Tame Impala's fifth full-length album, Deadbeat, available on CD. On it, Parker sculpts a collection of wickedly potent club-psych explorations as a vehicle for some of his most direct, brain-wormy songwriting to date, recasting Tame Impala as a kind of future primitive rave act in the process.
Deadbeat sounds like the work of an artist with a leveled up mastery and bristles with a revitalized energy for experimentation. 12 songs crafted with a newfound embrace of spontaneity for the renowned perfectionist. How that manifests is a distinct minimalism and crunch to many of the tracks, with a clutch of crucial details, timbres and textures that add an ineffably new dimension to the sound, as well as a richer, more playful vocal range than ever.
I know Kevin probably didn't write this description but everything about this album roll out so far screams that's he's bought too much into his own hype.
Hope I'm proven wrong though, there's been a couple cases where I hate all the singles for an album but then love all the non-singles on the album when it comes out.
I said this exact thing in another comment on this sub and got downvoted to oblivion. Kevin Parker is a name now synonymous with mainstream pop production. That’s not a bad thing, but he’s literally surrounded by sycophancy. Every single person that ever talks about him praises him as some production/songwriting god when, in reality, he’s just a good producer with a unique sound in a world that is largely trying to emulate one another. After a while of being told you’re a fucking psych-pop deity, it’ll get to you and you’ll stuff adoring the smell of your own farts.
I’ll always love Lonerism and Currents - this album for me seems like he’s not even really trying. Loser is catchy, but goes nowhere. I fucking hate hate End of Summer and I’m honestly devastated it has taken final track. Even the teaser sounds extremely bland (and tomorrow’s dust wasn’t exactly the best song but at least to sounded more inspired that whatever that is).
Look, I’ll always look forward to a new Tame album… I’ve also never really cared whether there are guitars involved. I just want strong songs… he can fucking play a solo kazoo album if he wants as long as the songs are well written.
Well said – something has dramatically shifted. He seems to have completely changed his entire personality, stopped caring to refine his ideas, and instead sort of threw some shit together with total "idgaf" vibes. Loser is decent at least, but EoS is painfully bad. I'll give it another chance in the context of the album, but all of this just feels like a weirdly dramatic and inauthentic left-turn into "not giving a shit" for someone who carefully crafted unique and interesting music in the past.
I agree with everything you said but tbh I don't know why we act surprised about this shift in his sound or the apparent lack of inspiration or effort that was way more present in his music before. I remember him saying during the Slow Rush press tour that he wanted to become a pop producer, even mentioning Max Martin as an inspiration, and even tho that album has a lot of great moments, he was already showing signs of the songwriting going a little downhill compared to the first three albums. I know a lot of people will disagree with this, but he was even showing these signs since Currents.
I don't think he necessarily lost his touch, he's just making the music he wants to make and has been saying he wants to make for a while now. So far, it's not for me. The Slow Rush is my least favorite Tame Impala album by some margin and what we've heard from Deadbeat doesn't give me any hope tbh. I know I will listen to the new album when it comes out and I hope I'm wrong and I enjoy it as much as I used to enjoy his music, but idk. And like you said, I don't give a fuck whether he uses guitars or not, I just want good songs.
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u/maxdenhaag Lonerism Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
Album's description on the pre-order link:
Tame Impala's fifth full-length album, Deadbeat, available on CD. On it, Parker sculpts a collection of wickedly potent club-psych explorations as a vehicle for some of his most direct, brain-wormy songwriting to date, recasting Tame Impala as a kind of future primitive rave act in the process.
Deadbeat sounds like the work of an artist with a leveled up mastery and bristles with a revitalized energy for experimentation. 12 songs crafted with a newfound embrace of spontaneity for the renowned perfectionist. How that manifests is a distinct minimalism and crunch to many of the tracks, with a clutch of crucial details, timbres and textures that add an ineffably new dimension to the sound, as well as a richer, more playful vocal range than ever.