For a while, Kevin Parker was sculpting some of the most prismatic yet accessible hits around, searching for that secret place where producers like Phil Spector, Dave Fridmann, and Quincy Jones found the answer to pop. Once as beloved as any other early-’10s indie starlets, Tame Impala have become so synonymous with a particular strain of fancam-ready groove-pop mush that it’s easy to forget why everyone liked him in the first place. But if I may, let me offer that the same quality that launched Parker to ubiquity has always been his greatest strength. Lonely kids who haven’t found their way to Popol Vuh and Soft Machine yet deserve headphone music to bliss out to, too.
Though people have been accusing Parker of defaulting to classic rock tropes ever since his heyday, he has never seemed particularly beholden to those constraints. Sure, he loves the Beatles, but he’s equally enraptured by Orbital, Timbaland, Rihanna, and countless other corners of the mainstream music world past 1970. After all, we’re talking about a guy who realized the transportive powers of dance music after hearing “Stayin’ Alive” on shrooms in the back of his friend’s car.
Is it Parker’s fault that his snare rolls on Lonerism were too crisp? That his basslines on Currents were too juicy? Now that he’s at the top of the mountain and co-writing Dua Lipa flops, penning songs for Minions sequels, and collecting Grammys for his most generic tracks yet, Deadbeat arrives asking the question: What’s left to do for the psych-rock prodigy turned dance-pop consultant?
Become a DJ, of course! As the singles and appearances on the Lot have hinted, Deadbeat follows Parker taking his inclination with DMT-pen dance music to its logical conclusion, though there’s a little more happening under the hood. Parker’s hardly the first person to pick up on a general raviness in the air these past few years, and throughout Deadbeat, he trots out one four-on-the-floor genre after another, ensuring we know that he likes all this stuff even if he can’t clinch the argument that he should actually be making it.
Been dying to hear what Tame Impala progressive house might sound like? “Ethereal Connection” will make you reconsider. Wondering when Kevin Parker would finally have his “I need a one dance” moment? Of course not, but here you go anyway. This all presents Parker with an opportunity to let go of his usual perfectionism, to give us a rawer look into his psyche as he ponders his place in a world he helped create. From the sound of it, he seems lost.
One of Parker’s strengths has been his ability to tap directly and relatably into the outcast’s mindset. Not the cool outcast, mind you, but the true lames of the world—the Charlie Browns kicking their pebbles as they walk home, eternally uninvited to the party. Deadbeat proves that even though Parker is now wildly successful and married with kids, not much has changed for him mentally. “I’m a loser, babe,” he repeats on “Loser,” wailing about trying to get his shit together over an Anatolian psych riff that’s about as energetic as an executive ball clicker. “No Reply” paints an even drearier picture, as Parker mumbles over a lo-fi house beat that he can’t make it out tonight, his excuse being that, “You’re a cinephile/I watch Family Guy.” It’s the kind of line that’d be easier to laugh with instead of at if it weren’t one of the only memorable lyrics on the entire record.
Like many wayward souls before him, Parker turns to hedonism in his search for purpose. Inspired heavily by the tradition of bush doofs (outdoor raves, for those who don’t speak Aussie), Parker takes to the decks with an amateurism that could be charming if it all didn’t sound so stale. “My Old Ways” opens the album with a jazzy piano lick that might achieve liftoff in better hands; but Marshall Jefferson he is not, so we’re largely stuck on repeat while the track shuffles along for five minutes, unable to decide if it’s just an intro or actually going somewhere.
It still might be his most successful attempt—“Oblivion” sinks to an absolute nadir as Parker aimlessly spritzes his falsetto over a limp dembow rhythm that barely musters an ounce of what, say, DJ Python would do with it. He wastes the first half of “Not My World” wafting through one of the emptiest, most nothing beats of the year, eventually arriving at a shimmering bell-tone melody that actually doesn’t sound too bad. But is there really a reason for you to reach for this over one of the countless deep house producers out there who can actually pull this style off with finesse? Over and over, Parker ends up in the mushy middle: He strains for the highs of a side-long R&S epic on the trancey, eight-minute “Ethereal Connection” without ever finding release, and continually sabotages whatever momentum he manages to build on the closing Balearic snoozer “End of Summer.”
Between all these would-be workouts are some serious misfires. “Piece of Heaven” is a half-hearted Enya-meets-“Hollaback Girl” mashup that refuses to deliver on its promise of fun, and the dead-on-arrival Brian Wilson-lite throwaway “See You On Monday (You’re Lost)” really sounds like something we weren’t supposed to hear. It’s admirable for Parker to throw himself into something new and continue to redefine how people think of him. But the sense of craft that made Tame Impala stand out in the first place is all but gone. Instead of lavishly reminding us of simple joys like a snappy R&B beat switch or a good flanger-pedal drop, we get drum machines sloppily plugged into guitar amps and left to spin their rudimentary loops; none of this stuff ever really explores how freeing, powerful, or even therapeutic dance music can be.
The worst part is that, through it all, I can still hear a world where this could’ve been something—the sound of a bad trip, a bleary comment on adulthood and success, or just hard, hypnotic rhythms soundtracking Parker’s spiral into self-doubt. Most of these songs aren’t offensive on their own: “Dracula” may not be anything special, but its cheesy boogie is catchy enough. “Afterthought” would have been the weakest and most repetitive song on Currents, but that still makes it the strongest thing here. The cumulative effect, though, is exhausting, a daisy-chain of shaky half-measures that doesn’t even feel particularly committed to being depressing.
The other issue is that Parker already tested out many of these dance-hybrid attempts with better results on his last album, The Slow Rush. In that record’s standout moments, you could see how the concept of Parker rebuilding house tracks from the ground up with his analog disco setup could potentially lead to lush and novel ends. But on Deadbeat, Parker mostly just seems enamored with the sound of big, empty beats thudding out into space. On the first single from his debut album, Parker sang, “There’s a party in my head/And no one is invited.” Fifteen years later, he’s blown that image up to superclub proportions; it’s a sad spectacle to behold.
