Kevin Parker Thought Tame Impala's 'Lonerism' 'Sucked' When He Released It

Lonerism — the album that catapulted Tame Impala into rock stardom — just turned 10, and to celebrate Kevin Parker reflected on how that era made him feel as a musician.

"Difficult to sum up what the album means to me at this point. It was a pretty special time for me making the music," he wrote on Instagram alongside the original photo that would later be transformed into Lonerism's cover. "In a way it’s when I truly discovered myself as an artist. Coming off the back of Innerspeaker I had this new sense of purpose…calling… whatever you want to call it. I had finally given myself permission to let music take over my being completely… to become totally immersed in my own world of recording music. So I had this new sense of creative freedom. I felt free to be ambitious, weird, pop, experimental, whatever, and didn’t feel judged because I was finally just doing it for myself and believed in myself. For the most part anyway…

"of course the day came to release it and it all came crashing down and I thought the album sucked and couldn’t even imagine people enjoying it," Parker admitted. "As it turns out I was wrong… the album dropped and exceeded all my expectations and my life changed massively again, and I slowly realised the music was pretty good, again, which gave me a new sense of purpose, and the cycle starts again…."

Tame Impala's latest album, The Slow Rush, was released in 2020; however, Parker is featured on a Gorillaz song that will be on their upcoming album Cracker Island.

See Parker's introspective post below.