Deadbeat: fabulous or flop?

Tame Impala released his fifth studio album “Deadbeat” on Oct. 17. The album consists of 12 songs with an overall duration of 56 minutes. Fans have been anticipating the release of this album since he dropped the single “Dracula” late September. 

Tame Impala is an Australian music group formed in 2007. Unlike other music groups, Tame Impala is just one person. Kevin Parker is the lead vocalist for the group and he records and produces his own music. However, Parker brings in a band when he goes in for live performances. 

The inspiration for this new album comes from Parker’s personal experiences. The first song on his setlist is called “My old ways” and tells the story of how he feels disconnected from society and regrets going back to his old habits. This song captures the entirety of the album as a whole because he is reflecting on his past struggles and learning from his mistakes.

The cover art for this album is a picture of Parker holding his daughter, Peach, outside of their house. Fans believed this album would be about him entering fatherhood and the idea of being a deadbeat dad as it is the title of the album. However, the album’s name comes from Parker owning up to being a ‘deadbeat’ and feeling like a dropout in the world.

“For all the feelings that I’ve had in my life of being a drop out and being a deadbeat being hopeless being a space cat. The reason that I feel so strongly calling my album this now is like that’s how I still feel you know I still feel like I’m sort of constantly therapying myself against these feelings. Calling the album deadbeat is glorifying it. It’s a celebration of it” Parker said.

As this is Parker’s first album release after a 5 year break, fans expected him to go back to his roots and release songs that were similar to his other popular albums like “Currents” and “The slow rush.” However, Parker was inspired by his Australian heritage and used more house music sounds for this album. 

“That’s kind of the thing that keeps me going.  It is just like exploring parts that I haven’t explored before that I love. One of the things with this album that I wanted to do was just use a really small amount of sounds and not just use the whole studio. I wanted to make this sound very condensed. So even though there’s like techno and there’s sort of like psych rock, to me they kind of fit together,” said Parker in an interview with Triple J.

While a lot of his fans enjoyed the concept of Parker exploring new beats and sounds, others found it to be tacky. Some people would argue that the songs on this album are very repetitive and lack a purpose to the album itself. Some critics have even gone out of their way to say that this album was released just to sustain the fan base for a couple of years.