover of Failure's "Stuck on You", whose lyric gave the EP its title. "O' Star" later became the B-side of the UK "Emergency" 7-inch, which also came with a band poster.
Album Artwork & Packaging
The sleeve, shown at the top of this page, is a red sofa in long grass under dark trees, against a teal night sky with stars and a bright glow in the upper right. A dark, human-shaped shadow sits across the left side of the sofa. The lowercase white "paramore" logo hangs above it, with the album title in italic script below and to the right. The artwork is credited to Electric Heat and the photography to John Deeb.
"The couch with no one there and the shadow walking away; it's all about Jeremy leaving us and us feeling like there's an empty space."
Hayley Williams, The Trades, 2005
Release & Reception
Early notices were warm. Alternative Press (1 October 2005) called it an "incredibly polished debut" and noted "it's obvious that someone has done Williams wrong". The Trades gave it an A-, with Pascarella writing:
"Hayley Williams has a rich, powerful voice that rarely makes a mistake on this stunning debut."
Tony Pascarella, The Trades, July 2005
Others were harder to win. Punknews gave it one star out of five (January 2006) and judged the songs "just too flat, too linear". Gigwise gave 5/10, concluding that "Paramore are not terrible; they are simply a transitional band". Clickmusic was fairer: "a great debut album for their age". AllMusic called it "formulaic".
The reappraisal came with the band's growth. In 2015 Alternative Press said many had written the album off as "just another pop-rock effort" but it had "evolved into a scene classic", and Kerrang! put it at No. 8 on a 2015 list of the 51 greatest pop-punk albums. Spin's 2025 countdown of Paramore's releases, which included Williams' solo albums, placed it ninth.
| Chart or award | Result |
|---|---|
| Billboard Heatseekers Albums | No. 30 (September 2006) |
| Billboard Catalog Albums | No. 8 (2009) |
| UK Albums Chart | No. 51 (2010) |
| Scottish Albums Chart | No. 5 (2026) |
| BPI | Gold, 2009 (100,000 shipments) |
| ARIA | Gold, 2012 (35,000 shipments) |
| RIAA | Gold, July 2014; platinum, 12 August 2025 |
Singles & Music Videos
| Single | Released | Video director |
|---|---|---|
| Pressure | 2 August 2005; UK 30 October 2006 | Shane Drake |
| Emergency | 21 October 2005; UK 21 August 2006 | Shane Drake |
| All We Know | 16 December 2006 (per Wikipedia) | Dan Dobi |
None of the three reached a major chart on release. "Pressure" later peaked at No. 62 on Billboard Digital Songs and was certified gold by the RIAA on 24 March 2016. Drake directed six Paramore videos in six years, and the "Pressure" clip follows a fast-food worker and a model, with a pressure dial rising until a fire alarm sets off the sprinklers and soaks the band. Drake told The Ringer: "It didn't matter what I did for a concept, it's the performance."
The "Emergency" video, according to the promotional write-up from HIP Video Promo, was shot in an abandoned warehouse, with a bloodied band waiting to be called to a shoot before a film crew is revealed. Kerrang! put the song on its "Class of '06" compilation CD.
Touring & Live
It's All Dead's 2015 retrospective credited the band's early success to relentless touring. In 2005 Paramore played the Warped Tour's Shiragirl Stage, with Hembree on bass by the time of that tour. The rest of the cycle, per Wikipedia's account:
- October and November 2005: support to Simple Plan on their US headline tour.
- December 2005: support to Funeral for a Friend.
- February 2006: Midwest and East Coast dates with Halifax, My American Heart and So They Say.
- Spring 2006: opener for Bayside and The Rocket Summer.
- March 2006: replaced on the Take Action Tour by Sullivan after Williams came down with flu.
- Summer 2006: a run on the 2006 Warped Tour, then a US headline run with Hit the Lights, Cute Is What We Aim For and This Providence, plus UK dates in October.
Davis rejoined during this period, after five months away, and Hunter Lamb replaced Jason Bynum on rhythm guitar in December 2005. Some songs outlived the line-ups: the same retrospective noted "Franklin", once a duet between Williams and Josh Farro, was by then sung live by Williams and Taylor York.
In TV, Film & Media
"Pressure" appears on the console version of The Sims 2, re-recorded with Simlish lyrics, and has been playable in Rock Band 3 as downloadable content since 27 December 2011. New Found Glory have played it live as a cover.
Reissues, Remasters & Anniversaries
- January 2009: first vinyl release.
- 19 May 2009: iTunes deluxe edition with live "Pressure" and "Here We Go Again" plus the three singles' videos.
- 4 December 2015: 10th anniversary vinyl, limited to 4,000 copies on white vinyl splattered red, green and blue, adding "O' Star" and "This Circle".
- 25 July 2025: surprise 20th anniversary edition on streaming, adding the full Summer Tic EP.
The band described the EP as "one of those things fans have always asked about". The release also arrived as Paramore finished their Atlantic contract and went independent for the first time.
Legacy & Influence
Billboard's 2015 verdict was that the album sent the band "rocketing in popularity within the pop-punk circuit" and set up the mainstream success of Riot!, which entered the Billboard 200 at No. 20 in 2007. Kerrang! called All We Know Is Falling "the fearless debut of a band that would change the face of pop-punk" over the ten years that followed, and "astonishingly impressive stuff for a bunch of small-town teenagers".
The band later added a self-titled album in 2013 and This Is Why in 2023, which earned two Grammys. Songfacts describes "Pressure" and "Emergency" as fan favourites that often show up in setlists. Josh and Zac Farro left the band in December 2010.
Things You Might Not Know
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Five names, four faces | Online credits listed five members in July 2005, but the promo photos showed four, because the photo shoot took place when the band were only a four-piece. |
| The warehouse audition | Janick was not sold on Paramore from demos alone; he saw an acoustic Taste of Chaos set, then asked for a warehouse performance. |
| The Summer Tic title | The EP's name comes from a lyric in the Failure song "Stuck on You", not from anything Paramore wrote. |
| A bassist who never recorded | The Trades' July 2005 review listed John Hembree as Paramore's bassist, yet he does not appear in the album's credits. |
| The first-ever video | Director Shane Drake recalled "Pressure" as "the very first video they did", though Williams told Crush Music Mag in July 2005 that they had just shot live footage for "All We Know". |
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