Paris Hilton's "Paris"

Adam uses guesses, misinformation and outright lies to review music he's never heard.

by Adam Brown

It's an unfortunate reality in modern music that sometimes great albums go completely unnoticed.  Sadly, that will probably be the case with Paris, the riff heavy debut album from little known hard rock newcomer Paris Hilton.  Recorded on a shoestring budget using her own money (reportedly earned while working at a hotel in some capacity), "Paris" is nothing short of a modern rock masterpiece.  An unrelenting, uncompromising vision of what rock and roll in the 21st century should be.  Unfortunately, it's that failure to compromise and conform to the pre-packaged pop music standards of today that will ultimately spell doom for this album.  Commercially, anyway.  In a world where whorish heiresses are famous just for being famous, and shitty actresses crank out multi-platinum shitty albums, there is no room on the charts for a scrappy indie rock phenom like Paris Hilton.  And that, my friends, is a tragedy.    

Throughout it's 11 devil horn worthy tracks, Paris hearkens back to better days when rock and roll ruled the world.  The opening track, "Turn It Up", is a tour de force of memorable riffs, face melting guitar solos and an anthemic chorus on par with Queen's "We Will Rock You".  It's the kind of song that starts bar fights.  It's mosh pit energy serves as the perfect segue into "Fightin' Over Me", a balls to the wall rock and roll pain train filled with punk rock distortion and heavy metal attitude.  And that train never stops rolling for the remainder of the album.  Yeah!!  

While Hilton's songwriting abilities are practically unmatched in modern music, it's her guitar prowess that really stands out.  Earlier this year, a popular rumor spread via the internet amongst Hilton's small but passionate fanbase.  According to the story, she sold her soul to satan in exchange for guitar lessons from the resurrected corpse of Jimi Hendrix.  I can't vouch for the authenticity of this now famous urban legend, but after listening to "Heartbeat", the opening track on side two of Paris, it sure seems plausible to me.  The song is an epic, 11 minute display of guitar shreddery that has to be heard to be believed.  Remember that scene in that "Crossroads" movie where Ralph Macchio has a guitar duel with that old black dude that turns out to be the devil?  Well, imagine if that scene ended with Chuck Norris roundhouse kicking Macchio AND the devil in the face, stealing their guitars, selling them and then using the money to hole up in a seedy motel with four Thai hookers and a pound of blow for the weekend.  Yeah, "Heartbeat" is that awesome.  Yngwie Malmsteen, you've been warned.

With all of this going for it, you would expect Paris  to dominate the charts for months to come.  But this is 2006, and rock is dead.  Or at least it's dead to anyone looking for real rock on the radio.  The rappers and "actresses" have taken over those airwaves and aren't letting go anytime soon.  But there are still great rock and roll albums out there, and Paris is one of them.  Just don't expect to hear about it on Entertainment Tonight.