Five Burning Questions About Tame Impala & JENNIE’s ‘Dracula’ Being a Chart-Topping Pop Airplay Hit
Categoria: Musica
A decade ago, Kevin Parker of Tame Impala was a psych-rock critics' darling. This week, he has the most-played pop radio hit in the country.
Por Billboard | 07/07/2026
A sentence that many would have had great difficulty computing a decade ago, but is now undeniably true: Tame Impala — with assistance from one of the ladies from BLACKPINK — has one of the biggest pop hits in the country. In fact, the one-time psych-rocker born Kevin Parker has the single most played song this week on the top 40 airwaves, as his “Dracula” tops the Pop Airplay chart dated July 11. The song, given an extra boost by JENNIE ‘s appearance on the official remix, also climbs to a new peak of No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 , easily the highest placement reached by either artist. How surreal is it to be bracing Tame Impala, pop star? And who could be the next critically acclaimed indie fav to make the leap to crossover hitmaker status? Billboard staffers discuss these questions and more below. 1. “Dracula” reaches No. 8 on the Hot 100 this week while topping the Pop Airplay chart for the first time. On a scale from 1-10, how surreal is it to see Tame Impala — artist behind several of the most psychedelic guitar-rock epics of the early 2010s — now as a late-2020s pop chart-topper? Katie Bain : 3. Given how big Tame Impala has been for a long time (they headlined Coachella back in 2019, after all), they’re an act that just seemed like they’d already achieved this type of accomplishment. This chart position is a touch surreal in the long term, given that they were being called the new Led Zeppelin when Innerspeaker came out in 2010, but I think a lot of people would have assumed something like this had happened given how globally popular they are. And I guess for people who’ve been paying closer attention, given the evolution of the Tame Impala sound, something like this doesn’t feel all that surprising. Eric Renner Brown : A 6. As a Tame Impala fan who has been on board since the heady days of its 2010 debut, Innerspeaker , it’s certainly surreal — albeit not as weird as some longtime Tame Impala fans might suggest. It’s been a decade since Rihanna included her technically-a-cover-but-really-just-karaoke version of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes” on ANTI , not just paving the way for Parker’s crossover into the mainstream, but also for his aesthetic to become a defining flavor of contemporary pop music. He’s been headlining major festivals for about as long; Tame Impala stopped being a niche indie-rock thing long ago. Kyle Denis : About an 8! At this point, it takes a lot to surprise me when it comes to the wonky trajectories of major pop players in the past decade — but Tame Impala’s evolution is definitely up there. What a difference a decade (and a Rihanna co-sign) can make! Andrew Unterberger : Gotta be at least an 8. Even with the way Tame Impala’s cult stardom had long been ballooning to the point where only the finest of lines were separating it from mainstream sta