Your Popstars Favourite Rockstar: How Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker Changed Modern Pop
Released in July 2015, Tame Impala’s ‘Currents’ marked a striking change in Kevin Parker’s music. The guitars that had driven ‘Innerspeaker’ and ‘Lonerism’ gave more room to synthesisers, drum machines and basslines built for the dancefloor. Yet beneath its bright surfaces, this was a record about heartbreak, uncertainty and learning to accept change.
Parker wrote, recorded, performed and produced the album himself. That contrast between a solitary process and such an expansive sound is part of what makes ‘Currents’ remarkable. It carried Tame Impala beyond psychedelic rock without losing the detail and restless curiosity that made the earlier records distinctive.
The Exceptional Debut
Taking inspiration from the late '60s and bands like The Beatles, Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, Cream, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Parker set out to create something no one else was doing. He had great ideas from the very start.
The record saw Parker blend swirling guitar effects, driving rhythms and dreamy vocals to create a sound that appeared both vintage and new. Tracks like ‘Lucidity’, ‘Alter Ego’ and ‘Desire Be, Desire Go’ showcase his range, moving between catchy psych-pop hooks and expansive exploratory passages. ‘Solitude Is Bliss’ (groovy title) channels Cream in the verses with fuzzed-out riffs and a rolling groove before turning into The Beatles at their most lysergically languid in the chorus, bathing the listener in waves of reverb and layered melodies.
Parker’s approach to recording 'Innerspeaker' was notably solitary and experimental. Working at Wave House, a remote studio near the Indian Ocean, he embraced isolation as a creative tool. This sense of seclusion seeps into the record, with expansive instrumentals and introspective lyrics that evoke the feeling of drifting through endless space. The use of analogue equipment and vintage effects wasn’t just an aesthetic choice; it was a deliberate attempt to capture warmth and imperfection, giving the music a living, breathing quality.
Parker wasn’t just recreating the past; he was reimagining it. His production choices, from the thick analogue depth of the recordings to the inventive use of phasers and reverbs, gave the album a distinct personality. ‘The Bold Arrow Of Time’ uses Jimi’s guitar as a spark for its stiff funk blues riff, but the song quickly veers into a psychedelic jam that sounds uniquely Tame Impala. Through these tracks, Parker proved himself as a songwriter and producer who could pay tribute to his heroes while creating a truly original sound.
Runway, Houses, City, Clouds' is one of the most quietly overwhelming pieces Parker has ever committed to tape. It doesn't announce itself; it simply builds, slowly and patiently, with a kind of unhurried grandeur that makes most rock songs feel rushed by comparison. In many ways, 'Runway, Houses, City, Clouds' most completely summarises what 'Innerspeaker' is as a record. The debut album was, above all, a guitar album: thick, phaser-soaked, reverb-drenched, and rooted in the late '60s psychedelic tradition Parker grew up absorbing.
The album clearly captures what made the early Tame Impala sound so distinctive and difficult to replicate. Parker's guitar tone on 'Innerspeaker' was unique: phaser set to a slow, wide rate, fed into fuzz, warmed by the analogue recording chain he used at Wave House.
The Not So Difficult Second Album
His second album, ‘Lonerism’, is where Parker took his love for The Beatles somewhere more personal. It is a rich, restless record whose melodies invite people in while its words often describe the urge to withdraw.
There is no single way for an artist to sound like The Beatles. The Ramones found something in their directness and made it faster and rougher. ELO followed the possibilities of their studio recordings. Daniel Johnston was drawn to the feeling a simple melody could carry, while Oasis took their hooks into much bigger rooms. Parker’s point of reference on ‘Lonerism’ feels closer to ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, the moment a rock band made repetition, altered voices and studio effects central to a song.
The Chemical Brothers played it in their DJ sets, and Oasis referenced it on ‘Morning Glory’. Parker heard room for his own ideas in that collision of melody and disorientation. Across ‘Lonerism’, guitars bend out of shape, voices seem to arrive from a distance and sounds move around each other without ever settling. It is possible to hear the influence without mistaking the result for a Beatles record.
‘Why Won’t They Talk To Me?’ makes the contrast between sound and subject especially clear. The arrangement keeps growing, yet Parker sounds no closer to the people he wants to reach. ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards’ disguises frustration inside one of his most inviting melodies. Even ‘Elephant’, with its swaggering riff, sits on an album preoccupied with doubt. That is what keeps drawing me back to ‘Lonerism’: the music opens up just as Parker seems to close himself off.
‘Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control’ might be the clearest example of how far Parker could stretch a song without losing its emotional thread. The drums surge, the guitars seem to spill over the edges and the arrangement changes shape repeatedly. I can hear why ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ comes to mind, but this feels less like an attempt to revisit 1966 than a young musician finding a way to make uncertainty audible. Beneath all that movement is a person trying to understand how little of his life he can direct.
With 'Lonerism', Parker expanded his sonic palette and his ambition as a songwriter. The album is notable for its increased use of synthesisers and electronic textures, blending seamlessly with the signature fuzzed-out guitars. The production is lusher and more layered, with each track brimming with detail, from swirling synth arpeggios to intricate drum programming.
Lyrically, 'Lonerism' is even more personal and vulnerable than its predecessor. Themes of disconnection, social anxiety, and introspection are woven throughout, often delivered with striking directness. Songs like 'Apocalypse Dreams' and 'Mind Mischief' blur the line between waking and dreaming, capturing the surreal, liminal spaces of consciousness.
Parker’s willingness to experiment is evident in the album’s structure. Tracks transition unpredictably, sometimes dissolving into noise or swelling into euphoric choruses. The influence of French pop, hip hop, and krautrock can be heard in the album’s grooves and arrangements, reflecting Parker’s eclectic tastes.
'Lonerism' was a breakthrough both critically and commercially. It won the 2013 ARIA Award for Album of the Year. Its success helped cement Tame Impala as a leading force in modern psychedelic music, and it continues to inspire artists across genres.
Your Popstar's Favourite Rockstar
The success of ‘Innerspeaker’ and ‘Lonerism’ had given Parker a recognisable sound, but he did not want the third album to repeat it. ‘Elephant’ had already shown how far Tame Impala could reach with a guitar riff. This time, he became interested in what might happen if rhythm, bass and synthesisers led the way.
Parker has recalled hearing the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’ during a night out in Los Angeles and being struck by the melancholy beneath its danceable surface. It was a useful discovery for an album taking shape during changes in his own life, including the end of his relationship with Melody Prochet. Dance music could carry sadness without surrendering its momentum.
Back in Fremantle, he worked on the songs largely alone. The coast and the abandoned South Fremantle Power Station entered his picture of the record, while his home studio gave him space to follow ideas for as long as they needed. He wrote, recorded, performed, produced and, for the first time on a Tame Impala album, mixed the music himself.
Guitars remained in the arrangements, but they no longer had to carry every song. Parker could build around a drum machine, a synthesiser or a bassline, then bring the guitar in where it added something particular. That change gave ‘Currents’ its brighter surface without removing the solitude and uncertainty running underneath it.
‘Let It Happen’ announces the change without easing the listener into it. Its long opening stretch keeps pushing forward, then catches and repeats as though the recording itself has become stuck. When the song finds its way out, that interruption feels essential to its meaning. Parker has made a track about accepting change that refuses to move in a straight line.
‘Nangs’ offers a brief, woozy pause before ‘The Moment’ returns to the dancefloor. On ‘Yes I’m Changing’, the pace softens, and the uncertainty becomes easier to hear. These songs share a sound, but they do not all arrive at the same answer. Sometimes Parker seems ready for a new life; elsewhere, he is still trying to convince himself.
The guitars have not disappeared. They cut through ‘Eventually’ before the song shifts towards synths and a chorus that makes a painful decision sound almost generous. ‘The Less I Know the Better’ goes in another direction, giving rejection a bassline that seems incapable of sitting still. Its humour and its hurt work together: you can dance to it without missing the embarrassment at its centre.
‘Cause I’m a Man’ is less comfortable. Its account of male weakness can sound like an admission or an excuse, depending on how you hear it. I find that uncertainty more interesting than an easy defence of the song. By the closing ‘New Person, Same Old Mistakes’, Parker has stopped pretending that change is something you accomplish once and leave behind. The music sounds assured, but the title admits that old patterns can follow you into a new life. Rihanna’s later cover showed how well that song could stand outside Tame Impala’s world.
The production makes ‘Currents’ feel expansive, but its recurring situations are painfully ordinary: a relationship ending, an ex moving on, a familiar thought returning when you believed you had escaped it. Parker gives those moments elaborate arrangements without making them seem less recognisable. That is part of the album’s strange balance. It can fill a dancefloor while leaving you alone with an uncomfortable thought.
‘Eventually’ looks ahead to the day when two people might be happier apart, though Parker cannot know when that day will come. ‘The Less I Know the Better’ turns jealousy into something funny and humiliating at once. On ‘Past Life’, an everyday encounter becomes unsettled by the altered voice and shifting music around it. Each track approaches change from a different angle, and none suggests that understanding your behaviour makes it easy to stop repeating it.
That is why the album’s brighter sound matters. Parker does not wait until everything is resolved before making music that moves. The rhythms and melodies carry the possibility of a different future, even when the words show how firmly the past can hold on.
I felt the distance between Parker’s private recordings and their public life when I finally saw Tame Impala in Birmingham. ‘Let It Happen’ arrived with confetti and the best light show I have seen at a gig. Later, the crowd sang ‘Eventually’ so loudly that Parker could hardly be heard. Songs he had spent years building largely alone now belonged to thousands of people in the room. Hearing them together made me appreciate the care in the recordings even more.
Legacy and Impact
‘Currents’ changed Parker’s career and expanded what Tame Impala could sound like. Psychedelic music belonged on the dancefloor as readily as it did in a bedroom, and these songs could fill festivals and arenas without losing the strange details of his earlier records. Parker’s later work with Travis Scott, The Weeknd and Dua Lipa showed how far his ideas could travel beyond the world in which Tame Impala began.
The album arrived during a period when the boundaries between guitar music, pop, hip-hop and electronic music were becoming harder to draw. ‘Currents’ did not create that movement on its own, but it remains one of its most convincing records: a psychedelic album with the rhythms of a pop record and the emotional unease of something far more private.
Over 13 songs and 51 minutes, Parker brought together his love for The Beatles, his feel for studio experimentation and a growing interest in R&B. ‘Currents’ is an audiophile’s dream and a teenager’s way into stranger sounds. It can soundtrack a night out, then catch you off guard on the journey home. Even as the synthesisers and basslines take centre stage, guitars remain woven through the record. Parker had found a new role for the instrument rather than leaving it behind.
That shift sits alongside the album’s account of heartbreak and reinvention. Parker could spend hours refining a sound in his home studio, but the relationships and changes he wrote about offered no such control. That tension is what gives all the production detail a purpose. Beneath its immaculate surface, ‘Currents’ understands that moving forward rarely feels as clean as you want it to.
I was fifteen when ‘Currents’ was released, and more than a decade later it remains one of my most treasured records. Whether it surpasses ‘Innerspeaker’ or ‘Lonerism’ matters less to me than the fact that Parker followed them somewhere genuinely new. I still hear the obsessive care in every drum fill and vocal layer, but I also hear somebody making peace with uncertainty.
Ultimately, 'Currents' serves as Parker’s most convincing case for solitude: he understands that perfection is achieved within the studio, while progress remains the ultimate goal outside of it.
'Currents' captures the sound of Kevin Parker finding freedom in the unknown. In doing so, he invited the world to join him on an exhilarating ride: an invitation that was accepted by a generation of indie kids, Dua Lipa, Rihanna, Kanye West, and Travis Scott.