Deadbeat is the title Kevin Parker has chosen for his fifth album under the Tame Impala moniker. But after a day of listening to the way the 39-year-old Aussie unpacks his social and emotional struggles into catchy piano hooks and rubberised dance beats (both inspired by and quoting those on Michael Jackson’s Thriller), I’ve come to think of the trippily bop-able record as: Imposter Syndrome Does Disco.
In an in-depth interview for GQ this year, Parker was frank about the difficult childhood that saw him shunted between homes as his parents split, reconciled, then split again, resulting in him and his brother living in an outhouse for an extended period in their teens. The kid who once spent meticulous hours crafting complex Lego worlds grew into an adolescent equally obsessed with building otherworldly soundscapes. Nobody, he suspected, would want to be in a band with him. Over the past 20 years, his ascent from prog-rock loner to mainstream pop producer par excellence (turning out bouncy-sharp dance hooks with Rihanna, Dua Lipa and The Weeknd) has had him struggling to live up to expectations to be the “cool guy”. But now, he says, he’s found comfort in facing up to all of his perceived social and emotional failings in the lyrics to this record.
