Paramore's Hayley Williams Explains How “TRL” Worked, Jokes, 'Sounds Like I'm Talking About the 1950s'
The Paramore frontwoman looks back at how TRL was formative to shaping millennials' music tastes
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Damien Fahey and Rihanna interviewing Paramore on TRL in 2007Millennials all remember racing home after school in time to sit down and catch TRL.
NBC News Studios My Generation looks back at MTV's Total Request Live (TRL), and what it meant to millennials who were coming of age and developing their own musical tastes in that late '90s era.
"Total Request Live was a countdown show that relied on votes to decide what was the No. 1 music video in the country," Paramore's Hayley Williams shares.
"Gosh now talking about it literally sounds like I’m talking about the 1950s," she adds, laughing.
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Carson Daly and Britney Spears on TRL in the 2000sRelated: Carson Daly Throwback Photos from the TRL Days
By people around the country casting their votes, the results became an eclectic countdown that had hip-hop hits playing between bubblegum pop, alternative rock tunes and country anthems.
"There was a time that I probably wouldn’t have admitted to listening to *NSYNC," Williams says.
"But let’s be real — I wouldn’t have learned five-part harmony or how to structure a vocal arrangement if I hadn’t grown up on pop music that had complex vocal arrangements," she continues. "To this day, I look back on those memories and think, ‘That’s why I’m here.’ ”
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Carson Daly interviewing Destiny's Child on TRL in 2001Carson Daly's MTV show wasn't the only place millennials were turning to for new music. The social media network MySpace also quickly became a place for musical discovery and for artists, a chance to reach new fans and hit it big.
“I remember MySpace days vividly. We tour all over the world now and I know that that would not happen had we not built this sort of community that we built online," Williams says of Paramore's success.
"We would post our photos and change our profile photos often. We would change our Top 8 to reflect what bands we were listening to or touring with at the time and we answered every MySpace message that we could.”
Learn more about the moments that made millennials, as narrated by Kristen Bell, on My Generation.
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