On the 10th anniversary of Tame Impala’s masterful second album Lonerism, Kevin Parker has discussed the record’s huge impact.
On October 5th, 2012, Lonerism was released, and one of the greatest Australian albums of the 21st century entered the music world for the first time.
The album was hailed as a classic immediately, but it turns out that Parker initially doubted Lonerism‘s quality upon its release.
“Lonerism is 10 years old today. Difficult to sum up what the album means to me at this point,” he wrote on Tame Impala’s Instagram account.
“It was a pretty special time for me making the music (it wasn’t an album yet at that point). 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.”
Moving into making Lonerism, Parker found a new “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,” he explained, but the feeling didn’t last long.
Love Indie?
Get the latest Indie news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
“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,” he continued.
“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….”
Accompanying the post was a picture of Lonerism‘s original album cover – an image of Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris – unedited. You can see Parker’s full Instagram post below, as well as Tame Impala performing Lonerism in full at Desert Daze here.
