Producer, singer, and songwriter Kevin Parker, better known as Tame Impala, got his start in the early 2010s with the two psychedelic rock projects “Innerspeaker” and “Lonerism,” which were received pretty well by fans. His 2015 project “Currents,” which leaned more into psychedelic pop, was a huge critical and financial success, with songs like “The Less I Know The Better” and “New Person, Same Old Mistakes” having hundreds of millions, even billions of streams on streaming platforms. His 2020 album, “The Slow Rush,” was less of a critical success than “Currents,” but tracks like “Borderline” and “Posthumous Forgiveness” saw major success, even if not as much as “Currents”’ biggest hits. Tame Impala is a strange case in music. He has some of the highest-streamed songs of all time, yet he’s never seemed to fully break into the mainstream consciousness, or even the charts.
After a five-year wait following “The Slow Rush,” with a few singles in between, the first single for the album, “End of Summer,” was released on July 25. The track’s house genre inspirations drew decent reactions from fans. The album was officially announced in September 2024.
Parker’s biggest strength, since his debut, has been his production. Even his weakest works at least sound phenomenal. The guitars on his earlier works, the psychedelic, spacey production on “Currents” and “The Slow Rush,” and more, solidified his status as a modern production great.
Parker’s strong production is still present on “Deadbeat,” particularly in the album’s strongest singles. “Dracula” has fun, dance-inspired production that works well with the track’s catchy chorus. “Loser” takes a bit more influence from Parker’s rock work, with some fun guitars combined with another catchy, self-deprecating chorus. Some tracks on the album itself also sound quite decent, particularly the opener “My Old Ways.” Not every track is a production hit, however. None of the tracks sound bad, but a lot of the track list sounds uninspired and uninteresting.
Lyricism has never really been the focus of Parker’s work compared to the sonic aspects, but “Deadbeat” seems to struggle especially in certain moments. The lyrics, while usually just okay, have some laughable moments. The line “You’re a cinephile, I watch Family Guy” particularly stands out among the album’s weakest moments. There are certainly some memorable lines, like “Dracula”’s spooky and deadbeat-themed double meanings (“You won’t ever see me in the light of day / Run from the sun like Dracula”), but “Deadbeat” feels lacking in memorable lyrics and quotables compared to his earlier works.
While an emphasis has never been placed on concepts much either in Parker’s work, and the album has some themes around his relationship with his father (which he touched on in “Posthumous Forgiveness,” previously) and him raising his own kids, it doesn’t feel like this album has as much of a sonic or narrative thread. “The Slow Rush” features a loose time passing concept, and projects like “Currents” felt mostly connected. “Deadbeat” feels messy. There isn’t as much of a throughline between each track. House influences are present throughout much of the project but it jumps between that, dance, occasional psychedelic rock-inspired tracks, and more. Parker’s production has always been diverse, but “Deadbeat”’s tracklist is more messy than anything.
“Deadbeat” has raised interesting, long-standing discourse and questions on Tame Impala once more. It’s brought up debates on Parker staying in his lane(s) or exploring new genres. This project is a significant turn for Parker as he mostly abandons both his psychedelic pop and rock influences in favor of the house and dance genres. Many of Parker’s fans have wanted a return to his rock influences for a while, but plenty were happy with the shift post-“Currents”. Parker’s shown plenty of skill in a diverse range of genres, so it’s not like he couldn’t pull a genre shift off, but it frankly doesn’t work great here. Conceptually, a Tame Impala house album sounds interesting, combining house and dance influences with psychedelic production, but “Deadbeat” doesn’t land very well.
“Deadbeat” is a very 6.5-7/10 album. It isn’t all bad. There are some decent tracks and it never truly sounds bad, but it’s often generic and boring-which is one of the worst sins a production-based album can commit. The tracklist is fairly messy, making for an incohesive listen. I also don’t think much, if anything, on this project reaches Parker’s previous heights.
