Tame Impala's Kevin Parker Is Ready to Jump From Reclusive Studio Whiz to Global Alt-Rock God 8 on Billboard’s Alternative Songs thanks to its chugging riff and spot-on analogy for, well, an egotistical jerk. But it wasn’t just critics who revered his psycho-rock virtuosity: He also scored an unavoidable alt hit and a number of commercial syncs with the foot-stomping anomaly “Elephant,” which charged to No. The band’s garage rock-driven debut Innerspeaker in 2010, and more smoothed-out sophomore album Lonerism two years later, had morphed the famously obsessive and elusive Parker into an indie hero. While “New Person” ends Currents on a doubtful note, the album itself was transformative for Parker’s career. “I was halfway through making the album when I heard about it, and it gave what I was doing a lot more meaning suddenly things made a lot more sense.” “I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on my life in the past and what’s ahead of me,” he said. In a 2015 interview with Billboard, Parker said he turned 29 while writing Currents, and became fascinated by the Saturn return, an astrology term for the massive life transition people often experience around that age. During the chorus, his past and current selves battle it out to the tune of distorted drums and a grumbling bassline: After the pompous “feel like a brand new person” comes the lingering, ominous echo, “but you’ll make the same old mistakes.” “I know that it’s hard to digest/ a realization is as good as a guess,” bandleader Kevin Parker sings, another tough pill to swallow from an album that might as well be a medicine cabinet. “New Person, Same Old Mistakes,” the woozy, six-minute long kicker, cautions listeners to be skeptical of anyone’s well-intentioned ability to change - including that of the narrator himself.
Tame Impala initially introduced it to the world as a free download. And there are three labels – Interscope Records, Modular Recordings and Fiction Records – that put it out.Then, in the final track, he’s nearly back to square one. This is not only the first song on the playlist of currents, but it was also the lead single from the album. It was released before the rest of the project on 11 March 2015. That same year, the track was also nominated for an ARIA Music Award, reaching platinum status in the Land Down Under. And at least one Aussie publication, The Sydney Morning Herald, dubbed it as the “2015 Song of the Year”.
For instance, it was put on 2015 best songs’ lists compiled by the likes of Rolling Stone, The Fader and The Village Voice. Meanwhile the music video to the song was filmed in the Ukraine. And its director was David Wilson.Īlthough it wasn’t a major chart success, “Let It Happen” went on to achieve critical acclaim. But he has also noted that he composed different parts of it in diverse countries – the US, Hungary and Turkey in addition to France.
This song is nearly eight minutes in length and features major alternations, some of which have been described as “gibberish”. Kevin Parker, who wrote and produced the tune, likened these variations to “ being on a train, going through one landscape and then into another”. In fact he wrote part of “Let It Happen” on a train in France.