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.