‘The Less I Know The Better’: the song that epitomised the 2010s
There are certain songs that epitomise moments in time. It’s 2015, and no matter where you were, in a field or a club, when that intro rang out, everyone there knew it. While people regularly slag off the mainstream, there is truly no feeling quite like a collective hit when it feels like every person you know is listening to the same song. “Doo do do, doo doo, doo doo do-do-do”; you know the one—Tame Impala‘s ‘The Less I Know The Better’.
I was 17 when it was first released, crawling towards the end of college, desperate to go to university. But I was mostly looking forward to having a working ID in a town too small to really get away with fakes and with a conscience too nervous to let me try. But still, I remember hearing it and knowing that one day soon, it would thunder out of big sound systems, and I would dance. I know for other older members of the Far Out team, that’s what they were doing. I remember, even at the time, my mum would hear the song on the radio and give a rare compliment, admitting she liked it too.
It was one of those songs that everybody liked, and we all still do. After yearning to hear it in a funner context as a 17-year-old, by the time I was 18 in my uni town, or even 21 in London, interning somewhere in the final year of the 2010s, it was still on repeat. I’d go on to hear it in clubs, festival fields, covered by other artists at gigs, in playlists, in shops, on the radio, everywhere. It was a song that stuck around as aggressively as it did right when it was released. The collective love for the song also seemed to translate into a collective understanding that this would, one day, be one of those nostalgic tracks that will forever reflect a period in time.
It seemed to be built into the music. ‘The Less I Know The Better’ was by no means Tame Impala’s beginning. Kevin Parker’s musical project had been running for a long time by then and was already beloved by a cult of fans. However, it was a cult because, by and large, Parker’s music up to that point had been more experimental. It has always existed in its own lane, somewhere between the works of indie, electro, dance, psychedelia and a mixture of other genres. Songs like ‘Elephant’, ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backward’ or ‘Sundown Syndrome’ were big for his fans, but they weren’t big enough for a full, packed-out festival field.
But when ‘The Less I Know The Better’ dropped, it was a moment of perfect alignment. People of all ages like to argue that their era of indie was the ultimate era of indie. However, I’d argue that I was there at its commercial peak. In the mid-2010s, everything was indie. Pop had begun to embrace more alternative influences. Even huge pure pop stars like Taylor Swift were merging elements of 1980s rock into their music or, ones like One Direction were busy ripping off The 1975 right as they emerged. Indie was everything; indie was king.
And ‘The Less I Know The Better’ seemed to be proof of that or actual evidence that Parker understood what was happening. Because while indie was kind, this track feels like Parker’s least alternative offering. It is a complete and utter crowd-pleaser from the second that uber-catchy intro rings out, and the song’s infectious groove grabs you and does not let you go. It’s a pop song, realistically. Parker saw that the two worlds of alternative and mainstream had converged, and artists on both sides could be having fun with that.
That’s what drives all of the best music from the 2010s. While the indie of the 2000s was gloomier and rockier, the 2010s indie was brighter and ecstatic. Even if the lyrics were still angsty, like the story of unrequited love held in Parker’s hit, the instrumental would be something you could dance to. And on the back of that, indie artists elevated themselves to the point where Tame Impala headlines huge festivals now, where absolutely no one would hear ‘The Less I Know The Better’ and not dance.
