A collection of Caroline Polachek’s favourite songs
Caroline Polachek defines music as “vibrating air that we can have this really rich relationship with”. As an artist who sees production as just as much of a vehicle for feeling as lyricism, her music taste is just as dynamic and varied as the music she makes. From cinematic ballads to fresh, club-ready hits, her favourite songs are a mix of all her influences.
Polachek’s career has already moved through so many different stages and eras. She started out as one part of Chairlift, a twee indie-pop outfit that defined the sound of the genre back in the early 2000s. When they split in 2016, she then reemerged as Ramona Lisa, a lo-fi electronic artist. To her, that moment was all about clearing the cache from being in a band and beginning to wonder what inspired her as a solo artist. “Ramona Lisa is a format,” she said, “she’s not a person, she’s more like a genre or maybe more like a screenplay. It’s like a set of images, motifs and shapes that kind of all work together for me.”
It feels like the images and motifs finally came together in their true form when she finally emerged as herself. It wasn’t until 2019 that she released under her own name, finally leaving the cocooning, figuring-it-out phase and bursting to life with Pang, a record that combined her indie, electronic and dream-pop days into one. It seems that, with so many inspirations and influences at play, it took a while for Polachek to figure out how to combine them. But when she managed it, she’s now stormed to the top as a cultishly beloved artist.
Hitting shuffle on Polacheck’s discography means facing up to several different styles. Across her two records, there is everything from glitchy club beats like on ‘Welcome To My Island’, ethereal and emotive lyrical odes such as ‘Butterfly Net’, and endlessly catchy pop hits like ‘So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings’. This interest in all several corners of sound undoubtedly comes from her own varied musical tastes. “One thing I love to do when I show up to a recording studio, especially one that’s not my own, is listen to music on the speakers for a while, just to get myself adjusted to [the space],” she told Marantz, “That often ends up being really pivotal for where the day goes, and what ideas get me excited.”
But the playlist of what music she might play is vast. When asked to pick out her favourite songs of all time, the list is diverse. She picks out tracks by some theatrical masters like Scott Walker with ‘My Old Man’, stating, “One of my all-time favourite songs, I pretty much can’t ever hear it without crying.” Kate Bush also makes the cut as she picks out ‘The Sensual World’, saying, “It’s this wind-swept internal vignette of Kate’s relationship with giving in and saying “Yes,” being swept away by romance, with a person — but it also feels like it’s really about life. It’s such a pure song, lyrically.”
Pure emotion is something she also loved about Minnie Riperton’s ‘Les Fleurs’. “That song is a prime example of a kind of emotional ‘Odyssey Song’”, she said, “Every album I’ve ever made has one on it — something that develops and evolves and opens up into a kind of climactic ending.”
But beyond the classics, Polachek’s taste also includes some new and glitchy electronic stuff, which inspires her own production style. She calls ‘Beyond Black Suns’ by These New Puritans “one of my favourite songs released in the last decade.” Similarly, she picks out modern tracks from A.G. Cook, Zsela, and serpentwithfeet as a nod to the musical scene she exists within.
Just as much of a fan of the contemporary crowd as she is of the classics, Polacheck’s taste is timeless. She remains just as engaged with the present as she is educated about the past, allowing her own music to be coloured by a range of influences and textures.
