Australian pop auteur debuts first new song since Barbie soundtrack
At a Barcelona club on Saturday night, Kevin Parker uttered the words fans had been hoping to hear for years: “Do you guys want to hear a new Tame Impala song?” With that, Parker gave clubgoers — and the world — an unexpected preview of Tame Impala’s impending return with a fresh piece of music.
Tame Impala were in Barcelona for the Primavera Sound festival, where Parker played a DJ set on Friday. The new song was debuted the following night during a set at the Nitsa Club, the city’s longstanding EDM venue.
The last time the world heard from Parker’s band was the soundtrack of Barbie, which included “Journey to the Real World.” That track was light, whimsical, and, at only a minute and a half, brief. The unnamed song Parker played at Nitsa was far clubbier and more beat-heavy. “Everybody knows how I feel about you, so you can act surprised if you need to,” went some of the lyrics. “And I am still your friend if you think it’s worth it / it just means that I’ll see you when I see you.” As the track blasted, Parker occasionally clapped along and danced in place.
Tame Impala haven’t released a full new album since Slow Rush in 2020, but Parker hasn’t been entirely off the radar. In addition to the Barbie track, he made headlines selling his entire music catalog to Sony Music Publishing last year for an undisclosed sum. This February, Parker won his first-ever Grammy for his vocal contribution to the French EDM duo Justice’s “Neverender,” which walked off with the best dance/electronic recording award. He also produced tracks on Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism last year.
Whether the new song will be included in a possible new Tame Impala album remains to be seen, and tour plans remain a rumor. But as Parker said before cuing up the track, “There’s no going back from this point on.”
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