It’s been more than 10 years since I started listening to Tame Impala, and in a way, this band has shaped my personality. Their music has supported me through many different eras of my life, and the fact that it never got boring even though I’ve listened to some of the songs an infinite number of times shows that there must be something that truly stuck with me throughout this decade. When I first started listening to their music, it wasn’t popular at all. It was probably the first band that introduced me to psychedelic music, and I knew right away that it was exactly my thing. As a 15-year-old girl, it was the first time I had come across such sounds and effects. The songs were so different from anything I had heard before that they amazed me and sparked a whole new level of musical curiosity.

Now, at 26, with a deeper understanding of music genres, bands, lyrics, and visuals, I can begin to understand where Kevin’s inspiration might have come from and that’s where I want to dive deeper.

As someone who has an interest in 60s and 70s music, specifically in the psychedelic genre that was widely popular during that time, I can see the influence of The Beatles, who were a very experimental band. We can hear the variety of sounds across their albums like Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, and others. Some of their songs indirectly reflect experimentation with psychedelic drugs like LSD, acid, and mushrooms, as well as their time spent in India for spiritual awakening and musical inspiration. With that said, we can see the resemblance in Tame Impala’s music -sounds inspired by the psychedelic era of the 60s, philosophical themes in the lyrics, and a strong connection to the universe and nature, much like the hippie movement of the 60s and 70s.

We can clearly see this in Tame Impala’s first album, Innerspeaker (my favorite one). The name itself refers to a deeper calling of the soul, as if the person is exploring their inner world and the meaning of life. The album cover has an infinite effect that feels like you’re traveling through a tunnel in nature. It was originally inspired by Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma album cover. Some of the song titles also reflect this sense of self-exploration-Alter Ego, Desire Be Desire Go, Lucidity, Solitude Is Bliss- with nature often being present in the naming as well.

I’ve always loved the spiritual analogies in Tame Impala’s music. This spirituality is present in every part of the production: the names of the songs and albums, the lyrics, the melodies, the visuals everything. And this idea carries through every album. We can see Kevin digging deep into his own soul through his lyrics. Let It Happen is a great example of that. The character reaches a point where he realizes that some things are out of our human control, and we just have to let things unfold in their natural, universal way because the universe has its own way of working things out. When we hear the line “Maybe I was ready all along,” especially with the echo effect, it feels like our inner voice reminding us that letting things happen is the only natural way to exist. Because that is nature’s law.

The colorful visuals in the videos are another way of expressing Kevin’s complex inner world. There isn’t one specific color theme, there are many colors layered together, just like the soul itself, which is made up of different emotions and experiences. Nature and its forces are also present in the visuals, reinforcing the feeling of oneness with the Earth.

The lyrics are simple, yet deeply complex, because they express emotions and situations that are often very difficult to put into words. One of the main themes in his writing is solitude and the many ways it can be experienced. Sometimes you feel lost, sometimes lonely in your own company, sometimes lonely around others. Sometimes you feel peaceful being alone, and sometimes you feel like you’ve found yourself because of it. Solitude is complex because it contains many different perspectives. But within that loneliness, you can create art and often, that art is the most relatable. That’s what makes Tame Impala’s lyrics so human. We’ve all felt what Kevin has felt, we just haven’t always been able to express it as clearly.

One of the songs from Tame Impala’s new album, My Old Ways, has a simple video at first glance, but once you start to understand and dive deeper into Tame Impala’s core, you begin to realise what it all means. At the beginning, we see Kevin working in his big city music studio. Throughout the video, we see him leaving the city and going back to the old house in nature where he recorded the Innerspeaker songs. The house is surrounded by a sea view, trees, and plants.

“Back into my old ways again” refers to going back to a time in your life when you once felt safe in a certain way surrounding yourself with familiar things. That doesn’t necessarily mean returning to old habits, but rather reconnecting with roots you may have forgotten. Escaping the city and going back into nature once again reflects that sense of oneness with nature and our human experience on Earth.

The new album itself has a very different and unique sound compared to the previous Tame Impala albums we’re used to as listeners. We can see that he has changed, that he has found a new sound through which to express himself and that is a positive evolution. So going back might also suggest that he has rediscovered the inspiration that once drove him to create music the way he did before.

Tame Impala’s uniqueness also comes from the fact that Kevin is essentially the entire band. He writes the lyrics, composes the music, plays the instruments, produces the tracks, and even conceptualizes the visuals. That’s what makes him a musical genius, in my opinion. It shows that he truly enjoys the entire creative process. It’s a passion turned into a profession and the ability to think and create on so many levels at once is something I can’t even fully describe.

I recently went to a live show in Madrid to see him perform for the first time, and the experience felt out of this world. Everything he creates in his music videos is brought to life on stage. The moment he starts playing, you enter Tame Impala’s world, a space filled with lights, sounds, and visual effects. The floating projectors above the stage made it feel like we were traveling through space and time. It was surreal.

It felt like stepping inside Kevin’s mind and experiencing the music exactly as he imagined it.

Something else I noticed during the performance is that he isn’t just performing because it’s his job. He genuinely loves music. He enjoys the creative process. You could see him taking in the moment, looking around at the lights just like the audience, even casually smoking a cigarette on stage. In that moment, he didn’t feel distant or unreachable; he felt human. Just like us.

At some point, it stops feeling like you’re just listening to music. It feels like you’re part of it like the sound, the lights, the people, your thoughts everything blends into one moment.