How Tame Impala Created A Genre

Tame Impala started as experimental music in the Perth rock scene but soon turned into headlining Coachella and other international music festivals, playing the most alluring psychedelic music of the modern era.

Written by Micaela Garza
Illustrated by Mark Yoder

Crossing over from one genre to another is always a challenge for modern musicians, but diligence and natural talent are a powerful combination, especially when creating incredibly rare music. Kevin Parker, the creative genius behind the music project Tame Impala, has managed to morph his sound from one genre to another in a seamless flow, drawing on influences from various artists and blending elements of psychedelic rock, pop, and electronic music that have created an easily recognizable but nonetheless unique style that is all his own.

After releasing a few EPs on independent record labels in the late 2000s, Tame Impala released its debut LP Innerspeaker, a rock-forward album that drew heavily on ‘60s psychedelia, using distorted electric guitar sounds and echoing soundscape vocals to evoke a fresh and modern nostalgia that won rave reviews from critics and a slew of nominations for several Australian music awards in the early 2010s. Hypnotic acid-trip elements bleed through on tracks like “Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind?” and “Solitude Is Bliss,” which feature a distinct layering of vocals and guitar riffs with a fuzzy mono filter. Much like The Beatles created the soundtrack to psychedelia with their iconic albums Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it was this album that paved the way for much of modern psychedelia to come.

2012’s Lonerism serves as a continuation of the psychedelic themes presented within Kevin Parker’s music, this time with a few sonic holes and synthesized strings intricately woven in the fabric of the album’s music. It was on this record that Parker decided to experiment with the guilty pleasure concept of “pop” music, stating in an interview with Cosmic Magazine, “There are more pop songs on Lonerism than the first (album) or anything I’d done before. Even though the sound is totally gnarled and blown out, to me it sounded like Backstreet Boys in some of it, or it sounded like Prince.” The single “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” was one of the first highly-acclaimed Tame Impala songs to feature synth-driven pop melodies. This is in high contrast to the other most recognized single from the album, “Elephant,” which features a chugging, bluesy guitar sound and an organ solo reminiscent of Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin. It was this dichotomy of psychedelic ecstasy combined with acid distortion that was the first sign of Tame Impala’s new pop-driven direction.

Parker widened the space between his second and third albums, taking three years to release the studio album Currents. The perfectionism long associated with Parker’s work ethic showed in the drastic switch he made from relaxed, distorted guitar sounds to perfectly timed synthesizers, loops, and electronic drum kit beats. In an interview with Maxim, Parker elaborated on his obsession with creating a perfect record: “I felt like, this way the album is even more my heart and soul, my blood, sweat, and tears.”

Throughout the decade of Tame Impala, Parker has maintained a notoriously constant desire to have total control over his art form, having produced every one of Tame Impala’s studio albums himself. In the studio, Kevin generates all of the instrumentals and vocal tracks himself, often recording hundreds of vocal takes in the making of one song. The relaxed and hazy-headed melancholy of neo-psychedelia eventually took a backseat to a new wave of the Tame Impala sound that blends the bright-eyed elements of pop with futuristic electronic music and the dreamy headspace of an acid trip. It can be heard from the flooding build up on the album’s first track “Let It Happen” to the ambient vocals on the album’s conclusion “New Person, Same Old Mistakes.”

Looking at the band’s Spotify page in the years following Currents, it appears like not much happened in the Tame Impala universe in the time since their last album was released. Behind the scenes, however, that couldn’t be further from the truth. During the five-year break, Parker decided to laser-focus on his production skills, creating music with many artists across all genres, including Mick Jagger, Travis Scott, and Lady Gaga, the latter of whom he picked up production credit for the song “Perfect Illusion” on 2016’s Joanne. Parker’s newfound passion for music production led him to create songs that he initially assumed he was writing for someone else, before realizing he was actually creating Tame Impala material: “Admittedly I didn’t think “Is It True” would be a Tame Impala song when I started it. Now I can’t imagine the album without it,” he said in the accompanying Spotify storyline for recent album release The Slow Rush.

Every song that Parker has written, recorded, or produced — for Tame Impala or not — has been a minute closer to the masterpiece that is The Slow Rush. The musical journey of Tame Impala has also been a personal journey for Parker, as he has become more comfortable expressing his interest in pop music and branching out of the psychedelic rock sound. The subsequent production quality of every Tame Impala record has surpassed the record that came before, turning the project’s raw and organic roots into refined sound-waves as the years have gone by. His talents have bloomed, his horizons have expanded, and his production process has matured.

The gentle fusion of genres featured on Parker’s previous three albums reaches new heights on The Slow Rush — it features obvious inspiration from new facets of pop. Disco cymbals and a funky French house beat reminiscent of Daft Punk round out the opening track “One More Year” and “Glimmer,” and the track “Breathe Deeper” is Kevin’s ode to pop songstress Mariah Carey, featuring a kitschy vaporwave interlude that Parker says he likes to imagine exists in an alternate universe. Easy-listening elements of yacht-rock bands like Steely Dan show up on tracks like “Instant Destiny,” and the legacy of operatic stadium-rock legends Queen is channeled into songs “On Track” and “One More Hour.” The production neuroticism that has garnered Parker such highly acclaimed status peaked again with a reworked version of the dance song “Borderline,” which was originally released as a single during the five-year-long incubation period of The Slow Rush, the newer version of which is called “Version 2.0” by Parker himself.

Tame Impala is easily recognizable because of the way in which Parker molds his songs to fit the same psychedelic form using different mediums. All of the influences from a wide range of genres are prominent on the new album, yet somehow The Slow Rush still carries that distinct “trippy” drug-induced sound that Tame Impala fans know and love. The quality of Parker’s music has undeniably become cleaner and more refined, through a slow rush of creative artistry, natural talent, and diligent effort. Tame Impala is not a band, but one determined man’s feelings and skills embodied into a musical experience that offers the dopamine-laced effects of the many substances the genre “psychedelia” was named for.

Afterglow ATXApril 7, 2020