Finding our true selves sometimes disappoints those who grew accustomed to how we used to be.
“Deadbeat,” the fifth studio album of Kevin Parker’s musical project, Tame Impala, perfectly demonstrates this reality.
Before he began working on the record, Parker had come out of a lot of producing and, as a result, lost a lot of his creative juices.
“I had kind of forgotten what it felt like to be my own artist,” he revealed in an interview with Range.
The six-time Grammy nominee wanted to make not only an original album, but a deeply personal one. It’s quite easy to recognize early on that the record possesses a slower, more introspective quality than previous works.
Parker, due to his reputation as one of the premier artists in the psychedelic pop genre, had the opportunity to produce a safer, more traditional album that harkened back to classic records such as “Currents” and “Lonerism.” Instead, he took a risk and deviated from his standard formula, a commendable action in and of itself.
The beginning starts well. Thematically, “My Old Ways” serves as the perfect opener to an album heavily focused on Parker’s internal conflict. Instrumentally, the main piano riff gives off the feel of embarking on a new journey.
The third track and single released beforehand, “Dracula,” is the closest this album has to a standard Tame Impala classic. Perfect synthesis, perfect vocals, a beat anyone can move to and a uniquely spooky tone reminiscent of songs like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” The fourth track and second single, “Loser,” blends a crisp guitar riff with one of Impala’s more passionate vocal performances.
These three tracks perfectly set up the middle and ending of the record, where Parker’s previous albums have thrived.
However, a lot of the swings he takes in the bulk of the record miss the mark. The rest of the album, while also deeply emotional vocally, doesn’t deliver the perfectly synthesized instrumentals many have grown accustomed to with Parker’s work.
Take the closing track, “End of Summer.”. The lyrics are impactful, touching on the theme of leaving periods of your life behind for something greater. But on the other hand, the beat is strikingly rudimentary and repetitive. Add that with the track’s seven-minute runtime, and you end up with a fairly monotonous listening experience.
“Not My World,” the sixth song on the record, suffers the same problem. The lyrics, while short in length, dive into the disconnect between Parker’s life as an artist and normal society. It’s an intriguing concept, but one held back by a plain, electronic beat that does a poor job of grabbing the listener’s attention.
Parker intentionally dove into the project with minimalism in mind, so a critique of “Deadbeat” that strictly revolves around its slowness is more a declaration of preference rather than a valid criticism.
But it seems as though he genuinely struggles to give a unique sound to the instrumentals in many of these tracks. The majority of “Ethereal Connection” resembles basic house music; if you take out Parker’s psychedelic voice, “Piece of Heaven” just sounds like a fairly generic romantic pop track.
A large part of this issue stems from the lack of real acoustic instruments. Parker’s strength is his ability to mix traditional music expertise with modern, futuristic effects. In each of his previous albums, as well as in this one, the drums and bass parts alone could turn solid tracks into classics.
In “Deadbeat,” he relies heavily on his vocals, and while they deliver in terms of technical ability, they aren’t supplemented well enough.
Every artist misses from time to time. Every artist… except Tame Impala.
“Deadbeat” isn’t a surprise because of how strikingly bad it is; the record is below average at worst, and good at best. It’s a surprise because of the decline in quality from each of his previous three studio albums.
Judging by the interviews he’s given, it seems as though he put his heart and soul into a deeply meaningful record for him, and hoped others would grow attached as a result.
But it can’t be denied that the six-time Grammy award winner needed more experience before making slower, more emotionally charged music. Hopefully, next time around, he can avoid making one of the most disappointing albums of the year.
