Nostalgia is a bitch.
One day, you’re filled with joy, watching your juniors explore your childhood treasures, showing them the inner workings like a bushy-tailed museum docent. The next, you’re Abe Simpson, chastising them for not handling the treasure the right way—the way YOU did.
It’s a trap that’s near impossible to sidestep if you found things to truly, madly, deeply love as you grew up, no matter how cool you are (or pretend to be). But once you’re drenched in nostalgia, there are only two ways to deal.
You can become the old man yelling at clouds or light the pathway to discovery.
From the primal scream that kicks off the opener, “Welcome to My Island,” Caroline Polacheck’s Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, is nothing less than a light beam. It’s an inspired pastiche of millennial musical touchpoint that feels singular and distinct from much of what her alt-pop contemporaries have done with the same bag of treasures from the 90s and early 2000s.
Where one of the girls might cite Gwen or Fergie for their sing-song raps in a tune like Charlie XCX’s “Vroom Vroom,” Caroline will take that same vibe back to its source. The spoken bridge on “Welcome” feels less “Fergalicious” and more like Debbie Harry shouting out Fab Five Freddie in “Rapture.” Provenance is essential in a work of art!
The work is unique and engaging because it’s never one thing. Blink, and the target has changed position. Like on “Sunset,” which hints at the '90s Latin Invasion (see songs like “Bailamos” or “Nobody Wants to Be Lonely”), but veers toward the plucky futurism in ‘90s R&B (like on 702’s “You Don’t Know”) by the time we hit the bridge.
Or the way “Bunny is a Rider” feels like a second cousin to “Are You That Somebody,” filled with the snappy percussion, dark sonic palette, and cooing baby to boot. They were raised differently, but when they see each other at the reunion, it’s on!
Caroline has been an open book about her reverence for Celtic symbolism and sound, and it’s clear on a track like “Blood and Butter,” which feels like The Coors, Enya, and The Cranberries all walked in on a studio session with Rodney Jerkins (Darkchild nah nah). None of this should work. But it does!
Music, like design, is full of references to a thing that came before it. At this point, so little is truly original. So the ingenuity comes from what you find in those old parts, how you weave new threads into a cherished patchwork (one of my favorite things about the black musical tradition, a conversation for later). It always pisses me off when folks try to run from their references as if they’re not present, as if we don’t have the primary sources at our fingertips. It’s a useless exercise.
One thing about millennials, though: we will pay homage.
That’s what is so special about the Dido feature on “I Fly to You” about halfway through the album. Dido is a meeting point for many of Polachek’s interests: the singer-songwriter/Lilith tones from “White Flag” and the electronics and drum-n-bass through her work with Faithless.
Dido is the grounding element for Caroline’s wistful lyrics and Grimes's squeezed, ascending triplets (the way those closer, and closer, and closer refrains feel like wings flapping to gain altitude is just… swoon). Her rich, deep alto brings lived experience to songs call to “remеmber what's gone beforе, not loaded with regret.” She sings it because she knows it; she’s been there. She is, you know, mother, mothering. (Sorry lol)
(An aside: Dido has, and will always be, that girl. Singles stayed charting. LPs go hard. Y’all know she paid for a Kendrick feature? And baby, it was GOOD. A deeply heartbreaking BOP. Don’t disrespect her.)
But what ultimately sets Caroline’s work apart is the voice and the pen. You can’t skip the comparison to Sarah McLaughlin (I would do anything for a cover of “Adia”) and Imogen Heap. But Caroline uses her vocal flips and fry to add some acid to her classicality (her opera training is on full display at any live show). And that vocal dexterity supports the intensive, rhythmic storytelling happening throughout Desire.
Caroline is adept at turning universal moments into multiverses. In “Sunset,” feelings of insecurity and indecision calmed by a lover are turned into a vivid, burning strip of film right out of Thelma & Louise:
These days, I wear my body like an uninvited guest
I turn it right and right and right instead of turning left
But, boy, your patience is a magic kind of medicine
'Cause every spiral brings me back into your arms again
So no regrets / 'Cause you're my sunset
Fiery red / Forever fearless
And in your arms, a warm horizon / Don't look back
Let's ride away, let's ride away.
Or the reckless, uncontrolled love affair in “Pretty Impossible” leading to a scene that evokes the iconic rose petals in American Beauty:
Now you got one eyе on the lane and one еye on the lava
Spinning out, yeah, I respect that, but I was born to get you home
Home, where it's all red and velveteen
Falling back into the leaves.
Caroline’s lyrics have been cinematic in scope since her days in Chairlift. She’s always been able to zoom in with a macro lens to paint the splendor of love found or lost and all the joy and pain within both.
One of my favorites from this moment in her career is the second verse of “Crying in Public,” from Chairlift’s final album. It’s a song about being utterly overwhelmed with love, that everything good in your life is because of your other half. God, you know it’s a ridiculous feeling, but it feels too big to dodge, so you give in.
Like the peach you split open with two thumbs
I'm the half without a stone
And my heart is a hollow with a space for your own
Or whatever you want to do with it
And I'm blaming all beauty upon you
From the birds at my feet
To the breakdancing boys
And their boomboxes' beat, beat, beat
I'm sorry I'm crying in public this way
I'm falling for you, I'm falling for you
It’s one of the best love songs I know of, nailing the balance between the specificity and smallness of a moment and the universality of a BIG feeling (whether experienced or desired). A replay of all these short scenes flashing past your eyes, an unspooling reel. CINEMA!
And with Desire, it feels like Caroline has shot and directed a fully-realized narrative. From the repeating lyrical patterns to melodies that reappear throughout like an overture (The repurposing of “Pretty in Possible”‘ ‘‘in “Smoke” is my favorite example), Caroline is dedicated to world-building in a way that very few folks are right now.
When the album first dropped, it was so funny to walk into an Urban Outfitters and hear songs from this album play. Like, it was in on in the Free People!
I love the idea that some 17-year-old girl will hear this record, explore the music Dido made, and then find herself listening to Sheryl Crow, Massive Attack, Zero 7 and Tina Dico!
The joy of music, for me, is in that rabbit hole, the chase, the constant unfolding of sonic history. There is a bit of wilderness to step into.
Desire opens up to that girl with a resounding “welcome” and offers her a lantern.
“Here, go explore.”
-DW
(P.S. There’s a Spotify playlist for all the songs featured! And here’s a YouTube playlist for the folks not on Spotify. )