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Tag: Tame Impala

  • Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker Slept Through His 2026 Grammy Win

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    Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker won his second Grammy earlier this month, taking home the award for Best Dance/Electronic Recording category for the Deadbeat single “End of Summer.” But, as the artist revealed in a recent interview, he missed the whole thing.

    “Look, I’m going to be dead honest with you. I forgot they were even on,” Parker said of the Grammys in a conversation with Mac Demarco for Interview Magazine. “I forgot that I was nominated as well.”

    To Parker’s credit, he’s Australian, and his category was awarded during the Grammy Premiere Ceremony, which airs live from Los Angeles and precedes the main telecast. This year, the Premiere Ceremony kicked off around 12:30 PM PST; that equates to 4:30 AM in Perth, where Parker is based.

    “You have to imagine my confusion,” Parker explained to Demarco, “because in Australia, we wake up and then we find out about what happened in America last night, so my phone has absolutely blown up. I’ve got 30 messages on my phone, all saying congratulations. None of them are saying what for. And I’m like, “What for, motherfuckers?”

    Parker secured his first Grammy in 2025, also for Best Dance/Electronic Recording. He shared the win with Justice, for their song “Neverender.” Last week, Parker announced a 2026 Tame Impala tour, which will stop at arenas across the U.S. and Canada between July and mid-September. Djo and Dominic Fike will trade off support duties.

    Revisit 5 Takeaways From Tame Impala’s New Album Deadbeat.

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    Hattie Lindert

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  • Tame Impala Experiences a Coastal Bifurcation in “My Old Ways” Video

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    “I thrive on [isolation] because it’s extremely recharging for me.” This is what Kevin Parker explains to Zane Lowe when speaking on his “anathema” need to be alone. To work and to think in total isolation. This “phenomenon” being the type of shit the absolutely terrifies most people. Mainly because most people are too afraid to “be alone with themselves” and dare to find out “what’s inside” if left without the proverbial noise of others for too long. But what Parker is saying is a common motif among artists, and especially solo musicians. Case in point, Marina Diamandis and Lorde, who have both spoken on their need to retreat from the world for a long period of time (for Lorde, that period usually amounts to four years) after enduring the promo and touring aspect of putting out a record.

    As for Parker, the need for isolation isn’t just about recharging, but having enough silence (ergo, enough peace) to ruminate and “catch” an idea. This is why Parker is constantly searching for and renting out Airbnbs wherever he can find them along the coastline, telling Lowe, “I find where there are places as close to the water as you can get. I want to be fucking right there.” This not only to pick up on the “white noise” of nature, but also because, as he puts it, “Staring out at the abyss, especially at nighttime or, like, at the end of the day, staring at the ocean, for me, is just, um, it helps me get lost and it just, there’s a tranquility that comes along with it, and an inspiration.” In other words, it puts one’s own insignificance into perspective. As it does, by the same token, to be milling around aimlessly in New York City.

    This being one of the primary (and symbolic) locations that Parker is featured in for the latest single and video from Deadbeat, “My Old Ways” (which just so happens to be the album’s “kickoff” track). Teaming again with Sam Kristofski (who also directed the “Loser” video), the video starts out in the studio, where Parker is, once more, in isolation mode. The studio setting is also a factor at the beginning of the video because, for the first minute of the song, there is a “made in the bedroom,” “analogue” quality to the intro: “So here I am once again, feel no good/I must be out of excuses, I knew I would/Feels like it came out of nowhere this time/Wish I had someone else to blame/I tell myself I’m only human/I know I, I said never again/Temptation feels like it never ends/I’m sliding, powerless as I descend.” This being the portion that Parker left “unvarnished” in its original iPhone recording incarnation before presenting the “polished” side of it once the beat drops just after the one-minute mark.

    Throughout this buildup, gradually intercut images of the cityscape begin to appear. And then, at another point, a flash to a sticky note in the studio that reads, “Am I still on?” The question, of course, has a double meaning within the context, and there’s no doubt that some part of Parker is wondering if he himself is still “on” in the sense of maintaining his “gift” for making music of the same caliber as Currents and The Slow Rush. With Deadbeat, and especially “My Old Ways,” Tame Impala proves that he certainly has maintained it, even if that gift comes with its fair share of torture. Not least of which is having to be around any large amount of people for more than, say, thirty minutes. For the artistic, introverted soul, that’s nothing short of torture. Which is why, in many regards, it’s quite ironic that so many artists flock to New York, world capital of getting caught in a clusterfuck. Just as Parker does while walking amongst the crowds near 54th Street in what can best be described as his “Brooklyn attire.” Indeed, Parker stands out less for being “famous” in this Manhattan environment than he does for being dressed either for North Brooklyn circa 2012 or somewhere in New Mexico.

    Walking the streets as though in a fugue state, Tame Impala sings, “Thought I would never go back, but just this once/A little present for holding out so long/I could not bear the thought of it two days ago/Don’t think I would forgive myself/I tell myself I’m only human/I know I, I said never again/Temptation feels like it never ends.” Such lyrics, of course, allow for a literal interpretation to “My Old Ways” in that it can clearly serve as an addict’s anthem. Whether the addiction is alcohol, especially “illicit” drugs, sex (think: Madonna’s auditory and visual rendering of Looking for Mr. Goodbar in the form of “Bad Girl”) or anything “taboo” in between. But it also works in the sense of a person who returns to behavior that they know is more insidiously—rather than overtly—bad for them. Sort of like Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker, no relation to Kevin) musing at the end of Sex and the City’s “The Fuck Buddy” episode, “And just like that, I was thrown right back into my old pattern: greasy Chinese, sleeping till noon and feeling…restless.” This would be the perfect moment to cue “My Old Ways” as the credits roll. Particularly since Parker saw fit to set some of the video in Bradshaw’s beloved NYC.

    However, at around the two-minute, twenty-six-second mark, Tame Impala essentially enters a “portal” (it’s just a door, but still) to another, sunnier coast. More specifically, the Margaret River area in Parker’s native Australia. Even though one would have liked to believe the location was California, seeing as how there would be a poetry to it. What with Parker having “officially” started the Deadbeat album while staying at one of his near-the-ocean Airbnbs in Montecito (that’s Santa Barbara, for the unversed). This tying back to what he told Lowe about being proper “obsessed” with the ocean. And also to the fact that, ultimately, his “old ways” are retreating into isolation when he’s spent far too much time in a place like New York. Oversaturated—sodden—with people as it is. And no ocean to speak of unless you’re really willing to schlep.

    So it is that this sunnier coastal environment, as per the video’s delineation, is working out for him and his creative process far better than it seemed to be in such a heavily populated area without a readily available body of water (and no, “the Lake” of Central Park doesn’t really count). Kristofski’s subsequent rapidly intercut scenes of Parker sitting in contemplation inside his rather posh-looking “glass house,” or standing in front of the ocean with his arms outstretched as though summoning something (maybe the muse?), or a swoon-worthy sunset, or his painted phonograph all serve to create a kind of sensory overload. Thus, a kind of glimpse not only into Parker’s mind as he creates, but also into the mind of someone about to surrender to the temptation of returning to their “old ways.”

    For Parker, the best kind of “old ways” for him to retreat into are those that find him in total isolation. Hence, ending the video with him sitting inside a cave-like rock with nothing but his musical accoutrements. While some might call such a way of life “unhealthy,” for Parker (and all those who have been affected by his music), it’s the only way to live. That is, when he’s not promoting an album with interviews and tours…

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Tame Impala Proves Himself to Be An Overachieving Perfectionist With Deadbeat

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    While some musicians take pride in their prolificness, Tame Impala is the kind who prefers, well, the slow rush. This being the title of the last album Kevin Parker released under the Tame Impala moniker in 2020. In the five years since, he hasn’t exactly been a “deadbeat” just lounging around. Instead, he’s been working mostly on other people’s projects, not least of which was Dua Lipa’s 2024 album, Radical Optimism. To be sure, her lead single from it, “Houdini,” has Tame Impala’s sonic stamp all over it. And that’s exactly how Lipa wanted it, commenting of her long-standing admiration for Parker’s music, “In terms of things that I’m obsessed with, Currents has been the soundtrack to my life. It’s one of my favorite albums ever ever ever. It was kind of like the gateway drug for me into Tame Impala.”

    Lipa isn’t wrong as, for many, that remains the album, even to this day (ten years since it was released). She further added of “snagging” him for Radical Optimism, “I’ve always looked up to him as someone that I’m really inspired by and he has always been on my dream board of people to work with.” And perhaps in Lipa, Parker found the final push he needed to fully embrace being as simultaneously pop and techno as possible. Two genres he’s circled for years now, but never wholly surrendered to. With his fifth record, Deadbeat, Tame Impala offers the best of both worlds, starting with the kickoff song, “My Old Ways.” Commencing with the “crude” iPhone recording of the track, Tame Impala spends one minute of the song building the listener up with his gentle, piano note-filled tale of woe, “So here I am once again, feel no good/I must be out of excuses, knew I would/Feels like it came out of nowhere this time/Wish I had someone else to blame/I tell myself I’m only human/I know I, I said never again/Temptation, feels like it never ends/I’m sliding, powerless as I descend…”

    At the one minute and one-second mark, the sonic tone shifts into a “high-gloss” recording as the beat finally drops and Tame Impala repeats, “Back into my old ways again.” With its 90s house influence, the addiction theme fits in perfectly in terms of evoking an era when taking drugs felt far more tempting. This in the sense that, there used to be a greater number of social scenarios (especially at nighttime, “in da clerb”) in which one would actually feel enticed to do so. Hell, even in Tame Impala’s earlier days, with his debut, Innerspeaker, having come out in 2010, there were more occasions for socially-motivated drug-taking. At present, it feels increasingly more like a way to numb the pain of reality. Or perhaps just the boringness of it. And yes, in a sense, that has always been the case, but “back then,” the communal element of “getting fucked up” was much more of a factor. And it’s one that comes across in “My Old Ways.” This further enhanced by Parker setting the stage for the Sam Kristofski-directed video partially in New York City, the ultimate milieu to incite a person to say, “I know what’s comin’, ain’t so shockin’, always fuckin’ up to somethin’/Story swappin’, downhill sloping, barely coping” and “I know it’s always déjà vu.”

    With a final rueful-sounding repetition of “back to my old ways again,” Tame Impala then leads into the slightly more “chipper” “No Reply.” Though “chipper,” of course, is a relative word for the perennially insecure Parker. And it is that insecurity which contributes to his self-styling as a “deadbeat.” Someone who can’t quite “comply” with what society deems to be a “useful” person. So it is that, amidst the up-tempo rhythm, Parker bemoans, “I apologize for the no reply/Wish I could describe what goes on inside/Get these butterflies/Man, they make me tired/I was so uptight and preoccupied/That I did not ask you about your life/And the things you like/How you spend your nights/And your 9 to 5/Are you that surprised?” That latter question alluding to the fact that everyone should know by now just what an “awkward lug” he is, and how, in trying to come across as at least “sort of” a person, he only ends up causing himself further anxiety as he wonders, “Was I impolite?/Was that joke alright?/I just want to seem like a normal guy.”

    But it’s already long been apparent that Parker wasn’t built to be “normal,” nor live the “normal” life, even as he settles into his “family man” role, having also welcomed a second child while recording Deadbeat. Though it’s his first child, Peach, who appears on the album’s cover with him, this capturing a spontaneous moment when the photographer was snapping away on the set and Peach made a beeline for her father. When asked by Triple J’s Lucy Smith why Parker at last chose to actually include an image of himself on the cover this time around, Parker replied, “I wanted it to be, um, an album that is noticeably more, like, exposed. Of me. I just wanted to put my own self into it and out there… I just saw an opportunity to make an album that was noticeably more human.”

    Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Parker has chosen to do just that at the very moment when society is doing its best to veer as much away from “humanity” as possible (yes, that’s shade at AI). For humans are becoming, evidently, far too “messy” to deal with. Particularly those pesky “night people.” The ones that Parker refers to on “Dracula,” his third single from the record, and one that marked his first entry into the Billboard Hot 100. This perhaps due to working with another songwriter, Sarah Aarons, for the first time since Lonerism. That Aarons has a “pedigree” in “hit-making” (having previously worked with such chart-topping artists as Rosé, Tate McRae, Miley Cyrus and Zara Larsson) surely couldn’t have hurt. Perhaps gave Parker the final push he needed to go all in on creating a “spooky” dance banger. One that does share a certain sonic DNA with The Slow Rush’s “Borderline.” Except with the instruction “but make it Halloween and also a bit of an existential rumination on finding and losing and maybe finding again someone you have amorous feelings for at a rave.” Indeed, it’s generous of Tame Impala to offer up a new “Halloween-ready” anthem apart from “Thriller,” which is in desperate need of being retired.

    In any case, all of Parker’s drug and alcohol-fueled bravura from the rave disappears with “Loser.” And, if there is one “defining” track on Deadbeat to encapsulate the theme, it’s this particular song—which, yes, of course takes its inspiration from Beck’s signature 1993 track of the same name. So much that Parker even has him cameo in the Joe Keery-starring video. In it, Keery is the “younger version” of Parker, a decision that echoes the fact that many of the songs on Deadbeat (including “No Reply”) draw their inspiration from Parker’s younger, even more insecurity-laden years. Thus, where Beck once said, “I’m a loser, baby/So why don’t you kill me?,” Tame Impala repurposes it to, “I’m a loser, babe/Do you wanna tear my heart out?” The self-deprecation continues with, “I’m a tragedy/Tryin’ to figure this whole mess out/I’m out of favor, my worst behavior.”

    Like many songs on Deadbeat, “Loser” is also one that comes across as though it’s two songs in one, meandering in different sonic directions by the second half. At about the two-minute, twenty-six-second mark on “Loser,” this is exactly what happens, with Parker dreamily crooning, “I leave alone and/Dark streets I roam in/Night air, I breathe in/The stars I believe in.” Indeed, there was a time when Parker believed in the stars so much he was willing to major in astronomy while in college (having started out in engineering—though he only attended university at all because his father told him music was, in essence, a deadbeat’s pursuit). Parker’s affinity for the cosmos, however, remains omnipresent in his music. As is also apparent in “Oblivion” (not to be confused with Grimes’ 2012 song of the same name). Once again experimenting with sound to make it mirror the lyrics themselves, Parker commences with faraway-sounding vocals before leading into saying, you guessed it, “You’re so far away/Endlessly, I try to reach you.”

    With “Oblivion,” whoever Parker is trying to reach (though one assumes it’s his wife), he must surely be getting through to, with such romantic, heart-on-his-sleeve lyrics as, “When I saw your face/I was hypnotized completely/I could see my future/Never yearned for life so deeply.” That word also having a certain drug-related connotation since, in order to achieve such a state of being unaware or unconscious of what’s happening around you, it typically requires some “mind-altering” aid. The dreamy tone of the song (even if one of its beats occasionally recalls Drake’s “One Dance”) is as key to making it sound romantic as the lyrics, “If I don’t get to you my love/Then I choose oblivion” and “If I never get to you/I’m going to oblivion.” It almost smacks of something Romeo would tell Juliet—and something he would actually do, considering he was willing to drink poison when he thought Juliet was dead. For both men, it seems that the declaration is that it’s “Not My World” if their respective lovers can’t be in it. And it is with “Not My World” that Parker continues to cultivate an ethereal soundscape. As a matter of fact, Parker was sure to call this song out to Triple J as being “kind of, like, the signature sound of Deadbeat.”

    This not just in terms of gut-punching lyrics that speak to him feeling out of step with the rest of society, but also in the stripped-back nature of the instruments—at least to start out. This done with a drum machine filtered through a guitar as Tame Impala paints the picture, “Waking just in time to catch the last hours of sunlight [more “Dracula” vibes]/People going home, they walk by/Must be nice/Must be nice/Makes me realize/It’s not my world/It’s not my world.” Although simple and to the point, this small description cuts to the core of how it feels to be a “deadbeat.” In other words, an artist who really can’t keep the same hours as those 9 to 5ers (or what’s left of them, anyway).

    After Tame Impala comes to this rather bittersweet conclusion, there’s still quite a bit of the song left, but he chooses to make it entirely instrumental as he plays with an array of musical intertwinements that help to get across the emotions he’s seeking to convey. Indeed, he also told Triple J, “The rhythms in my music will always be, you know, almost the most important thing. It just, for me, carries the, like, the groove carries the emotion.” And oh how it does so much carrying for the majority of “Not My World” until Tame Impala once more repeats “it’s not my world” twice at the very end.

    He then leads into the jauntier-sounding “Piece of Heaven,” which almost has an INXS feel to it (think: “Never Tear Us Apart”). And then comes a dash of Enya as the musical layers start to build on one another. And, in contrast to “Not My World,” this is a song that finds Tame Impala totally at ease with not being a part of the outside world, going so far as to pronounce, “Now there is a whole world/Going on out there/Whatever I’m missing out on/In here I don’t care.” The reason? “‘Cause I’m in your bedroom/Now I’m your possession.”

    But prior to finding this person who makes him feel like slightly less of an “anomaly,” Tame Impala speaks on “deadbeat qualities” again, starting the song out with, “This room is a shambles/But I think it’s fine/To you it’s untidy, maybe/To me it’s divine.” Establishing once again that he isn’t “normal” (granted, in previous tracks, he expressed wanting to be—though that has become increasingly less the case as the album goes on), Parker then speaks on finding another person whose bedroom is a “shambles,” too—therefore, just as “divine” to him as his own room. A “piece of heaven,” in fact. A world apart from the “real,” and oh so banal one outside.

    At the three-minute, forty-three-second mark, Tame Impala pulls that “two songs in one” maneuver again, with the track becoming all piano as he muses in a chanting kind of way, “It won’t make a difference/You can lie all your life/It won’t make a difference/You can try all your life.” Not exactly encouraging words after such a romantic, uplifting few minutes. But, then again, maybe what Parker is trying to say is that, you can lie to yourself all your life that you don’t want love, and you can try (“secretly”) all your life to find it. But, in the end, it’s as Parker himself once said on Currents: you just have to “let it happen.”

    With “Obsolete,” however, there’s another “comedown” from the high of love (or any general state of euphoria), with Tame Impala getting right to the point as announces, “Talk is cheap, but the words cut deep/Promises get old, they get hard to keep/Tell me, please, ‘cause I’m losing sleep/Do you want my love? Is it obsolete?” Here, too, it bears noting that, once again, Tame Impala is tapping into the general through the specific. Almost as though he’s asking if love overall is obsolete in the face of the current climate. Not just his own for this particular person he’s addressing. A person he also feels obliged to tell, “Always was so easy hanging out/But it sure doesn’t feel like that now/I know that you have been feeling rough/Or are you falling out of love?”

    The more this person seems to ignore him, however, the more he starts to spiral, adding ‘Cause I’m already talkin’ like it’s done/Saying things like, ‘At least we had some fun’/And things like, ‘I guess we met too young.’” The spiral only continues to augment as the song progresses, with Tame Impala growing almost full-tilt hostile when he says, “Just tell me what is/Tell me what is up/I’ve almost had enough/You’re playing with my love/Just tell me what is up/Yes, really what the fuck?”

    The R&B influence on Tame Impala’s musical style is also most prominent on “Obsolete,” particularly as it goes on the now standard “two songs in one” path at about the three-minute, twenty-one-second mark, segueing listeners out of this universe and into the one of “Ethereal Connection,” which goes all-out techno. A big deal for the person who once, per Triple J, used to describe techno music as a “guilty pleasure” (not unlike Madonna deriding it entirely before she made an electronic album in the form of Ray of Light). With “Ethereal Connection” (which fittingly served as the B-side to the almost as techno-y “End of Summer”), Tame Impala makes up for all that last time by taking listeners on what amounts to an odyssey through the club (sort of like what Charli XCX does with “365” on Brat), with all its various sounds and emotional highs and lows.

    Like “Not My World,” it is also far more reliant on music than it is lyrics, with Tame Impala saying one verse just twice during the seven minutes and forty-two seconds that the song runs for (and yes, it’s also got a certain LCD Soundsystem feel to it, and not just in terms of length). That verse being: “Don’t believe in magic/All the harder that I try/But you and I have something/That I can never describe/Take a ride/Say goodbye/I don’t say it too often/Isn’t usually my style/I’m here whatever happens/Don’t you know that I’ll stand by?/By your side/Until the end of time.” Or, as Lana Del Rey would put it, “I will love you till the end of time/I would wait a million years.”

    At another moment during the Triple J interview, Parker remarked, “I’m always talking about songs as though they’re, like, people that have their own personalities.” And if “See You On Monday (You’re Lost)” could be attributed with one, it would be “Eeyore.” This not just in terms of the musical pitch and tempo, but also the palpable resignation and ennui in the lyrics, “And it happens at every turn I’m at/Somewhat steady, but please don’t call me that/And it happens at every turn I’m at/Something beckoning me and I turn back.” As the song goes on, the repetition of “you’re lost” once more taps into the struggle of a deadbeat, perennially searching for a way to feel, well, not so lost compared to everyone else around them, all of whom appear to have it “together.” To be “found.”

    Such observations from a deadbeat can inevitably lead him to feel like an “Afterthought.” This track (also co-written with Sarah Aarons) being another sonic pendulum swing from one emotional extreme to another. For where “See You On Monday (You’re Lost)” was downtrodden and “Eeyore”-like, the personality of this track is frenetic and unrelenting (almost serving as Tame Impala’s version of Rick James’ “Give It To Me Baby,” musical backing-wise). And, in it, he derides the object of his affection for, well, effectively deriding him by treating him like an “afterthought.” Almost like it was tailor-made for “friend guys” everywhere (like Brian Krakow in My So-Called Life)—the ones who keep hoping against hope that their friend who’s a girl that they’ve been obsessed with for ages will finally notice them. You know, in that way.

    Parker comes across as exactly such a type as he paints the picture, “I might be crazy/Senses betray me/Are you parading all your lovers to bait me?/You only call me/To drive you to safety/But you never stay, must be so easy to play me/I can be emotional/If you need me to/Tell me, what do I say to turn this around?” Alas, for a man so firmly relegated into the “friend zone” (or, worse still, the “to be taken advantage of” zone), there is nothing to be said to “turn this around.” Regardless, Tame Impala still has the sense of shamelessness to say, “I beg you, don’t make me say it out loud/No matter what I do/I’m an afterthought to you.”

    Continuing to play into that bereft “friend zoned” motif, Tame Impala opts to round out the album with, “End of Summer,” which was the first single from Deadbeat, and the one to give listeners a glimpse into the techno-oriented direction the album was going to take. And it, too, speaks to one person in a friendship wanting to take it to the next level as Parker sings, “Everybody knows how I feel about you/So you can act surprised if you need to/And I am still your friend if you think it’s worth it.” In a sense, too, it’s almost as if Tame Impala is speaking directly to his listener in regard to how long it’s taken him to “return” with an album.

    And, as for the amount of time it took for Parker to finally “push” Deadbeat out of himself, he said it best when Zane Lowe mentioned how, the last time they talked, he was saying how lost he had gotten in making The Slow Rush. To this, Parker returned, “I think you have to. You have to get lost in it. If I’m not completely consumed by it and, like, just sort of felt like I’ve dropped off the face of the Earth in doing it, then I haven’t gone deep enough, you know? I honestly thought this album was gonna be the album that didn’t take years off my life. Like, mentally.” But what Tame Impala has lost mentally, he more than gives back to the minds of others with this record. Particularly in terms of its “concept,” which taps into so many people’s insecurities about themselves—namely, those who had the “audacity” to pursue art over a “career.”

    In characterizing why he chose to put the neon sign “Deadbeat” above himself, as it were, Parker told Triple J, “All the feelings that I’ve had in my life of, like, being a dropout, being a deadbeat, being hopeless, being a space cadet—that’s still how I feel. You know, I still feel, um, like I’m sort of constantly ‘therapying myself’ against these feelings.” And, in turn, the fellow “deadbeats” can “therapy themselves” with Deadbeat.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Tame Impala Speaks on Night People With “Dracula”

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    In Mark Ronson’s memoir, Night People, the quote he uses for the introduction of the book is as follows: “The night is on your mind/Ayo, the sun’ll still shine/But now the night is on the mind.” Taken from A Tribe Called Quest’s 1993 track, “Midnight,” it’s a verse that also very much applies to Tame Impala’s latest single from Deadbeat (following “End of Summer” and “Loser”), “Dracula.” The evocative title of course referring to being a creature of the night (for vampires, as everyone knows, despise the day—after all, it literally kills them). And obviously one that abhors daylight. Or, at the very least, doesn’t get along half as well with it.

    To convey that motif in the accompanying video for “Dracula,” directed by Julian Klincewicz, Tame Impala (a.k.a. Kevin Parker) sets the stage at a house party in the middle of nowhere (a setting he’s quite familiar with considering he grew up, for a time, in Western Australia’s Kalgoorlie). Except, rather than partying inside the house like semi-“civilized” people, these ghoulish creatures move about in an almost zombie-like (rather than vampire-like) fashion outside the abandoned/spooky-looking abode (given the added “deadbeat” touch of being outfitted with a string of colored Christmas lights on the exterior).

    Before the viewer is given a chance to fully take in the non-splendor of the house, however, Tame Impala, in the opening scene, emerges as though out of thin air, cutting through the night like the very vampire the song is named after. This done as a trippy, almost incantation-like series of “oh-oh-oh-ohs” are let out before the expectedly infectious beat drops. A beat, as Tame Impala, described to Zane Lowe, that heavily evolved in that it “started in this really raw, minimal way and then just sort of like slowly expanded into this sort of like pop, you know…” Parker further added, as though to emphasize he’s but a vessel for “the muse,” “I just give the song what it wants. I feel like that one just…wanted to be like a Max Martin song.” And yes, it’s probably the most “Max Martin-y” that Tame Impala will ever get.

    In any case, as he continues to walk through the deserted landscape, all at once, a semi-truck appears behind Tame Impala to follow him into the enclosure, as it were, and soon he’s strutting into the area like a rooster (especially with his “groovy” neck moves while walking). With the dominant pheromones to back up that comparison. The opening verse then heightens the establishment of the feeling that these are night people, with Tame Impala singing, “The morning light is turning blue, the feeling is bizarre/The night is almost over, I still don’t know where you are/The shadows, yeah, they keep me pretty like a movie star/Daylight makes me feel like Dracula.”

    In other words, nighttime is the right time, particularly for continuing to fool people into thinking you’re attractive (further assisted by the intake of drugs and alcohol). Even though Dua Lipa’s “Illusion” (which Parker co-produced with Danny L Harle) rightly brings up the fact that most girls are well-aware they’re dancing with a, let’s say, false presentation at this time of night, as manifest in her lyrics, “I really like the way you’re movin’/Yeah, I just wanna dance with the illusion.” And daylight is the one major thing that can really shatter the illusion—break the spell. Or trance, if you will.

    As he serves some very Kesha “the party don’t start till I walk in” vibes, the scene switches to black and white before being suffused with color again, with Klincewicz homing in on a pregnant woman as one of the many random-ass people who happen to be at this gathering. An image that solidifies the notion that not only does the nighttime always seem to bring an “eclectic mix” of people together, but also that once you are a night person, you never really let that go…no matter what your circumstances in life are. Married, pregnant, “old”—it don’t matter. Your commitment remains forever to the night.

    With the video continuing to alternate between shots in color and black and white, Klincewicz lends an added sense that there is a line between “two worlds”—day and night—being tenuously toed. As for the desolate landscape, Parker cited Western Australia’s rave scene as one of the track’s inspirations (because, again, if anyone knows about that Western Australia life, it’s Parker). And this very much comes across in the isolated, remote tableau provided by the video. Along with the cult-like “circle dances” occasionally shown via overhead shots that convey a message about how “The Night” really is a religion for some people (see also: Charli XCX—side note: frequent Charli collaborator Imogene Strauss acted as the creative director for this video).

    Throughout the strangeness-radiating “party,” Tame Impala appears to be in search of something—or someone—he has yet to find. An image that speaks to the romantic aspect of the song, which is that he’s looking for “his person,” his fellow creature of the night to depart with. Ergo, the lyrics, “In the end, I hope it’s you and me/In the darkness, I would never leave you.” That “in the end” part referring to the moment when the night really is over and you’re theoretically supposed to go “home” (or whatever ramshackle you’re currently squatting in) with someone. Unless, of course, you really are a vampire and truly only can be with someone else in the darkness (thus, Tame Impala warning, “Won’t ever see me in the light of day/It’s far too late, the time has come”—for him to enter his proverbial coffin bed).  

    As the sun starts to come up at this rave-y party, Tame Impala acts as the “cult leader” figure, leading them all away from this place (a pied piper of keeping the good times [literally] rolling) with the house rigged up on the back of the semi-truck like it’s no big deal. Clearly, they’re migrating elsewhere, maybe to a place where it’s still night (after all, “portal jumping” seems totally plausible within this video’s universe).

    While the stumbling/dancing rag-tag crew follows behind Tame Impala and his truck, the lines, “Run from the sun like Dracula” repeat. And it’s an urging that could just as well possess the subtext, “Run from responsibility at all costs.” Stay a creature of the night—someone who can never be swayed or controlled by the “laws” of the day. A message that feels especially valid on an album called Deadbeat.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Neither Radical Nor Incredibly Optimistic, Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism Still Manages to Contend For Album of the Summer (Hell, Maybe Even the Year)

    Neither Radical Nor Incredibly Optimistic, Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism Still Manages to Contend For Album of the Summer (Hell, Maybe Even the Year)

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    Commencing with an immediate callback to the sound of Crystal Waters’ “Gypsy Woman,” Dua Lipa kicks off what is sure to be the album of the summer with a song called, appropriately, “End Of An Era.” For a long time, it has been. Especially as 2024 marks a major political shift yet again in terms of upcoming elections and shifting allegiances amid two fraught wars (Israel-Palestine and Russia-Ukraine). By the same token, every other month feels like the dawning of a new era in an age where everything is accelerated: media, news cycles, political melees. Thus, for Lipa to title her third record Radical Optimism is, indeed, very radical. Or perhaps endlessly naive and delusional. Either way, the cover of the album now famously features the exposed fin of a shark swimming directly next to a simultaneously backgrounded and foregrounded Lipa, who seems to be wearing something akin to an evening gown rather than a bathing suit (or “swimming costume,” as the Brits prefer to say). Let’s just say it doesn’t quite top Rihanna’s more bombastic photoshoot inside the mouth of “Jaws” for a 2015 issue of Bazaar (obviously, Ri was the cover star). 

    In fact, Rihanna posed for said photoshoot partially in honor of the movie’s fortieth anniversary that year. One that seemed to render sharks very on-trend, what with Katy Perry’s Super Bowl performance also featuring a dancer (the left one) in a shark costume that stole the show…for struggling to keep up with his fellow shark-costumed dancer (the right one). As for Rihanna’s commentary on sharks, she noted, “I try my best to avoid the sharks of life, but I have had my share of experiences with them. In those cases I just have to handle them accordingly. But I do not swim with sharks…sharks swim with sharks.” And yet, Lipa certainly isn’t one. This is the woman who talks of “manifesting” things and presently makes 70s-inspired psychedelic music. Granted, that’s largely Kevin Parker a.k.a. Tame Impala’s doing—a musician that Lipa has wanted to work with since her first album, citing 2015’s Currents as “the record that completely shook me.”

    And now, Lipa aims to do the same with Radical Optimism. Like Future Nostalgia, it borrows heavily from musical genres past. Though Lipa says those genres are “70s,” it still smacks of the 80s electrobeats she’s so fond of. However, Lipa remarked that, in terms of influences, “I found myself looking through the music history of psychedelia, trip hop and Britpop. It has always felt so confidently optimistic to me, and that honesty and attitude is a feeling I took into my recording sessions.” Regarding that term, “radical optimism,” Lipa also explained, “A couple years ago, a friend introduced me to the term Radical Optimism. It’s a concept that resonated with me, and I became more curious as I started to play with it and weave it into my life. It struck me—the idea of going through chaos gracefully and feeling like you can weather any storm.” It’s a concept, of course, that the rich are well-equipped to “play with” and “weave” into their lives. Just as they are to have the time and energy to romanticize love (see also: Taylor Swift). So it is that “End Of An Era” begins with the lyrics, “What’s it about a kiss/That makes me feel like this?/Makes me an optimist, I guess/I always jump too quick/Hoping this one might stick/Hopelessly romantic.”

    In contrast to Swift, however, Lipa combines both the magic of falling in love with the “ew you’re gross” breakup aftermath into one song. For, halfway through it, she shrugs, “No more, you’re not my type/No more, at least I tried/Done with the lonely nights, I guess/One chapter might be done/God knows I had some fun.” So it is that she moves on to the “next chapter” (read: another dude) in the same song. By the time the post-chorus comes around, Lipa is majorly channeling Marina Diamandis’ Electra Heart persona as she sings the following in a manner that sounds like the intro to “Homewrecker”: “In the clouds, there she goes/Butterflies, let them flow/Another girl falls in love/Another girl leaves the club/Send a big kiss goodbye/To all of the pretty eyes/Another girl falls in love/Another girl leaves the club.” And so it is that the tinge of jadedness amid Lipa’s so-called optimism is already noticeable from the outset, complete with Lipa sighing, “Here she goes again” as the song comes to a close. What’s more, Lipa makes a commentary on the notion that it’s easy to “fall in love” with the “illusion” of someone when you first meet them (a topic also discussed on her third single from the record, called, what else, “Illusion”). Particularly if one’s first impression of them takes place in a club setting. 

    And while Gen Z might find such notions of club meetings “quaint,” Lipa still lays that setting on thick in terms of being a viable meeting place for “love.” Even if the people you meet there often turn out to be “disappearing acts” the following morning. An image that segues nicely into “Houdini,” along with the “End Of An Era” line, “In the clouds, there she goes.” This idea of a girl only being “for the taking” for a split second before her mood changes and she comes to her senses is the crux of “Houdini” (e.g., “It’s your moment/Baby, don’t let it slip”). As the first single from the album, it is arguably the most Tame Impala-sounding, with lyrical imagery that continues to focus on kisses and lips (“See you watching and you blow me a kiss” and “Come in closer, are you reading my lips?”). But, more than anything, it’s about the urgency of capturing that lightning in a bottle moment—or, in this scenario, that lightning in a bottle person. So it is that Lipa declares during a chorus soundtracked by an utterly frenetic musical backdrop, “They say I come and I go/Tell me all the ways you need me/I’m not here for long/Catch me or I go/Houdini.”

    At another point in the song, Lipa tells her would-be suitor, “If you’re good enough, you’ll find a way.” Something in that line smacks of pro-capitalist propaganda, the type of “how bad do you want it” mumbo-jumbo that ensures anyone who doesn’t “succeed” (a.k.a. make gobs of money) will feel like total shit about it. Lipa appears, ultimately, to be aiming for the same effect with her suitor, making him feel as though he’s totally inadequate and unworthy of her “charms” in the first place. 

    The Sheryl Crow-esque (thematically speaking) “Training Season” follows “Houdini,” and also serves as Radical Optimism’s second single. In a similar fashion, Lipa trolls her would-be suitors by posing the shade-drenched question, “Are you someone that I could give my heart to?/Or just the poison that I’m drawn to?” Adding, “It can be hard to tell the difference late at night” as though to emphasize her intent that, like Future Nostalgia, this is another “club album.” Designed for those women who like to go out on the town and make “bad decisions,” usually related to the men they’re drunkenly attracted to. And being drunk, to be sure, can make ones expectations even more unrealistically honest. Ergo Lipa’s pronouncement, “Need someone to hold me close/Whose love feels like a rodeo/Deeper than I’ve ever known.”

    Talking of drunkenness, the standout fourth track on the album, “These Walls,” immediately dives into the image, “And when the night ends up in tears/Wake up and we blame it all on being wasted.” This after the song’s gentle, whimsy-filled intro (which also reappears later in the chorus) that sounds like something The Beatles would have approved of sonically (particularly George Harrison). Less cavalier about relationships being ephemeral than she has been on the previous three tracks, Lipa woefully sings, “Oh, this love is fadin’/So much we’re not sayin’/But if these walls could talk, they’d say, ‘Enough’/They’d say, ‘Give up’/If these walls could talk/They’d say, ‘You know’/They’d say, ‘You’re fucked/It’s not supposed to hurt this much/Oh, if these walls could talk/They’d tell us to break up.” Considering it’s been a while since someone put that classic expression to good use (probably not since the abortion-centric HBO movie from 1996, If These Walls Could Talk), Lipa brings it back in the best way possible. The 80s-inspired emotiveness of her vocal delivery is also part of what makes “These Walls” among the most memorable tunes on Radical Optimism. 

    That’s less the case for the more generic-sounding “Whatcha Doin” (a question she’ll also ask on “Illusion”), which sounds like a combination of Mariah Carey’s “Dreamlover” at the beginning followed by homogenous-sounding 90s R&B as the song progresses. It also marks another lyrical and thematic advancement in terms of gradually showing Lipa becoming more vulnerable the deeper into Radical Optimism one gets. As such, “Whatcha Doin” is all about her fear of becoming too “unguarded” when it comes to falling in love with the latest bloke who has her attention. So it is that she confesses, “After midnight [how Taylor]/Me and my thoughts alone/There’s a part of me that wants to steal your heart/And a part that tells me, ‘Don’t’/‘Cause I’m no good at givin’ up control” (well, no, that’s actually Madonna—a renowned control freak in all aspects of her life both personal and professional). This sentiment corroborates what she already said about her “bucking bronco” nature on “Training Season”: “I need someone to hold me close, deeper than I’ve ever known/Whose love feels like a rodeo, knows just how to take control.”

    Lipa continues, “But if control is my religion [as it is Janet Jackson’s]/And I’m headin’ for collision/Lost my 20/20 vision/Please [a word that harkens back to her Future Nostalgia song, “Pretty Please”]/Whatcha doin’ to me, baby?/I’m scared to death that you might be the one to change me/You’re in my head and now you’re cloudin’ my decisions/Got me headin’ for collision.” The not-so-optimistic assumption being that Lipa is destined for heartbreak as all relationships are doomed to end, no matter how “magical” they seem at the beginning. 

    That perspective ties in nicely with “French Exit” (sorry to those who think it should be “Irish Goodbye”). A number that speaks to Lipa’s belief that you can’t get hurt if you don’t say goodbye. As for the instrumentals backing the lyrics, “French Exit” is the most acoustic guitar-laden (serving as a precursor for the even more Spanish-sounding “Maria”), which gives it a different feel from the other offerings on Radical Optimism. Here Lipa continues to explore her intense fear of becoming vulnerable, wielding the metaphor of the dance floor yet again to say, “Everybody’s still dancin’/Everybody’s holdin’ hands and romancin’/Someone’s gotta be the last one standin’/And I hate that I’m leaving you stranded/But I gotta hit the road.” The reason she has to? Why, so as not to get too attached, of course. After all, she’s learned her lesson from past heartbreaks, hasn’t she?

    Using this “logic,” she insists, “It’s not a broken heart if I don’t break it/‘Goodbye’ doesn’t hurt if I don’t say it/And I really hope you’ll understand it/Only way to go is a French exit.” Considering Lipa’s affinity for speaking French (see/hear also: her 2020 collaboration with Angèle, “Fever”), she isn’t one to miss the opportunity to pepper in little phrases to drive home the point of her love of a French exit, sultrily uttering things like, filer à l’anglaise (which means, more or less, “to dash off, English-style”) and “French exit, c’est la seule solution.”

    During another moment, Lipa gets even more candid with the assertion, “I’m better at a clеan break than leaving doors open/I know you’re gonna say I shoulda stayed ’til the end/But, right now, I can’t give you what you want.” Which is a funny thing to admit when taking into account that the bulk of this album is about other people (read: men) not being able to give her what she wants. The same is true on “Illusion,” which marks Lipa’s return to the “can’t pin me down” motif of the first three songs. With intermittent musical echoes of Anita Ward’s “Ring My Bell,” Lipa proceeds to announce that she’s taken her rose-colored glasses off and won’t be falling for any bullshit going forward.

    With that in mind, it’s no wonder she balks, “I already know your type, tellin’ me the things I like/Tryna make me yours for life, takin’ me for a ride/I already know your type, think you playin’ your cards right/Don’t you know I could do this dance all night?” There’s that dance floor metaphor again. Lipa then continues her confident “fuck you” vibe with the chorus, “Ooh, what you doin’?/Don’t know who you think that you’re confusin’/I be like, ooh, it’s amusin’/You think I’m gonna fall for an illusion.”

    Switching back to her vulnerable side again on “Falling Forever,” Lipa oozes an 80s power ballad atmosphere (with production help from Danny L Harle, Ian Kirkpatrick and Cameron Gower Poole), giving her best neo-interpretation of Bonnie Tyler as she asks, “Are you good at holding on?/I know the mind is quick to throw away the moment/Where this takes us, maybe I don’t wanna know yet/‘Cause for now, you’re all I want/They say you got it, then it’s gone/I don’t believe that every flame has to get colder/I hope the feelings that you give me carry over/‘Til tomorrow and beyond” (or “to infinity and beyond”). Her optimism is belied by the tinge of doubt present in additional questions like, “How long, how long?/Can it just keep getting better?/Can we keep falling forever?” 

    Lipa’s examination of whether or not there really can be such a thing as “forever” in matters of love is at its most soul-baring on “Anything For Love,” the shortest song on the album (perhaps because Lipa doesn’t want get “too real” for too long). Starting out as a stripped-down piano ditty, “Anything For Love,” crystallizes all the fears Lipa has expressed thus far. Which leads her to confess what she does and doesn’t want out of a true love: “And I’m not interested in a love that gives up so easily/I want a love that’s set on keeping me/When it hurts, we don’t even think to cut it off/And I’m not interested in a heart that doesn’t beat for me/I want a mind that meets me equally/When it’s hard, it won’t evеr feel like it’s too much/Remembеr when we used to do anything for love?” The music picks up the rhythm (jettisoning the piano in the process) with the first verse, transitioning to an 80s sound again as Lipa ruminates, “We’re all terrified of heartbreak/Run at first signs of problems/Make it look way too easy/We all got too many options.”

    In many ways, she seems to be romanticizing the heyday of monogamy’s hold over people (particularly in the mid-twentieth century, before divorce rates started to pop off in the 70s and 80s). When married couples or even long-term relationship couples weren’t as quick to use the “get out of jail free card” as they are now. And yes, that’s in large part because dating apps have promised “so many other choices.” All amounting to ending up alone. 

    Because Lipa wouldn’t be a true pop star if she didn’t offer up her rendition of a “Spanish-flavored song,” she brings us the penultimate “Maria.” With acoustic guitars that are even heavier than the ones on “French Exit,” the uptempo rhythm is a positive rumination on a current boyfriend’s ex. While it might initially come across as a garden-variety “jealousy” track (à la “Jolene,” which Beyoncé unfortunately saw fit to remake this year) with the lyrics, “​​Maria, I know you’re gone/But I feel ya when we’re alone/Even when I’m here in his arms/I know you’re somewhere in his heart,” the truth is that Lipa actually appreciates this ex. And all she’s done to mold her boyfriend into a better man. A man who has learned some lessons from his mistakes with Maria. Being that love triangles that manage to accommodate everyone without leaving the “third wheel” out are a seeming trend this year (thanks to Challengers, and now this), it shows pop culture has come a long way from the days of the Carrie, Big and Natasha love triangle from Sex and the City. Because, no, Natasha definitely wasn’t grateful for “everything” Carrie did to “break” Big in. 

    You’d never hear the likes of her singing, “Never thought I could feel this way/Grateful for all the love you gave/Here’s to the lovers that make you change/Maria, Maria, Maria.” Lipa’s love for exes persists on the reminiscent-of-Olivia-Rodrigo’s-“happier” “Happy For You.” As the track that serves as the, that’s right, optimistic coda to Radical Optimism, it’s a pointed note to end on. And, needless to say, it’s more “mature” than Rodrigo’s sentiments on “happier” when she sings, “I hope you’re happy/But not like how you were with me/I’m selfish, I know, I can’t let you go/So find someone great, but don’t find no one better/I hope you’re happy/I wish you all the best, really/Say you love her, baby, just not like you loved me.” 

    Thus, Lipa’s more “evolved” emotions about a breakup are a mirror of Gwen Stefani’s 2004 single, “Cool.” Something that tracks when considering she told Rolling Stone earlier this year, ​​“I think I’ve had breakups in my life where I felt like the only kind of breakup you could have was when things just ended really badly. Things ending in a nice way was such a new thing… It taught me a lot… When you have a feeling like that one, you feel really grown because you’re like, ‘Oh, whoa, I’m such an evolved human being that I can see my ex move on and feel good about it.’” 

    Accordingly, she sings in the chorus, “I must’ve loved you more than I ever knew (didn’t know I could ever feel)/‘Cause I’m happy for you (now I know everything was real)/I’m not mad, I’m not hurt/You got everything you deserve/I must’ve loved you more than I ever knеw/I’m happy for you.” Of all her exes, the most likely inspiration seems to be Anwar Hadid, currently dating a model named Sophia Piccirilli. And yes, Lipa does mention a model in the opening verse that goes: “Late on a Tuesday, I saw your picture/You were so happy, I could just tell/She’s really pretty, I think she’s a model/Baby, together you look hot as hell.” How “grown” of Lipa indeed. Though, naturally, it helps when you’re model hot yourself to have these “beneficent feelings.”

    With the album over in under thirty-eight minutes, perhaps the most refreshing and “radical” thing about it is that, in a sea of “blockbuster” records that are overstuffed with songs this year (*cough cough* Cowboy Carter and The Tortured Poets Department), Lipa keeps it classic in terms of the record’s relative “shortness” (eleven tracks). Making the album breezy, enjoyable to listen to and, in effect, the ideal “no-frills” pièce de résistance for summer (a major step up from that flaccid “song of the summer” “contender” Lipa once tried to offer with 2022’s “Poison”). 

    As for the overarching message, Lipa reminds listeners that to surrender to falling in love is to be radically optimistic before it all gives way to unbridled cynicism (and sometimes, starting over again in a new relationship after being badly burned in the last one is part of that optimism in love, too). Lipa pictured next to that shark, however, is more than just a representation of taking a risk on love. No, instead, this image is a representation of how most of us live now: forcing ourselves to believe it will all be fine, knowing full well that catastrophe is imminent. In that sense, Lipa gives us a summer album for a decade that has wielded denial like a vaccine (pandemic allusion intended) against reality.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Your Weekend Playlist: New Music To Listen To This Friday

    Your Weekend Playlist: New Music To Listen To This Friday

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    Now that we’re in the wake of Taylor Swift’s epic release of The Tortured Poets Department anthology, other artists have gathered the courage to release music yet again…I mean, the album literally broke every Spotify record in the book- already surpassing 1 billion streams in five days, she has the most streamed song and album in a single day. You get the point.

    But now, you’ve replayed the album sufficiently and you’re ready for new music. I know, we’re all insatiable when it comes to streaming new tracks. It’s why fans of other artists are lamenting that their faves don’t release as often as Swift. If, say, Billie Eilish or Harry Styles started releasing more frequently alongside Swift, we’d have a lot of work to do…my playlists would grow endless.

    Every Friday, I like to compile a list of the hottest new hits released that day so you know which songs to listen to. Whether you’re heading into the weekend ready to party, or need to get some spring cleaning done and need a soundtrack…there’s a song on my Weekend Playlist for everyone.

    And yes…our playlists are now available on Spotify! So all you need to do is press play and let the music take you away from your laptops and into your weekend.

    So, without further ado, let’s get listening!

    Chris Lake, Sammy Virji, Nathan Nicholson- “Summertime Blues”  

    We are no strangers to the technical genius of Chris Lake here at Popdust. He has the power to hop on collaboration tracks and make a hit…which is exactly what happens in “Summertime Blues.” An instant house classic that will smoothly transition you from spring to summer.

    Every warm weather season needs its essential techno house track, and it looks like we already have it. “Summertime Blues” transcends the listener to a club somewhere far away, maybe in Ibiza. It’s an instant classic- bouncy, sunny, heavy on the bass. A perfect blend of Virji, Lake, and Nicholson. Chef’s kiss.

    R3HAB, Jason Derulo- “Animal” 

    Jason Derulo and R3HAB team up for the ultimate collaboration: “Animal.” With Derulo’s smooth vocals and R3HAB’s production talent, you’ll be playing this song over and over. If you want a song with sexy lyrics, Jason Derulo’s famed voice, and R3HAB’s ability to meld any track into gold, this one is for you.

    This is the fourth collaboration for the now iconic duo, and it shows. “Animal” is a product of two powerhouses in their respective genres who know how to make a hit. Combining sounds isn’t always easy, but R3HAB and Derulo make you think it is.

    Mabel- “Vitamins” 

    Mabel delivers a hard-hitting R&B track with “Vitamins.” Perhaps my favorite song on the playlist this week, Mabel reminds you that she’ll be good for you. It’s reminiscent of R&B greats like Mary J. Blige and Ashanti, with all the soulful vocals and heartfelt passion that only Mabel can convey in her music. It’s easy listening, a slow burn that keeps shining from start to finish. About the track she says,

    “This is my family and friends’ favorite song out of all the music I’ve made over the past couple of years. It’s a reminder to the man I love to take care of himself but also that in difficult times I’ll always be there in his corner. I dedicate the record to my uncle David Cherry who passed during the making of this song. He was a musician and I felt him guiding me musically during the session, to be braver and bolder with my songwriting.”

    The Scarlet Opera- “Catch Me If You Can” 

    The Scarlet Opera delivers an empowering symphony of guitar and keys with “Catch Me If You Can.” It’s your dose of rock-and-roll combined with a mixture of badass lyricism, an intoxicating chorus, and a whole lot of infectious melodies. The Scarlet Opera’s message is that they have their stuff figured out, and they’re not letting anyone stop them.

    “We don’t really believe in revenge, but we do believe in epic destiny. We’re fortunate that those who have and continue to doubt us, hold little space in our hearts– this record will act as a constant reminder that we’re in control. Catch us if you can!”

    Justice, Tame Impala- “Neverender” 

    A Tame Impala track is essential for warm weather. Teaming up with the all-encompassing French touch DJ, Justice, the duo delivers a solid track in “Neverender.” Upbeat, well-paced, and catchy, this song will get you through the weekend seamlessly.

    If you want to check out our playlists, listen on our Spotify below!

    Listen To The Playlist On Spotify!

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    Jai Phillips

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  • Vinyls and Marijuana Go Together

    Vinyls and Marijuana Go Together

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    What is old is new again, records stores are making a comeback. Record Store Day shares a celebration day with cannabis community.  Like 4/20, it involved by a bunch of afficandios lifting up independent retailers and raising awareness and celebrating the multi-faceted art. Taking a page of Free Comic Book Day, it started in 2007  and is celebrated at retailers around the world. Hundreds of artists participate iby making special appearances, performances, fan meet ups  and the issuing of special vinyls.  It makes sense they share a day, vinyls and marijuana go together.

    RELATED: 5 Morning Activities To Help You Feel Happier

    Music and marijuana are a perfect match. Marijuana makes music almost come alive in a 3-D fashion. Marijuana’s properties improves current attention, prevents memory seeking, and helps the mind concentrate on music making it appear more fresh and intriguing. It helps the body concentrate on the current moment. Both marijuana and vinyl are going strong.  The legal cannabis industry just hit $29.5 billion for 2023 and the vinyl industry revenues grew 17% to $1.2 billion in 2022. This is the sixteenth consecutive year of growth and accounted for 71% of physical format revenues in physical stores.

    Of course, what vinyl pairs best with marijuana? Here are some suggestions.

    Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon

    Pink Floyd’s classic allows the consumer to wallow in philosophy and explore the corners of the mind. While enjoying the plant, thought and preconceived ideas can be taken apart and reconstructed. The song’s rhythm will make feel as if every bone and muscle vibrant and independent.

    De La Soul – Three Feet High And Rising

    De La’s beat is great for a happy high. Fully perfected its alchemical balance of fun and wisdom, with a heavy dash of silliness, it lets your soul escape into a colorful playground.

    RELATED: Are You Really Ready To Try THC-P

    Tame Impala – Yes I’m Changing

    This psychedelic rock band sets the mood perfectly. The main band member, Kevin Parker, shared he has no recollection of creating this song and it was as if someone else wrote it. What more can be said and it is also a great reminder we are always changing and healing from our past.

    The Beatles

    From Yellow Submarine to All You Need Is Love, the bands songs intertwines with a high and brings you essence to the forefront allowing you to feel, love, thing and be.

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    Anthony Washington

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  • No Smoke, Just Mirrors: Dua Lipa Offers Up Some Madonna-Inspired Magic on “Houdini”

    No Smoke, Just Mirrors: Dua Lipa Offers Up Some Madonna-Inspired Magic on “Houdini”

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    By now, it’s not exactly “undercover” (despite any “spy movies” a certain pop star is about to be in [*cough cough* Argylle]) that Dua Lipa is heavily inspired by Madonna. Just as most pop stars are, and will likely continue to be whether they’re aware of it or not (such is the power of being a progenitor). For, as listeners already witnessed on her sophomore album, Future Nostalgia, Lipa went all in on emulating the disco-fied but modern sound that Madonna cultivated for 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor. She even went so far as to tap Madonna for a collaboration on a remix of “Levitating” for Club Future Nostalgia (the twenty-first century’s answer to You Can Dance…apart from Finally Enough Love). But now that Lipa has mastered the sound of Madonna’s mid-00s era, she appears determined to do the same for its aesthetic. 

    Enter the video for “Houdini,” the lead single from her forthcoming third album (the title of which has yet to be revealed). While Gen Z might not be aware of Harry Houdini’s renown as a master of “magic” (or even Madonna’s)—or, more to the point, escape artistry—they could be forced to look into it now thanks to Lipa’s analogy. One that she chooses to carry out within the confines of an empty dance studio à la, that’s right, Madonna in the “Hung Up” video. Directed by Emmanuel Cossu, Lipa’s visual accompaniment to “Houdini” starts out, as “Hung Up” does, with Lipa working out some moves in an empty dance studio, complete with a full-length mirror that serves as an entire wall. The opening notes to the song then immediately confirm that, yes, it’s produced by Tame Impala (a.k.a. Kevin Parker). Along with Danny L Harle of PC Music repute. So it is that Lipa wants us to know that, although she’s “veering away” from the 70s disco sound in favor of a 70s psychedelia one (which makes Tame Impala the perfect collaborator), she’s still very much in full Madonna Confessions on a Dance Floor mode. Even if it’s minus the hot pink leotard with coordinating sparkly purple belt. 

    Indeed, Lipa opts for more “sexy-comfortable chic” (think: a riff on what Sporty Spice was already doing) in dark blue track pants and a black mesh tank with a flesh-colored top underneath. The latter deliberately giving off the “is she topless?” vibe (Madonna, in contrast, never left that as a question mark during her Erotica era…or any era, for that matter). As she walks with sultry panache along the length of the mirror, Lipa’s reflection proceeds to do its own thing on the choreo front (and yes, the video’s choreography, Charm La’Donna [how coincidental that her last name rhymes with Madonna] is a key part of what makes it so captivating). Thus begins the “magic” (i.e., optical illusion) portion of the program that one would expect of a song with such a title. A brief “blackout” of the lights in the studio then allows for the “magic” of materialization, for that’s when a bevy of shirtless dancers subsequently appear all around Lipa in an orgiastic mise-en-scène. One that also mimics certain portions of the “Hung Up” video—specifically, when all of Madonna’s dancers are writhing around on and near each other in a club (one that also apparently has arcade game options, including the then-pervasive Dancing Stage Fusion…just an upgraded version of Dance Dance Revolution, really). 

    While Lipa never leaves the dance studio for any “slice of life” purposes, the undeniable visual connection between “Houdini” and “Hung Up” (oh, look at that—both songs start with an “H”) is further heightened by the lyrics themselves. For a start, that comes in the form of Lipa declaring, “Time is passin’ like a solar eclipse…/It’s your moment, baby/Don’t let it slip.” This is like her version of Madonna saying, “Time goes by so slowly for those who wait/No time to hesitate.”

    Additional similarities in the lyrical motifs also occur via Lipa’s own warning that she won’t stick around very long for someone who isn’t worthwhile. As manifest in the lines, “Tell me all the ways you need me/I’m not here for long/Catch me or I go Houdini/I come and I go/Prove you got the right to please me.” This not only mimics Madonna’s sentiments when she says, “I can’t keep on waiting for you/You’ll wake up one day/But it’ll be too late,” but also mirrors who she was as a person during her early days of trying to make it/“be somebody” in New York. A journey that was slightly more circuitous than Lipa’s, who had the “London advantage” of attending schools targeted specifically toward singing and acting. And clearly, all that education has paid off…as one can see by watching Lipa own the rehearsal studio. Whether or not the dancers she’s only seeing in the mirror are “actually there” or mere phantasms (how Black Swan) of a magical nature depends largely if one believes in magic in general, and hauntings in particular. 

    Appearing multiple times and in multiple ways throughout the video, the dancers (all sporting the same shade of red-hued hair as Lipa), at the zenith of the song’s musical breakdown, multiply in such a way as to give an “in da club” effect before Lipa is shown once again entirely alone in the studio. After all, half the work of being a creative person is having the imagination to envision how the final product will turn out once the necessary collaborators become involved. 

    The indelible images from both “Houdini” and “Hung Up” are the ones of each pop star watching themselves in the mirror as they perform (and, at one point, Lipa’s barrage of mirrored images become quite funhouse-y). As though that reflection they see is the performer self, while the one watching is the “mere mortal” self who yearns to be seen the same way (/live up to impossible expectations) the performer is by her fans.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Your Weekend Playlist: New Music Releases Today

    Your Weekend Playlist: New Music Releases Today

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    I write this fresh out of the Barben-heimer challenge, where I spent 5 hours in a movie theater. It must be a world record sitting through that 3 hour Oppenheimer, and the first thing I do when I get home is rush to my computer. I exited the theater on Friday morning just after midnight, so I had a whole world of new music waiting for me.

    We have former One Direction member turned R&B crooner ZAYN making his return to music for the first time since his Icarus Falls album in 2018. Five years later, he’s here with his first single, “Love Like This”, an R&B/pop fusion song that is perfect for summer. This big chapter was opened with an interview on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast, where fans welcomed back a normally reserved ZAYN who was ready to open up.

    Not only do we have ZAYN, but the Barbie soundtrack is officially released to our ears…and after seeing the movie, it’s lived up to the hype. This summer has been filled with great music from artists we know and love, and some new ones as well. Here are my favorite new songs released Friday, July 21!

    Various Artists – Barbie The Album  

    If it’s produced by Mark Ronson, then it’s a guaranteed smash hit. Which is why we knew the Barbie soundtrack was going to be chart-topping in its own right…and with a lineup that makes Coachella salivate, it’s a no skip album. Dua Lipa, who is also Mermaid Barbie, has the main single with “Dance The Night”, as well as tracks from industry titans like Billie Eilish, Lizzo, The Kid LAROI, Dominic Like, Ava Max, Khalid, and Tame Impala.

    It has everything – music ranging from disco, to squeaky clean pop, and inspiration drawn from all of Barbie’s iconic eras. It’ll make you want to laugh, cry, jump, and sing, just like the movie.

    ZAYN – “Love Like This” 


    ZAYN found his sound early on with the release of his debut solo album, Mind of Mine. It was everything that he couldn’t do in his One Direction days. After a few years of in-between, including a quietly released Icarus Falls, he’s back. “Love Like This” is perfect for this time of year – punchy in the right places, smooth enough to put us at ease in this sticky heat, and a good beat to get you out your chair.

    It’s a delicious taste of what’s to come from the soulful singer who has a vocal range that even the best singer’s envy, and I personally can’t wait for more.

    Tanner Adell – BUCKLE BUNNY

    Tanner Adell is rapidly rising in the country music scene because she’s unique, she’s edgy, and she can make a killer track. Taking the world by storm with previous hit singles like “Buckle Bunny” and “Trailer Park Bunny”, Tanner Adell has fans buzzing with her recent mixtape, BUCKLE BUNNY.

    In the midst of a country music festival circuit including venues like CMA Fest, Adell is on the brink of combining rap and country in a refreshing way that makes people replay her songs over and over.

    Grace VanderWaal – “Boyfriends”

    Grace VanderWaal can do it all – a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist – she’s one of the most impressive young talents we have. Her newest single, “Boyfriends”, is about lacking those intimate friendships you see projected in movies or in books. It’s about feeling like you’re more of a boyfriend to anyone than a close friend, the frustrating in-between feeling in friendships where you aren’t sure of their loyalties.

    VanderWaal, known for her ukulele talents, is the queen of raw honesty embedded within her lyrics. Her unique melodies, catchy bridges, and emotional choruses can make anyone a fan. “Boyfriends” is the perfect example of Grace’s magic.

    Big Boss Vette – RESILIENCE

    Fans have been waiting years for Big Boss Vette’s debut album. The St. Louis rapper has been making hits forever, but this is her first larger body of work and it does not disappoint. There was a lot of pressure for Vette, who had fans with big expectations, but RESILIENCE is one of those albums you’ll want to have on loop this summer.

    It’s high-energy, with a fitting feature from Gloss Up on “Fly Shhh”. These seven brand new songs have star-quality melodies and hooks that will be stuck in your head forever. It’s the perfect debut album for Big Boss Vette.

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    Jai Phillips

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  • EDM.com Playlist Picks: Dom Dolla, ARTBAT, PinkPantheress and More [11/18/22] – EDM.com

    EDM.com Playlist Picks: Dom Dolla, ARTBAT, PinkPantheress and More [11/18/22] – EDM.com

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    The electronic music community is constantly evolving with new sounds every week, as artists become more innovative with their compositions. EDM.com’s weekly “Playlist Picks” series highlights the top releases in the genre, helping uncover the latest tracks that will soon dominate the dance music scene.

    EDM.com Top Hits

    PinkPantheress – Do you miss me?

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    Koji Aiken

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