Tame Impala's 10 Greatest Songs

With over 30 songs and 3 studio albums released to date, Kevin Parker has given us more than enough quality content to warrant a top ten list. Here are the 10 greatest songs produced by Tame Impala since their 2010 debut:

10. Solitude Is Bliss
(InnerSpeaker)

9. Be Above It
(Lonerism)

8. 

7. It Is Not Meant To Be
(InnerSpeaker)

6. Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control
(Lonerism)

5. Keep on Lying
(Lonerism)

4. Endors Toi
(Lonerism)

To this day I regard Endor Toi's intro (the first minute-and-a-half or so) as one of the greatest, if not the greatest riff in psychedelic rock music history. I mean, it's just incredible. The swelling synths, the drum fills, the beautiful chaos. It all comes crashing down into such a dreamy synth chord that the ensuing vocals seem to calm the listeners just enough for them not to lose their minds. Kevin Parker's ability to sound like an entire band has never been as impressive as it is right here. And seeing as this is only Lonerism's 2nd track, somehow Kevin Parker is just getting warmed up.

3. Alter Ego
(InnerSpeaker)

I still remember the first time I ever heard Tame Impala. It was the spring of 2011, and I was laying on my living room couch listening to 89.3, The Current. Suddenly, this marvelous track came on. I was blown away - I couldn't believe it took me so long to discover such an ingenious Beatles song. I mean, just listen to it and tell me the voice doesn't sound like John Lennon. When it ended, I searched everywhere in The Beatles catalog for it, but to no avail. I finally ended up taking the logical step of determining the song title via The Current's website. And there it was. Tame Impala - Alter Ego. With no Beatle to be found.

And just like that, my journey into the ethereal realm began...

2. Let It Happen
(Currents)

When Kevin Parker released this song out of the blue in March, something strange happened. People went nuts. A new Tame Impala song, the first since 2012. I had always been under the impression Tame Impala were a relatively unknown band out of the faraway lands of Australia, where everything is backwards save for the people. But in 2015, that seemed to have changed. People care about this song. People care about Currents. And if you don't care, just listen to Let It Happen.

Since then, the play count on my ipod shows Let It Happen at over 100 plays. Clocking in at a solid 7 minutes and 47 seconds, that means I've spent roughly fourteen hours of my life listening to this song. So if you literally spent every waking moment tomorrow listening to this track, you might catch up to the amount of times I've played it.

With that said, here it is. 2015's track of the year:

1. Apocalypse Dreams
(Lonerism)

As difficult as it is not to sound biased in my own top-ten article, that challenge increases ever more so when referencing this song. It sits atop the list of my most coveted records; one of the greatest tracks I've ever listened to. I literally have nothing bad to say about this song. But naturally then, the question remains. What makes it objectively great? One could argue the meaning, or the production, or the sound. But what I think stands out in this track is its boundless energy, its ability to transform our idea of pop music. And not just pop music as a whole, but more specifically, it challenges the notion of a pop song itself. In 6 minutes, Kevin Parker shows how unconventional song structure can not only be beautiful, but also serve as the integral next step in the development of music.

I never really got the last few lyrics in this song until I returned home after living in Australia for four months. "Nothing ever changes. No matter how long you do your hair, it's the same to everyone else" Parker sings. But then in the next line, he seems to contradict himself. "Everything is changing. I guess I should warn my mum. But she'll just be excited." When I returned home, not much about my home had changed. I came back to a part of the world that I still, and always will love. And yet at the same time, it felt incredibly new. The place hadn't changed; I did. Change is the only constant in life. And as much as you like to keep the same hairstyle each day, new hair is always replacing the old.

The Truth

With the Minnesota State Fair in full swing, I consider being anywhere other than Falcon Heights a setback. Curious as to how things are going, I searched "mn state fair" on google yesterday. Here are the results:

Same subject. Same event. Two very different headlines.

Now, let's put this into perspective. On one hand, we have our local news media, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, reporting that the march by the group was a call for justice. Their sub-headline reads "Police made no arrests during mostly peaceful Black Lives Matter Rally". On the other hand, we have a national media source, Fox News, emphasizing a specific chant from the group, declaring the rally a disruption. Their sub-headline reads "Black Lives Matter protesters marching on the Minnesota state fair on Saturday spewed violent anti-cop rhetoric".

It's also important to note that I actually don't know what went on that day. I simply was not there. In fact, I was over 350 miles away. While it can be useful to form our own thoughtful conclusions from the news, one must never chalk up their own inferences without a grain of salt. For the most part, the people who want to believe that the individuals involved with Black Lives Matter St. Paul disrupted the state fair are going to watch Fox News and believe just that. And at the same time, those who'd like to believe that the marchers were merely calling for justice are going to read the Star Tribune, and they too are going believe just that. So what then, is the truth? How do we know if what we're watching on the news is the entire, unabridged story? How do we know if the way someone portrays themselves on social media is their true, honest self? That's a trick question, because you can't. You never really can. There will always be a program out there letting people believe whatever it is they want to believe. But I for one would like to believe my very own senses.

That aside, it is possible to find the truth. But it's not as easy as a simple google search. It never was. The truth lies in those there on that Saturday in St. Paul, marching with their fellow peers. The truth lies in the police officers protecting the marchers as they made their way up Snelling Ave. The truth lies in the thousands of witnesses at the fair, be it for an hour or just a fleeting moment. Everyone there that day is going to have their own story of what happened. And though that story may be different coming from the 47 year old at the head of the march than that of the 4 year old watching for a few moments from within the fairgrounds, it's really all the same. Because the truth is a collection of all these perceptions strewn into a single, impossibly complex story that no news studio will ever be able to capture.

I never really was much fan of the news. Since the advent of television, it really has become a form of entertainment; a contest of who can find the most interesting stories and get the best ratings, often putting integrity and relevance in the back seat. There seems to be too much subjectivity cast into a medium starving for objectivity. To the average Fox News reader, Saturday's occurrence was just another Black Lives Matter rally interrupting the status quo. To the average Star Tribune reader, it was just another peaceful protest. To me, it's just another news story; an event that I was not a part of but nonetheless invited to form my own conclusions about. Whether I believe myself is another story.

But even though I lack certainty, I can still imagine the real truths of Saturday, the truths culminating within the minds of those marching, of those advocating that black lives do matter. Because to these individuals, the truth of Saturday transcends that of what was said, what was heard, or even what happened. The ultimate truth lies in the fact of the event itself. If everyone on Earth agreed that all black lives 100% matter, then that organization, I presume, wouldn't even exist. But the problem is that not all of us do, and that truth seems to be what this march was all about. Years ago, it was this very truth that fueled the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. And still today, it's this truth that encourages the action of organizations around the nation to seek fairness.  It's this truth that drives those from Black Lives Matter to wake up each morning in an unequal world, and cultivate the resilience and audacity it takes to fight for an equality that should have existed before they even fell asleep.

Pond - Zond

I went to my first cricket match yesterday. This is the soundtrack of said match.

Today my roommate asked me if I have any pet peeves he should know about. I said I'm relatively easy going and don't really have any.

"C'mon, really? You mean you don't have any of those random things that drive you crazy? What if I knocked on your door and woke you up in the middle of the night?"

It was at this moment that I realized that my biggest pet peeve is when people ask me what my pet peeves are. That, and the phrase itself. Now I'm done. Hopefully I never have to say (or type) that disgusting sounding phrase again.

Look!

If you're looking for entries about my time living in Australia, click here

Farewell, My Friend

Perhaps the biggest joke of all it that of goodbyes. We tell each other goodbye every time we part, yet we almost always see that person again. It's only when the unpredictability of death comes by that we realize we forgot or didn't have the chance to say goodbye for the final time, the one and only true goodbye. And that is the joke of communication, the joke of life.

The trouble is that we can never know when it's time to go. Sometimes the best goodbyes are none at all. In this case, there is an end, but there is no goodbye, not even a see you later. To disappear with the night is such a profound way to go, because when someone realizes they didn't say goodbye, they're simultaneously making a point with their subconscious to see this person or group again. And if they realize they went without a farewell and still don't seem to mind, don't take it personally. Some people come to terms with your inevitable death sooner than others.