RC@5: The Slow Rush by Tame Impala

Record Club covered this album five years ago. I gave it another listen this week. Here are some thoughts.

The Slow Rush

Tame Impala

Week 69: May 24-30, 2020

The big-tent indie rock albums are the toughest picks for Record Club. At least it feels that way to me, probably because it's the genre I care about the deepest in this world, and I find myself getting protective sometimes. The Slow Rush is a great example of how it can go wrong.

Tame Impala was a critically acclaimed band throughout the 2010s, releasing three important albums in the burgeoning neo-psychedelia-by-way-of-concert-festival scene. But if you're arriving to this band without knowing that, and just see The Slow Rush in a vacuum, then all you're going to see is a band that struggles mightily to stand out from the pack. Even though they did that already. Their fourth album pales in comparison, but the fourth album is the one that Record Club is shoving into the limelight for a week. Do you see the problem? Especially if you were a Tame Impala fan before The Slow Rush hit the blog?

"Their previous albums were better" is the WORST thing to hear on a Friday morning. It's so fucking tough to live with a pretty-okay-or-worse album for one whole week and then find the motivation to go back through the discography to find something better. I usually can't do it. If an album is just okay, then there's very little chance that I'm gonna say "let's try again." Usually, I'm just moving on. Which isn't fair to the artist! It wasn't done on purpose, but it starts to feel like Record Club didn't do its job, in that it didn't inspire the listener to appreciate music.

Now, in this case, I'll admit that I personally wasn't all that close to Tame Impala to begin with. Lonerism is pretty good. Currents is really good but overplayed. I'm just realizing right now that I'm not even familiar with Innerspeaker. The whole discography could probably use a fresh dive, but I'm not gonna do that today. You know why? Because I've been listening to The Slow Rush on repeat, and it's wearing me out.

Going back over the reviews we received, it felt like everyone was more or less on the same page about this. It's fine, it's nothing special, it's generic. Bridget said it was good because "you can play it in the background," which is about the most damning praise I could possibly think of. I stand by my theory that we should take Kevin Parker at his word that he wants to be like Max Martin, and assume that this was Tame Impala with one foot out the door. 

But think about if this was your first exposure to this band. What would you think? You'd have no interest in revisiting this band or this sound ever again, right? I wonder sometimes what responsibility RC has in potential first exposure situations like this. Probably none, since it's the listeners' responsibility to know the context before diving in (or learning while listening, which is how I usually operate). On the other hand, maybe RC can be a little wearier of the big-tent indie from here on out. There's plenty of other shit out there. No need to press matters.