Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party is the third studio album by the American singer-songwriter Hayley Williams. She first uploaded 17 of the 18 songs to her official website on July 28, 2025, and later released them as standalone tracks onto streaming services on August 1. Williams officially self-released the album on August 28, 2025, under an independent imprint titled Post Atlantic, two years after her departure from Atlantic Records. Williams co-wrote the songs, performed several instruments, and collaborated with the producer Daniel James, who was accompanied by Jim-E Stack and Brian Robert Jones on select tracks.
On July 23, 2025, the Nashville public radio station WNXP reported that a new song by Williams would be premiering on the station that night.[3] The announcement was accompanied by a video of a person holding a CD which had the words "Mirtazapine" and "Glum" written with a marker.[4] The former, referring to the antidepressant of the same name, was ultimately the song in question, premiering as scheduled without any detail regarding any official release.[4][5] It was Williams's first solo release since her 2021 album Flowers for Vases / Descansos.[6] On July 28, the singer uploaded 17 new songs—including the aforementioned—to her official website.[7] The tracks could only be accessed after entering a 16-digit code that was sent to fans who purchased a product from Williams's hair dye company Good Dye Young.[8][9] Music publications gave the untitled collection of songs the title Ego, the same name of the yellow dye product from Williams's brand.[9][10] The website featured a similar style as 2000s Microsoft Windows desktop displays, including the unordered tracks in a MP3 file format above a yellow background with pictures of her dog.[11][12] Around 24 hours after its publication, the collection was removed from the site, which disclosed the message, "Thank you for listening."[13][14]
Williams surprise-released the 17 songs for streaming on August 1, 2025, as individual singles.[15][16] It marked her first independent release following her departure from Atlantic Records in 2023—more than 20 years after the beginning of the contract as part of Paramore—and was published under an imprint listed as "Post Atlantic" and distributed via Secretly Distribution.[17][15][18][19] A music video for the track "Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party", directed by Zachary Gray, premiered on August 5.[20] The video was set in Nashville and features a cameo from the politician Justin Jones.[21] In an interview with Billboard, Williams's manager Leah Hodgkiss said that the release marketing was motivated by their idea to "make music tangible" and "an experience" again. She elaborated on how people tend to "not even pay attention to what [they are] listening to" due to curated playlists on streaming platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music. Williams wanted to refer to the songs as individual singles as she did not think of an album throughout the writing process.[22] The track "Glum" also received a music video, which was co-directed by AJ Gibboney and the Paramore member Zac Farro, and premiered on August 18.[23][24] It was followed by acoustic versions, "Glum (in the Park)" and "Kill Me (in the Garden)".[25] In an Instagram story, Williams said that the collection would be issued physically, although not meant to be considered an album.[26] She also revealed that she was "listening to potential track-list orders and still trying to create [her] own", hinting at a future re-packaging.[27]
Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party was officially released as an album to streaming media on August 28, 2025. It features the 17 previously released songs alongside "Parachute" as the closing track, which premiered on BBC Radio 1 the same date.[28][29] Various physical formats are scheduled to be issued on November 7, 2025, also via Post Atlantic.[30] While announcing the release and final tracklist on social media, Williams filled tracks 19 and 20 with blank spaces, hinting at two more songs to be released.[31][32] To complete the tracks order, she was inspired by a fan-made website that collected fans's preferred listings shared as playlists.[33][34][35] In an interview with Zane Lowe, the singer explained how she "really did want to shirk the responsibility" and was "interested in other people's perspectives", stating that she was not able to have one as she was "in the eye of [the] storm".[36]
Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party was met with widespread acclaim from music critics upon its release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 93 based on seven reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[42]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Hayley Williams and Daniel James, and produced by Daniel James, except where noted.
↑ "Ice in My OJ" interpolates "Jumping Inside" by Mammoth City Messengers (written by Matt Bronleewe, Jeremy Bose, and Tasia Tjornhom).
↑ "Love Me Different" contains a sample of "Fior di Latte" by Phoenix (written by Christian Mazzalai, Thomas Croquet, Laurent Mazzalai, and Frederic Moulin).
↑ "Discovery Channel" interpolates "The Bad Touch" by Bloodhound Gang (written by James Franks, Jonathan Hensleigh, Greg Taylor, Jim Strain, and Chris Van Allsburg).
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