Tame Impala Fan Thread

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"Kevin Parker's albums are... timeless"

"I just don't think Kevin Parker is the kind of dude to make a bad album"

"Kevin is the best, most melodic Australian artist in a very long time."

"Now, there's an originality and freshness in Tame Impala. Their music is a pastiche and their psychedelic influences are tangible. Kevin Parker is a very, very good songwriter, and uses his obvious influences to create something relatively... new."

Around this time, I'm guessing.
 
Fair call bra. s**t. That was fawning.

Ultimately opinions can change though? I don't know why people get this obsession with 'hahhh gotcha!' when you change your mind on something?
 

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More about the insults levelled at the guy and his fans. Pretty radical change in tone, no? Just wondered what happened.

(btw I wasn't a big fan of the last album and haven't even bothered with the new tracks yet, so I'm not a salty redditer or whatevs)
 
I found Patience a real weird choice for the lead single. They’re coming into what should be their biggest ever year, so I thought they would’ve lead with something more likely to be a Less I Know The Better like hit. While I do like both Patience and Borderline, neither really standout to me as major hits, but then again, The Less I Know The Better wasn’t released before Currents, so who knows what we’ve got coming.
 
NotAMagpieBogan said:
I found Patience a real weird choice for the lead single. They’re coming into what should be their biggest ever year, so I thought they would’ve lead with something more likely to be a Less I Know The Better like hit. While I do like both Patience and Borderline, neither really standout to me as major hits, but then again, The Less I Know The Better wasn’t released before Currents, so who knows what we’ve got coming.
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I don't think 'let it happen' was a true indication of what Currents ended up being like in general.

I think the 2 new songs were released for the build up of playing Coachella.
 
I think people overstate originality and use it as a get out clause when it comes to discussing a band, but the reality is no band is truly original and there are obvious influences in most artists.

I actually don’t really see the Beatles connection much at all. Kevin Parker kind of sounds like John Lennon, but the guitars are more reminiscent of Pink Floyd but they’d use the kind of reverb pedals any run-of-the-mill dream-pop band would record with.

They’re on a steady decline, and basically never hit any huge heights musically anyway, but they’re a decent band.
 
Well, apparently their current live show is incredible, they've basically focussed on big sound and visuals over just looking at the band. So they've really upped the live show to almost Floyd/Wall like grandiose! Even their playing is apparently way better than ever. If that filters to their next album after this year's LP, then we could be in for a big sounding follow up to whatever comes out this year.
 
I'm a bit weird with Tame. Dug their self-titled EP, fell away during Innerspeaker/Lonerism which I had little interest in, then started to come back around with Currents/recent singles.
 
Silent Alarm said:
Amazing to see these early posts, very interesting.

Personally cannot ******* stand them though. They're just repackaging old sounds for a younger set of people. It's basically drug-era Beatles and many bands have done that since and ya know, many did it better and added some of their own flair.

I don't think Kevin Parker is an interesting singer and I really don't think he has anything interesting to say. A private school kid whose dad was minted and now lives in Freo and claims it because it's trendy... songs about feeling crap and girls need to have some tidy turns of phrase and this guy doesn't.

Their massive success in America probably just comes from the landscape. The college kids who go to festivals are more interested in meme music. ****in Mo Bamba is like the national anthem. Drake, electronica. Droney guitars and distant singing sounds different enough and thus the flow-on effect occurs.

Anyway can't wait for the reddit tier herd mentality to chip me about being a sook but I just do not rate them at all.
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Surely you're being a tad harsh? I honestly don't understand the vitriolic hatred.

They obviously lean heavily on 60s/70s psychedelic rock, however they also incorporate modern synth instrumentation that gives them a unique sound IMO. I challenge you to show me a "drug-era Beatles" song that sounds anything like Let It Happen, Apocalypse Dreams, Feel Like We Only Go Backwards, The Less I Know The Better or Mind Mischief?

Anyway, for mine they are the best band to come out of Australia in the past 30 years. The Avalanches, Cut Copy, The Drones, King Gizzard & You Am I have released some great songs in that period, but none have managed to put together 3 classic albums with countless great singles like Tame Impala.
 

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In Berlin at the moment and there are huge posters for their upcoming show on what feels like every street corner

I guess that means the Germans love them or they have invested heavily in promotion
 
By the way not a huge fan only really heard them through an old housemate who played them alot but noone can deny that sick as bass riff in the Less I Know...
Talk about an earworm, goddamn
 
The 4th album will be released soon and there is not any talk on here about it.

Anyone looking forward to it?

Tame Impala are one of the few bands I've discovered and seen live before their debut was released so I have always taken an interest in Kevin Parkers progression as an artist.

I really liked 'Patience' but it won't be on the album, the 3 songs that have been released sound good enough but none them blew me away like 'Let it Happen' did.
 
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As a band they suffer from having few genuine classic songs. I really like Elephants and Feels Like We Only Go Backwards, and these are probably the best off Lonerism, but they aren’t 10/10 bangers. InnerSpeaker has a number of cool sound tracks; Lucidity is my favourite Tame Impala song, but the back half of that album is incredibly thin. It loses all momentum after Solitude Is Bliss.

Kevin Parker has definitely found a good range of sounds to work with, but overall he’s an unremarkable songwriter with few really high quality sets of lyrics. As a guitarist he’s so-so. He’s capable of some nice riffs, although I don’t think we’ve heard anything significant since the first LP, as they’ve delved more into groove-based songs.

I think it’s good they’ve continued to change their sound almost obsessively, and these newer RnB inspired tracks seem like a pretty natural progression for Tame Impala, but I don’t think we ever saw them really lock into making an amazing rock album and they focused far more on exploration for exploration’s sake and expanded their palette to the point they’re unrecognisable from their earlier Sabbath style demos, which were really solid.

I’m keen to hear the new LP, but after Currents I’m lowering my expectations and I just can’t ever see them putting out another genuinely unique, interesting album.
 
I thought the Slow Rush was a really good album.

Some of Parkers latest collaborations are a bit hit and miss but hopefully it's not an indication of what the next Tame Impala might sound like.
 
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