Machine Gun Kelly + Travis Barker Cover Paramore’s ‘Misery Business': Listen
Machine Gun Kelly certainly wasn't lying.
Over the past few months, the entertainer said he was focusing on rock and pop punk, as opposed to the hip-hop he made his name on. And all alongside his frequent musical cohort, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker.
On Thursday (March 26), the pair released a high-energy cover of Paramore's classic "Misery Business." The spiky braggadocio of the original remains mostly intact in the rendition from the rapper-turned-actor and his close collaborator. Listen to the redone version down toward the bottom of this post.
But MGK's evident devotion to the track means that portions of the tune its songwriters now find unsavory are left untouched.
It was just earlier this month that Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams reiterated her contemporary stance against the song. Around the time of this year's International Women's Day (March 8), the singer called out Spotify for including the 2007 Riot! single on a playlist called "Women of Rock."
"I know it's one of the band's biggest songs," Williams said, "but it shouldn't be used to promote anything having to do with female empowerment or solidarity."
The Paramore singer's modern-day opinion concerns the song's lyrics, namely the line, "Once a whore, you're nothing more / I'm sorry that'll never change." Williams had first publicly distanced herself from the song in 2015. A couple of years later, Paramore retired the track from their live performances.
But Machine Gun Kelly's cover of "Misery Business" leaves the lyric as is. Even though the rendition does switch up the gender perspective of the song's narrative, the disparaging utterance in the second verse remains.
Machine Gun Kelly + Travis Barker, "Misery Business" (Paramore Cover)
See Paramore in 55 Scene Albums That Went Platinum