Tame Impala – Loser

So why don’t you kill me…

[Video]
[3.82]David Allun Jones: “Loser” has been out for a full year now; every time I hear it, my thought process has followed the same trajectory. Up to the first chorus, I’m utterly transfixed by its molasses churn of a groove, marveling at the interplay of guitar/drums/keyboard twinkle and even initially appreciating Kevin Parker’s pinched, ghost-in-the-machine whimpering floating amidst the psych-funk fantasia. Past that point my attention drifts to literally anything else, and when I tap back in what feels like lifetimes later, am highly annoyed that it’s still on. At conclusion, if I even make it that far without violently smashing the next button, I completely forget it ever existed. Perhaps I require a Jennie to make it stick.
[5]

Claire Davidson: I suppose the latest installment of the Spider-Man franchise is a slightly more respectable means of getting Tame Impala on the Hot 100 than a misbegotten Jennie remix, but to what end? “Loser” is hardly reflective of Kevin Parker’s whole project, anyway: the first few times I heard the song on the radio, I was convinced it was an NSYNC vault track, its staccato guitar line and compressed snaps a better fit for boy-band mugging than Parker’s woozy falsetto. That canned, inert beat is plenty stultifying unto itself, but it becomes actively grating when paired with Parker’s whining, where he flagellates himself for failing in a relationship while conveniently omitting any mention of what he did wrong. It’s hard to believe this guy is confronting his shortcomings in any real way, either. Parker’s delivery is so laughably grandiose that it becomes just another form of self-aggrandizement, and without any lyrical sense of irony to undercut his haughty bromides, the whole song just reads as an obnoxious soliloquy. One could easily imagine this narrator in the company of comedians ranting about so-called cancel culture — as sure a sign as any that the performers in question have run out of ideas.
[4]

Charlotte Gaze: I have never enjoyed Kevin Parker’s voice on a Tame Impala song, regardless of era, and seldom enjoy his lyrics. It’s a minor miracle that he’s got numerous songs I enjoy listening to off the rest of his talents. “Loser” plays a dangerous game by opting for the slow tempo, and evidently bets on the strength of the main riff to be enough to overcome my misgivings — the song opens with two instances of the riff before introducing any other elements. Yet it does not take long for Parker’s lyrically exaggerated but musically inert self-deprecation to take over the operation. “That’s how my life is, you couldn’t write this,” he laments in a textbook case of projection on the matter of writing skill. It’s all so knowingly ironic and unwilling to get into the thick of human emotion. Perfect for use in memes, at least. Whatever that’s worth.
[3]

Alfred Soto: I hope a hip-hop producer samples the guitar lick and its succeeding sequencer bits and throws the rest of the track into old sewage.
[4]

Al Varela: Really unsure where I land on this one. On the one hand, I really love the production. This wonky, fucked up little groove that warbles and stumbles like a survivor bleeding to death is strangely hypnotic. Tame Impala’s basslines usually try to sell you on a level of cool or immaculate vibe to carry you through the day, but this one almost impedes on it. Which works for the titular loser doubling down over a breakup and actively becoming the villain in his ex’s eyes. All of this is well and good, but I hit a wall when the one opening his mouth and playing that loser is Kevin Parker. His voice is a bad fit for this song. Whiny and thin, squeaking all over the melody without any of the proper venom that a song like this is begging for. I could maybe see this working for Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner, but not Kevin’s weak whimpering. Makes this otherwise really solid song kind of hard to sit through, something that wasn’t as much of a problem for “Dracula”. I’ll err on the side of positive for now, but since this is becoming a big hit I could also see myself dreading it every time it comes on.
[6]

Jel Bugle: I can’t imagine ever listening to Tame Impala and thinking “this is good, I want to hear more!” This song is a slog, it’s not good, I don’t like it — instantly forgettable!
[3]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: It sure is!
[3]

Hannah Jocelyn: I actually like this if I pretend I’m in a 2010 Urban Outfitters, or I imagine the song without a vocal filter so it winds up on a Dad Rock playlist with mid-to-late period Genesis and Hall and Oates. Kinda love that this song’s called “Loser” and it isn’t the one about Kevin Parker sitting at home watching Family Guy.
[6]

Nortey Dowuona: In 2012, Kevin Parker was just another earnest, soft focus pop rock band who made hooky but nearly anonymous music. The hook would tightly stick to your ear and that was the extent of the interest in the writing. No matter the song was an earnest plea for connection, the harder you tried to cling to those words, the quicker they slipped away in the harmattan winds. no matter, next time the words might stick.  In 2015, Kevin Parker was THE earnest, soft focus pop rock band of the moment, who made hooky, abstract and slightly heavy music, even raising the bass allowing his kick drum to smack hard against the atoms close to your face. But the words were even plainer and duller than ever, the hook a knife direct in your gut, but as you clutched at the knife, fighting your impulse to ignore the panicked reaction and accept the otherwise unobjectionable advice doled out in the bridge, it all slipped away as the warm hum of the instrumental break washed over you, calming you down. In 2020, Kevin Parker is the earnest soft focus of pop rock — of pop even — and he’s just tweaked a new single a little bit more to tighten and smooth it until a glassy break in the bridge reminds you of that dull pain you get whenever you stand up in the harshest winds. But at this point, the words are just shapes the melodies Parker sings, you don’t even differentiate between the hook that runs roughshod over your heart and the dulled verses there to bind to that same melody. Maybe he’s not a talented lyricist at all. Maybe he never was. In 2026, you are recovering from reconstructive surgery to your gut, and Kevin Parker is the godfather of all soft focus pop music that your thwarted, impotent writer friend seethes at as it blankets the world, even their own hopes and dreams being filled with Kevin Parker gloop. You hear the new hook that’s gonna stick to you like a barnacle to a whale, you pay no mind to any other word he is singing before the hook comes back, you try not to feel that same sense of impotence. Then they play the song again, you snatch up the knife and plunge it into the Bluetooth speaker, for once you have seized the moment. You are powerful, you are free. Then you hear it play from down the hall. You weep.
[0]

Ian Mathers: Is it “meta” that they made a boring music video where nothing interesting happens for this plodding mope of a song? Or are they just trying to make sure they don’t outshine it?
[4]

Tim de Reuse: Through its rhyming dictionary-ass rhymes, loping gait, and general refusal to up the stakes, we’re treated to a remarkably effective sonification of the loser mindset. The loser mindset turns out to be not all that engaging to listen to.
[4]