Why did Hayley Williams delete her album before dropping 17 singles?

Hayley Williams pulled 17 songs from her site, only to re-release them, not as an album, but as standalone singles.

Hayley Williams is turning the album concept on its head. Just days ago, the Paramore frontwoman quietly uploaded 17 new songs to her website, each as a clickable file with password protection. There was no track list, no official album name, just raw audio files scattered like fragments of a desktop. Then, without warning, she took them all down.

Now, the same 17 tracks have returned, not as an album, but as individually released singles through her new label, Post Atlantic. Fans hoping for a cohesive record will have to wait. Williams is adamant these are not meant to be sequenced. “It’s 17 songs. Seventeen singles,” reads the blunt confirmation across fan circles. No title. No order. Just music.

The release marks her first major project since she and Paramore exited their longtime contract with Atlantic Records. Going fully independent, she’s partnered with Secretly Distribution to drop the songs on streaming platforms, sidestepping traditional album cycles.

Among the tracks is True Believer, a fiery critique of American evangelicalism, echoing her recent statements about the Christian Contemporary Music industry. Another focus track, GLUM, plays with vocal manipulation, transforming her signature voice into something glitchy and unfamiliar. Fans have latched onto songs like Ice in My OJ and Discovery Channel, the latter repurposing a chorus from the Bloodhound Gang’s 1999 hit The Bad Touch.

Rumours persist that the project is secretly titled Ego or Ego Death, but nothing official has been announced. Instead, Williams seems to be inviting listeners into a choose-your-own-album experience, one that challenges how music is consumed and categorised.

In true Hayley fashion, she’s thrown out the rulebook. And fans are left piecing together the story, one single at a time.