February 2023 was an exciting month for music, with some extremely impressive, high-profile releases dropping. Some of my favorite records of the month include Paramore’s pessimistic post-punk revival masterpiece This is Why and the triumphant neo-psychedelia of Young Fathers’ Heavy Heavy. Ultimately, though, the best album of the month was easily Caroline Polachek’s Desire, I Want To Turn Into You, a paragon of eclectic art pop.
Take a look at the cover for Caroline Polachek’s sophomore record. The artist, disheveled crawls across a subway floor toward what appears to be a beach, escaping a crowded mob of commuters taking up the subway. It reflects a growing urge towards escapism that increasingly defines the relationship between art and entertainment in the 21st century. Instead of remaining in the cramped, confined reality of the subway, Polachek instead retreats into her own world of tropicalia and ethereality.
This theme of escapism is made immediately clear on the opening track of Desire, where Polachek greets the listener, “Welcome to my island/See the palm trees wave in the wind/Welcome to my island/Hope you like me, you ain’t leavin’”. Not only is Polachek herself escaping from the pressures of modern urban life to an isolated locale, but she also takes the listener with her, setting up the album itself as a form of escapist media. These lines are also imbued with a near-sinister tone, as her reminder that “you ain’t leavin’” suggests that it’s not necessarily in the listener’s best interest, or even a choice, to embark on this escapist journey with Polachek. This raises the question of whether escapism itself is a healthy coping mechanism to dealing with life’s pressures.
This question is further explored on “Bunny Is A Rider,” where Polachek imagines herself as a motorcyclist traveling across highways during the summer, leaving behind all responsibilities to anyone or anything but herself. She sings, “Bunny is a rider/Satellite can’t find her/No sympathy, hmm/Ain’t nothing for free”. Though she’s now “AWOL on a Thursday,” Polachek (or the character she plays here) no longer has “sympathy,” or connection to those around her. She’s completely retreated into her own fantasy of leaving the rest of the world behind.
However, her approach towards escapism shifts on the next track, “Sunset,” where she instead finds relief from stress through interpersonal connection. She rescinds her earlier fantasies of solitary escapes, reflecting, “So many stories we were told about a safety net/But when I look for it, it’s just a hand that’s holding mine”. She expresses that the “stories” she previously found refuge in are not true escape or relief, but only ignore the issues at hand; instead, she finds that strong, trusting relationships – platonic, romantic, or otherwise – are the basis for a much healthier life.
Polachek further explores this theme throughout the album, which culminates in the final track, “Billions”. She closes the album with a beautiful choir ostinato singing, “I never felt so close to you” over and over again. At the end of an album that has been established as escapist media from the very start, Polachek, perhaps counterintuitively, feels closer to a vague “you” than ever before. By emphasizing escapism as an interpersonal endeavor, she is able to find relief from pressure and stress while also maintaining connected to the real world. One might question how this importance placed on connection to reality can be reconciled with the seemingly fantastical album cover. And while it is certainly true that Polachek seems to be crawling away from the “real” world, it’s also important to note that the world depicted in the album cover is fictional – though she appears to crawl towards the sandy oasis, she is also crawling away from the fictional world, toward the screen, towards actual reality. What initially appeared to be a depiction of escape from reality to an imagined world, is now recontextualized as an escape from fiction back to reality; thus, the album cover functions as a depiction of both sides of escapism. Therein lies the genius of Desire, I Want To Turn Into You. Caroline Polachek crafted an album that is both immensely catchy and enjoyable, while also retaining a strong, nuanced thematic core exploring the tensions between reality, fiction, escapism, and connection. It’s a feat rarely accomplished in modern music, and I can’t wait to see how Polachek continues to expand on these themes through her endlessly replayable projects.
