Letting It Happen: Ten Years Of Tame Impala's 'Currents'

Thursday, July 17th marks ten years since Tame Impala – the psychedelic WA project fronted by Kevin Parker – released Currents, an unassuming piece of work that would put the eyes of the music world onto Australia once again.

Before too long, this musical entity had gone from a bedroom project to a Grammy-nominated act that was headlining international festivals at every turn. But how did it end up like this?

Since Currents’ predecessors – 2010’s Innerspeaker and 2012’s Lonerism – showcased this mysterious Perth outfit’s trippy, expansive psych-rock side, album number three was considered a radical departure.

Any guitar sounds that do exist on Currents are heavily processed, blurring amongst the vintage synths. Still, Currents retains Tame Impala’s distinctive sonic aesthetic, which somehow simultaneously captures nostalgia and futurism. 

Tame Impala’s multi-award-winning third record topped the Australian charts, went Top Five in the UK (#3) and US (#4) – all career milestones for Tame Impala – and ranked highly on many ‘Best Albums of 2015’ lists. 

The super-danceable Currents leads Tame Impala fans to the dancefloor. By embracing shiny ‘80s synths, lean, funky basslines and crisp pop textures, Parker challenged the indie snobs – what’s a guilty pleasure? Traces of disco, soul and ‘90s R&B also flit through Currents. 

Of the change in direction Currents set in motion, Parker told Grantland: “Lonerism is such an insular, detached album. I got that out of the way, and now I want to join the world.”

“Fuck This – I Wanna Make Music That People Can Dance To”

Legend has it that when some of Parker’s mates conspired with a DJ to drop a pre-Currents Tame Impala track during a wedding reception, the dancefloor cleared.

Parker was suitably mortified, later recalling in an interview: “I was like, ‘Whaaaat? No one wants to dance to Tame Impala?’... That was one of the moments where I was like, ‘Fuck this – I wanna make music that people can dance to’.” 

That Meme Endorsement

A hilarious meme circulated in response to Tame Impala’s vibe shift around this time. One photo of so-called Tame Impala fans from 2008 – 2015 depicts a crew bonging-on on loungeroom couches, the other represents their post-Currents fanbase: a couple of glam ladies cheersing glasses of vino in a stylish apartment. 

Tame Impala even good-naturedly joined the conversation, commenting: “You could remove the word fans and would probably be more accurate.” 

. @tameimpala roasted themselves better then the meme! This is great!#tameimpala #shitheadsteve #funny pic.twitter.com/ih4CHEfJux

— HonestlyEarnest (@earnestjeremy) January 30, 2020

Anticipating A Lot Of Fans Would “Turn Their Noses Up”

“I can just hear them now/ ‘How could you let us down?’” – Parker himself anticipates fan backlash through these New Person, Same Old Mistakes lyrics. He’s addressing those Tame Impala purists who were eagerly anticipating Lonerism 2.0 – i.e. more jangly, face-melting acid-rock. 

“I knew a lot of Tame Impala fans were going to turn their noses up,” Parker has since admitted. “I needed a lot of counselling from my friends and my girlfriend at the time... I’m always doubting the stuff I make, but with Currents it was the most amount of doubt.”

Band Or Solo Artist?

When Currents dropped, there was a lot of confusion surrounding whether Tame Impala was actually a band or just Kevin Parker’s musical moniker.

Was it a band at first and then Parker went solo? Nah, we actually reckon that when Tame Impala were first coming up on the scene, everyone who attended a gig and clocked Parker accompanied by other musicians immediately started referring to them as a band. 

Then this misconception appealed to the intensely personal Parker, who rolled with it. “I didn’t even want to tell people that [Tame Impala] was mine and mine alone,” he confessed during a 2020 interview. “Terrified, I always pretended it was a band that was making it in the studio.”

Solitary Mastermind 

Although Tame Impala’s two previous LPs were also mostly written, performed and recorded by Parker, Currents marked the first time he also tackled the mixing.     

Touring Tame Impala member Jay Watson (also of Pond and GUM fame) scored co-writing credits on two Lonerism tracks (Apocalypse Dreams and the stomping Elephant), but Parker is Currents’ sole songwriter.

Parker began writing Currents while Tame Impala toured the world off the back of Lonerism, before completing the album in his home studio in Fremantle, Western Australia.

He’s renowned for surrendering wholeheartedly to solitude within the creative process, telling one interviewer: “I believe strongly in the zone, which is one of those things, like, I can’t get to if I’m not alone.”     

To create some of the woozy vocals that sweep listeners away during Currents, Parker has confirmed he sometimes stitched together over 1,000 vocal tracks. Parker’s perfectionist tendencies actually caused the release date for Currents to be pushed back twice. It was initially slated for release in early 2015, before finally dropping on 17 July.   

Is Currents A Breakup Album?

During the writing process, Parker split from his former partner Melody Prochet (Melody’s Echo Chamber). His return to Perth from Paris obviously infiltrated the album. But, as Parker told Paste, Currents has “a consistent, ongoing theme of personal transition”, so labelling it a breakup album is a tad reductive. 

“Moving on”, “letting go” and “change” are just a couple of the repeated lyrical motifs throughout.  

“It’s About Chaos”

Ecstatic, uplifting, bombastic and nearly eight minutes in duration, Let It Happen won Song Of The Year at the 2016 APRA Music Awards.

Those shimmering synths – exhilarating, like fireworks. Parker’s Lennon-esque vocals are floaty and plaintive as he sweetly croons the song’s repeated mantra: “Let it happ-ooon/ Let it happ-oo-ooon…”  – yeah, the ‘e’s are pronounced like ‘o’s, but it sounds heaps better that way. 

During an interview, Parker revealed of Currents’ sprawling lead single: “It’s about chaos – the whirlwinds of life that have always seemed too intense for you,” he said.

“You put your fingers in your ears and you close your eyes to shut them out, because you’ve always tried to control who you are, control the world that you’re in, but it comes to a point when it takes more energy to block it out than allow it to wash through you.”

The Ronson Effect 

While working on Currents, Parker also contributed to Mark Ronson’s killer Uptown Special album, which dropped earlier the same year (on January 12th). 

Discussing these sessions during a previous interview with TheMusic, Ronson gushed, “I was really moved and thrilled that he came all the way over from Perth to Memphis to come and help us work on this record, because Tame Impala had already become such a big deal… He wrote Daffodils pretty much on the spot, which is one of the best songs on the record."

As well as lead vocals on three songs (Summer Breaking, Daffodils, and Leaving Los Feliz), Parker also contributed some backing vocals, guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards on Uptown Special. Parker then jumped on Ronson’s all-star Australian tour of 2015 as an extra-special guest.

“Mark’s a big reason why I had the confidence to do what I did with Currents,” Parker has since pointed out. “He showed me how pop music could have such a craft to it.”

“I Knew That It Ought To Be A Smash Hit”

“I think it’s the song I’m most proud of,” Parker has said of The Less I Know The Better, which was voted triple j’s Hottest 100 Of The Decade (2010s) ahead of Somebody That I Used To Know – Gotye’s worldwide smash. 

When Parker didn't feel the initial Bee Gees-esque demo version of this song was something Tame Impala could release, he offered it to Ronson. Then, realising his mistake, Parker snatched it back. 

“I mean, you think of The Less I Know The Better – it’s one of the most iconic basslines of the past 20 years,” Ronson enthused during an interview. The bass riff Ronson refers to here was actually played on guitar and then pitched down an octave.

Parker claims, “Everything you hear up until the first chorus was done in about 15 minutes” – showoff, much?  

Although it’s one of Tame Impala’s simplest, most minimal songs, The Less I Know The Better remains their highest-selling, most-streamed song. “When I was writing it, I didn’t necessarily think it was the best song,” Parker has admitted, “but I knew that it ought to be a smash hit.”

Who TF Is Trevor?

“Someone said they left together/ I ran out the door to get her/ She was holding hands with Trevor/ Not the greatest feeling ever…” – The Less I Know The Better’s opening lines, sung in Parker’s trademark effortless falsetto, inspired a “Fuck Trevor” movement, with fans regularly scrawling the phrase on banners to brandish at Tame Impala shows worldwide. There was even an official merch line.

So who TF is Trevor, then? “It doesn’t take a genius to realise that Trevor is just Trevor because it rhymes with ‘together’,” Parker told Linda Marigliano. “Which just means that Trevor can be anyone.”

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Good Enough For Rhi-Rhi 

Rihanna covered a Currents track, changing the title slightly from New Person, Same Old Mistakes to Same Ol’ Mistakes. Rhi Rhi’s version, which stays pretty faithful to Tame Impala’s original, closes her ANTI album (2016). 

Parker shared a sweet story about hearing New Person, Same Old Mistakes in the wild with Pitchfork: “I was walking past a bar – you kinda hear the drums before you hear the music – and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a nice drum sound’ – and it was that song.

“I was like, ‘Oh, shit, it’s me!’” he continued. “I remember thinking, like, ‘Great snare sound, I should be Shazaming this,’ you know?... So it took me listening to it thinking it was someone else’s drum sound for me to actually appreciate it.”