Kevin Parker’s favourite record from the 1970s
As the driving force behind Tame Impala, Kevin Parker has found a place as one of the most well-loved and widely lauded names in alternative music. The Australian producer has become almost synonymous with the modern iteration of psychedelia, pushing the genre beyond the realms of stoner rock and into the mainstream.
The songwriter has spent the last 15 years pulling from the psychedelic rock of the 1960s and revamping it for a modern audience. His summery sound blends influences from his psych predecessors, pop sensibilities, and electronic experimentation, forging a distinctive form of neo-psych that has won him critical acclaim and commercial success in equal measure.
Although the psych songwriter often pulls from the 1960s, the decade was noticeably absent from Parker’s list of his five favourite albums, which he divulged during a Reddit Ask Me Anything session. Amidst more modern picks by Air and Queens of the Stone Age, the furthest back he strayed was to the 1970s with Supertramp’s Breakfast In America.
Released right at the end of the decade in 1979, the art rock record included huge tracks like ‘The Logical Song’ and the titular ‘Breakfast In America’. “I love Supertramp melodies, kind of ‘70s prog, emotional things,” Parker once stated in an interview with Apple Music while promoting his 2020 record The Slow Rush. This record also comes closest to a Supertramp-esque sound, venturing more into softer, prog rock realms.
Aside from Supertramp’s aptitude for melodies, Parker also admires and hopes to emulate the feeling that their music evokes. “The feeling of solitude that I’m shooting for, the only other music that has that introspective thing is Supertramp,” he once told Spin.
Though his own music is full of subtle grooves and transcendental psych, there’s also an underlying sense of solitude in the overarching atmosphere and lyrics. “Company’s okay, solitude is bliss,” he states on ‘Solitude Is Bliss’. “I get a big buzz out of their music,” Parker continued, “It’s got that explosive quality, that big sound with introspective lyrics. I love that.”
“They’re exploding outwards, inwardly. I don’t know. I can’t describe it,” he concluded. It’s an oxymoronic description, but it does perfectly describe the sound of Supertramp. It’s also a description that could just as easily be applied to Tame Impala. Parker’s psych soundscapes explode, but they’re not chaotic. They explode inwardly, calmly and with consideration.
Though it’s far less obvious than the psychedelic influences that permeate his catalogue, the sensibilities of Supertramp can certainly be found in Parker’s output.
Listen to Breakfast In America by Supertramp, Kevin Parker’s favourite record from the 1970s, below.
