Why Caroline Polachek hates the term “female artists”
Now we are firmly in the post-modern age, society is moving away from traditional tags and categorisations. This societal trend is best encapsulated within the bustling world of music. A host of acts use the studio to create kaleidoscopic music that cherrypicks from across popular culture, transcending barriers with sonics so fluid they are essentially indefinable. One figure at the forefront of this movement is Caroline Polachek.
The American singer-songwriter released her fourth studio album, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, in February. Featuring cuts such as the euphoric ‘Welcome to My Island,’ the Flameco dream of ‘Sunset’ and the glitchy anthem of ‘Billions,’ it’s a masterclass in sonic worldbuilding, whereby Polachek frees herself of any constraints of genre and lets loose.
Intersecting her own vivid creativity with that of a handful of producers, including Danny L Harle, Sega Bodega and A.G. Cook, as well as enlisting Grimes and Dido for the track ‘Fly to You’, Polachek’s new album makes a solid claim to being one of the most multifaceted records ever heard, just like it’s 2019 predecessor, Pang. Instead of the broad scope being a weakness, it’s one of its ultimate strengths. It can be jarring and melodic in the blink of an eye, in a brilliant account of the complexity of real life.
Not one for beating around the bush regarding genre, when speaking to Tom Power on Q in April this year, Polachek said, “I don’t think about genre”. Discussing how tags might now be ineffective, she then said, “I think it’s invented by radio stations ultimately.”
It is categorisation as a whole Polachek has an aversion to. In a new interview with The Telegraph, she extended her disdain for genre and revealed why she hates the term “female artists”. Polachek asserted that it’s a limiting and effectively misogynistic tag that cannot and should not be conflated with genre. “Gender is not a genre,” she said before outlining a host of artists that inspired her by redefining what music could be by bringing you into their subjective worlds.
Regardless of what area of music you might be discussing, she explained, “Gender is not a genre. Kate Bush, Björk and Fiona Apple were foundational to me, in terms of redefining what music could be. But no more so than Brian Eno, David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Radiohead. What all these artists have in common is a very vivid sense of subjectivity. You see the world through their eyes, they bring you into their minds.”
