The Streets and Tame Impala's new collaboration receives horrible reviews, fans say song 'sucked'
After a long pause of nine years, The Streets have returned with new music. On April 13, The Streets, the rap project from England, shared their new track and accompanying music video 'Call My Phone Thinking I’m Doing Nothing Better' which features a collaboration with psychedelic indie group Tame Impala. The track follows 'Computers and Blues' the fifth studio album by The Streets which released in 2011. It comes as the first track on the band's upcoming mixtape 'None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive', scheduled for release on July 10 via Island Records and which features Idles, Jesse James Solomon and more.
Fans have not been all that receptive toward The Streets and are rather perturbed by the new song. "The beat is the exact same as most streets stuff. Would have expected something a little different after all these years," wrote a fan on Twitter while another said, "Wait this sucked (sic)."
The description "lame" was even used. One fan said, "Sorry, but the Tame Impala X The Streets collab is awful. Their voices do not go together at all. It reminds me of Timothée Chalamet's statistics rap." Another comment included, "Look I don't want to be super over-negative but the streets suck like they always have and even though the lyrics are good on that new track the only really good part of that song is the Tame Impala hook and I just don't think you can convince me otherwise. (sic)"
Many fans were surprised at the idea of two bands collaborating. Some said they thought it was an "April Fool's joke" or a "prank". Another says, "Wait apparently the streets x tame impala wasn’t a joke ??????? erm (sic)."
In the music video, we see The Streets’ frontman, Mike Skinner, trying to call up Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker as a vintage Nokia phone displays “Social Distancing” on its screen. Skinner sings, “Callin’ call my phone thinking, I’m doing nothing better,” sitting on a ski lift while Parker adds his vocals, “I was gonna call you back. I swear. Just as soon as I felt” throughout the song.
According to Rolling Stone, The Streets reunited for a tour in 2018 and spoke about their live performances, saying, “If you bring the beer, we’ll bring the party." They said, “In America, we’re like the pissed blokes paraded in front. But in England, we’re not as pissed as the people in the audience," adding, "I throw cans into the audience when I’m drunk, which is good — give some beer love — but every now and then someone gets twazipped on the head. Likewise, I’ve been smacked in the head by full cans, so I’ve paid my dues.”
Tame Impala released their fourth studio LP 'The Slow Rush' in February as the followup to 'Currents' which released in 2015. They also recently released a remixed version of the album for the quarantine, monikered 'The Slow Rush in an Imaginary Place.'