Inside Hayley Williams’ Unconventional Singles Release Strategy That’s Kept Fans Guessing

On July 28, Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams released a new hair dye color through her Good Dye Young brand, allowing 2,000 fans to snap up the limited run of new product. But when they did, they were met with something unexpected: a code, which they were encouraged to share, that unlocked 17 new singles uploaded to Williams’ website, scattered at random across the page. Two days later, the songs disappeared — only for them to then be uploaded to streaming services — not as a full collected album, but as 17 individual singles, all packaged separately with their own artwork.

The collection of songs — which fans have been referring to as Ego, after the name of the hair dye color — represents Williams’ first solo work since 2021, and fans have been having fun with it, making their own playlists and mixing up the tracklists, creating their own artwork, and more, with Williams inviting those fans into the creative process alongside her. The somewhat confusing release strategy was fully intentional, driving fan, press and industry interest for Williams’ first release as an independent artist after leaving Atlantic Records — and it helps earn her co-manager Leah Hodgkiss the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.

Hodgkiss, who manages Williams as well as Paramore alongside co-manager Mark Mercado and also works with Rico Nasty and The Linda Lindas, was heavily involved in the marketing rollout, as well as the creation of her indie venture — aptly titled Post Atlantic — which is being distributed by Secretly. Here, she discusses the creative behind the rollout, the intentional decision not to label or package the singles as an album, and why fans were so central to the campaign from the start. “You have to know who you’re marketing to,” Hodgkiss says. “If you’re just doing things that have never been done before, but you don’t know why you’re doing them, or who you’re doing them for, none of it’s going to connect.”

This week, Hayley Williams released a collection of 17 songs, first through an access code on her website, then on streaming services, each of them individually labeled instead of packaged as an album. What was the idea behind going that route? 

It’s a tough question to answer, as there were so many ideas. But what we kept coming back to is that we wanted to make music tangible again. Right now, it all feels so passive, for better or for worse. There are so many incredibly curated playlists on Spotify, Apple, what have you, that it’s so easy to open your chosen DSP and click shuffle and not even pay attention to what you’re listening to. 

We started with trying to answer that question: How do we make music an experience again? How do we force people to interact with the music beyond clicking a green play button on Spotify? Hayley, myself and [Fly South co-founder/owner and Williams co-manager] Mark Mercado spent so many days going back and forth trying to answer that question. What’s the right level of “annoying”?

I think, for a casual fan of Hayley, we went far beyond that with this rollout. But we knew from the beginning that this rollout was not for the casual fan. It was really important for Hayley to feel reconnected to her core fan base here. So, this rollout is meant for them.

Is there a specific reason these are being referred to as all individual singles, rather than a collected album?

The short answer is that Hayley started writing these songs towards the beginning of the year and they just poured out of her. There were some days she’d send us two songs in a single afternoon. And so I think this collection wrote itself, before any of us knew she was writing an “album.” And instead of sitting with these finished songs for months and months, and curating the tracklist, the vinyl, selecting the singles, etc., Hayley said, “What if I just put them all out as singles all on the same day?”  

What went into all the facets of the execution of this rollout?

So much. Hayley and her best friend/right hand Brian O’Connor co-founded Good Dye Young [GDY] nearly a decade ago. We knew GDY was looking to launch a limited run of Hayley’s new hair color in early Q3 of 2025, and we knew Hayley was writing this incredible batch of songs. We had the early idea to make the launch of the two synonymous. We thought it would be such a cool fan experience to rush to buy a signed carton of Hayley’s new hair dye, as they were extremely limited, but then wait…what’s this code for? 

It was, intentionally, a poorly kept secret, as we encouraged fans on the access page to share the code with their friends. We wanted to engage more than just the 2,000 hair dye purchasers with this. Jordan Short with LUUM Studio, our creative director, was key in making sure this not only looked as perfect as it did, but worked flawlessly, too. 

Another crucial component to this rollout was all of the brilliant work of our publicist, Meg Helsel at Grandstand. I am not sure you realize how difficult releasing 17 singles all on the same day that are not an album, and there is no tracklist order, but maybe there will be, is to talk about in a press release. Hayley always had a very clear vision for what this rollout would look like in the press. She wanted to do nothing that you would expect her to. So, her music dropped online, and she made a sandwich with Aimee France. And I think that created way more conversation than a more traditional interview would have. The strategy has not only been incredibly intentional but very authentic to Hayley. 

This is her first collection of solo material since 2021, and first since leaving Atlantic Records. What does this new period as an independent artist represent for her?

This era has been extremely heavy-handed on choice. It may come across cliché, but it’s truly been a reclamation of self for Hayley. She has control over who’s on her team, what’s behind her release strategy, her musical choices, how it’s being released, all of the when, where, what and why for the first time in 20-plus years. It’s not only been refreshing, but inspiring to witness. She’s having fun again. 

What have you made of the fan response to the release?

It’s unbelievable. I’ll shout out one fan here, as I literally just sent this out to a group chat of ours. It sums up how we’re all feeling. 

I think Hayley’s decision to involve and empower fans to create something alongside her was the best, and smartest, thing we’ve done, as it really is an ongoing active experience. We see it in all of the artwork and banter online and the tracklists we listen through. And it’s just the beginning — so much more is still yet to come.

What have you learned from working on this project that you can apply to other areas of your work and career?

Two things come to mind. Mark has managed Hayley and Paramore since 2004. He made the decision to bring me onto the management team with the last Paramore cycle, This Is Why. He’s not only been a mentor to me, but a real partner through all of this. And one thing he’s constantly reminding me is, there’s a whole lot of benefit to keeping your team small, but you need a team. You cannot do it all yourself. And lastly, no one knows their music and their community better than the artist themselves.