36 Tame Impala: Deadbeat

Dude, mate, bro: did you know that Tame Impala was just one guy? And he’s Australian? Mind: blown, right? Wait until I tell you who’s the brother of Big Mo from Eastenders.

Mate (maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate!), is that your daughter on the cover?? No. Don’t like it. That feels creepy and wrong, and brings in all sorts of questions of ethical consent. But now that’s dealt with, I’m not sure I can think of any other reason to dislike this album. It’s perhaps no way near as expansive, trend-shitting or potentially influential as his (it’s just one guy!) previous work, but it’s still an incredibly strong collection of brilliant electro pop with melodies to absolutely die for.

Lyrically, it’s… erm…

…inconsistent, but as a collection of songs it’s rarely worse than great and often lurches into sonic soundscapes that are near life-affirming. Even when he (just a single bloke!) is no longer working at the levels of 2015’s “pure pop perfection” ‘Currents‘, but their latest is still…

Listen, I get it. A lot of people wish that they could back up their opinions about art with objective facts. This is late stage capitalism, of course, nothing’s worth having unless you can somehow use it to make someone else’s thing lesser. It’s not enough that you love something, other people have to agree that the thing you love is actually better than the thing that they love, and your opinion needs to be held aloft as sacred in the market place of ideas. It can be extremely hard to accept that opinions on art are often based on deep feelings and emotions unique to every single person, and you’re as likely to argue someone out of that opinion as you are to convince someone to be right rather than left handed.

Obviously, none of this applies to Necessary Evil, because I’ve actually put the work in at the lab and my lists are all 100% Scientifically Proven™, but I also accept the fact that roughly eight people read this list a year, and they’re all blood relatives. So what do the people do who want factual opinions to wield like flaming swords when they’re planning to debate bro their opponent’s fave out of existence? They swing with the left fist of Pitchfork, before settling the disagreement for good with the wild haymaker right of the Anthony Fantano.

I can completely understand… up to a point. When I was a teenager, I used to buy NME every week, Select and Q every month, most issues of Melody Maker, Vox and Mixmag, and even Kerrang, The Face and Mojo magazines when I’d read everything else that was out. And I would read these magazines cover to cover: before the internet and alcoholism I was a pretty vivacious reader. I would often read a single record being reviewed by multiple magazines, I had to be extra sure it would be worth my £10 or so (new releases were often £15.99!!). I vividly remember Melody Maker’s 1.5/5 review of ‘Kid A’ (although the article itself seems to have been erased from the internet), and I love how Mark Beaument, the author of that review, still stands by their review. Because it was legitimately their opinion even if a lot of people disagree! Because that’s how personal opinions work! Can we talk about ‘Kid A’ though? Erm, no, probably not enough time. Very good album, at least one naff song, and at least one song that’s an absolutely shameless rip-off. That’s all for now.

Unfortunately, now there’s only Pitchfork and fucking Fantano.

In the era of monopoly capitalism, where every song is Spotify, where every movie is Disney, where everything computer, the only music journalism is Pitchfork and Fantano. In 2025, nobody cares about the four stars that ‘Deadbeat’ got in the Guardian, or the ‘B-‘ awarded by Consequence of Sound, or even the three stars from the NME, the two star review in the Timperley Echo or the 0/10 slating in Horse and Hound (“Very little appearances from either horses or hounds, one has to question the appropriateness of this review”). Pitchfork gave in a score of 4.8/10, Fantano gave it a “Light two” out of ten, and because of the centrality of those two critical sources, that will be forever enshrined as #FACTS by the most annoying people on the internet.

This is interesting though: since these are 2025 #FACTS, why don’t I address all of their issues with the album and instead show why the Scientifically Proven™ judgement of ‘Pretty damn good’ proves them both wrong?

Let’s start with Anthony Fraudtano:

Ten minutes and thirty three seconds?? No music, no jokes, no banter, just watching that Bald Fraud jib on and on?? No, there’s only so much I’m willing to sacrifice for this blog. Let me just guess what he said, save us all a lot of time: “This is neither Daughters nor Charli XCX, and also isn’t some hideous Scandinavian Death Metal, I almost hate it as much as I hate women“. I agree that it is none of those things, Mr Fraudtano, but I actually believe that women hold up half the sky. Even if I appreciate your point that women who suffer from postpartum depression are actually just attention seeking, I don’t think that’s enough of a reason to give an album that hits as many highs and as frequently as ‘Deadbeat’ is deserving of such a scathing review.

OK, we’ve dealt with that Fraud, now onto the Pitchfork review:

OK, so this is written down using actual words, so already I prefer it. Pitchfork start off string and very Pitchforky, by essentially saying that Tame Impala were always a poseur band for the normies and that they never really fancied them anyway:

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.

It was actually with this first paragraph that I really got it: I didn’t hate ‘Deadbeat’ as much as many people, but maybe that’s because I never loved Tame Impala as much as many people did. Tame Impala were never my band, I never really forged an emotional connection with them. I was in China and so completely missed the lauded ‘Innerspeaker‘ and ‘Lonerism‘ albums, including whatever hype existed around them. I really like ‘Currents’ in 2015, but not to the extent that I dropped everything and immediately declared them one of the most important musical acts in my life. When ‘The Slow Rush’ was released in 2020 I again thought “Hey! This music’s really nice!”, then essentially went about with my day. Tame Impala have never really meant anything to me more than an obviously very talented guy (it’s just one geezer!) who makes very, very good music. Maybe Pitchfork and Fraudtano would react to me giving ‘Deadbeat’ a thumb up in the same way that I react when I hear of a less pathetically obsessed fan saying that ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours‘ is the best Manic Street Preachers album. No! You don’t understand the lore!! You could never understand how crushingly disappointing that record was!!

I don’t think I need to read past that first paragraph, I’ve got the general gist.

‘Deadbeat’ is a definite drop off from Impala’s two previous records, but it’s still another example of a talented artist doing good music. Chill out everyone, yeah?

In fact: