Before Tame Impala began previewing their sophomore album Lonerism in 2012, a psychedelic rock explosion in the mainstream felt almost impossible. Innerspeaker, the 2010 debut from Kevin Parker and his fellow Aussie instrumentalists, was an enjoyable, spaced-out vision of older psychedelia made modern, but its crossover potential didn’t exactly leap out of the speakers — even with cosigns from this website and several others.
Like many, I hitched myself to Tame Impala after hearing “Apocalypse Dreams” and Lonerism from — and this was perhaps a small hint of how broad the crossover would be — one of the metalheads I played with in second period Jazz Ensemble. Bewildered at the song’s scope, immersive production, and Parker’s shimmering head voice, it felt like I was finally hearing a band I’d waited my entire life to find. Even back then, it absolutely tracked that the local metal community was head over heels for Parker’s instrumental prowess; his reinterpretations of the classic rock canon, sometimes sounding like Lennon singing above Page, acid-washed and filtered through a kaleidoscope, were as indelible then as they are now.
But very soon, it wasn’t just the hipsters or the metalheads bumping Tame Impala. It was the rock fans, the pop fans, the hip-hop heads in the midst of having their minds blown by Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean’s own high concept material. Indie music had thoroughly crossed over to the mainstream, so “Elephant” blasted behind car commercials, on the radio, in grocery stores. By the time Tame Impala returned for their still-beloved third album Currents in 2015, they felt destined to be the biggest band of their cohort.
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The rise of streaming in the mid 2010s, coupled with Parker’s noted prowess in pop songwriting and production, brought Tame Impala from burgeoning rock outfit to influential vibe connoisseurs. The success of Currents and songs like “The Less I Know the Better” cemented Parker’s reputation as a master of mood and atmosphere, a go-to architect of immaculately-crafted vibes. But to reduce Tame Impala to background music for sunset Instagram stories would be to miss the intricate songcraft, the melancholic emotional depth, and the restless experimentation that have always defined Parker’s work — even as the world caught up to him.
Since Currents, Parker has appropriately expanded outwards; somewhere along the way, it also became clearer to the world that Tame Impala really was just one guy toiling away in the studio. The Slow Rush, Parker’s fourth effort, found him embracing a more existential tenor and accepting that, to quote “It Might Be Time,” “You’re not as young as you used to be.” In a bit of cruel irony, his album about taking it slow, breathing deeper, and accepting that which we cannot control would arrive barely a month before the world shut down from the COVID pandemic.
Now, Parker has resurfaced once again with Deadbeat, his fifth album and the most “Tame Impala as house music” attempt yet. The album has its fair share of Tame Impala majesty, but overall, it’s a bit of weightless effort; extended experiments like “End of Summer” and “Ethereal Connection” lack the dynamism of Parker’s previous work, while a lot of his lyrical motifs start and end in the same place. Luckily, the album spawned “Dracula,” which — spoiler alert — is one of Tame Impala’s finest tracks to date.
Read on to see our list of Tame Impala’s 10 best songs, from “Apocalypse Dreams” to “Borderline” and beyond. Also, get tickets to see Tame Impala live here.
—Paolo Ragusa
Live Music Editor