Why did Caroline Polachek leave her best work off ‘Desire I Want To Turn Into You’?
Last year, Caroline Polachek unveiled her sophomore album, Desire I Want To Turn Into You, and secured her place as one of pop music’s contemporary saviours. The record was lush with experimentation, throwing bagpipes and Spanish guitars amidst Enya-inspired vocals, trip-hop stylings and pure pop melodies. It was everything a pop record should be – catchy and carefree but unafraid to push the boundaries of the genre.
Desire I Want To Turn Into You seemed like an entry into the genre that would remain peerless for some time – Polachek at her peak – but, somehow, she’s already outdone herself. Earlier this year, the pop star put out a deluxe version of the record, the Everasking Edition, with eight additional songs. The elongated track-listing features unreleased music, covers and features, as well as an acoustic version of ‘I Believe’.
The songs she included are just as strong as those that made the final cut. Sometimes, they’re even stronger, so why did Polachek leave them off the album in the first place?
The Everasking Edition kicks off with ‘Dang’, a song that pairs playful samples of screams with shrugged complaints over spilt milk. It’s a quieter venture into hyperpop, slightly off-putting in its textural chimes, a song that could’ve been an album single in its own right as opposed to an outtake.
The quality of the deluxe edition is unwavering from there, though it does begin to veer further into sampling and covering territory. Polachek’s take on a song by Richard Doyle’s Operating Theatre, ‘Spring Is Coming With A Strawberry In The Mouth’, is far more catchy than its lengthy title suggests. It leaves you desperately trying to emulate Polachek’s swinging vocals, failed attempts destined to reverberate beneath rain showers.
‘Coma’ is another highlight, which sees Polachek reimagining a Default Genders track called ‘Pharmacoma’. Alongside producer Danny L Harle, the track sees Polachek taking the central elements of the song – the heart monitor beeps, the repeated declarations of “I feel like I’m in a dream” – to take the track to new heights. It’s a pulsing and promising step into electronica for Polachek, though it might have stood out like a sore thumb amidst the tracklisting for Desire I Want To Turn Into You.
The two songs are highlights of the extended track-listing, covers of songs Polachek said she was “addicted to and inspired by” while making the original record. Perhaps this is what exempted them from the original record, which doesn’t rely too heavily on external material, but this doesn’t take away from their magic. Their appearance on the deluxe edition feels more like an homage to the artists and sounds that inspired the record, and a treat for those who find them.
It’s understandable that the acoustic version of ‘I Believe’ didn’t feature on the original record, too. The sparkling electronic version of the track took precedence, which Polachek dedicated to the late visionary and producer Sophie. The new version, which accompanies her powerful vocals with soft strums rather than synths, only provides a new depth to the song, a depth discoverable to those who delve into the deluxe.
‘Butterfly Net’ is another highlight of the Everasking Edition, bringing in chamber pop connoisseur and fellow all-consuming artist Weyes Blood, while ‘Long Road Home’ sees Polachek lend her vocals to a synthy Oneohtrix Point Never number. The latter was already put out on streaming platforms in 2022, and Polachek only included one song featuring other artists on the final cut of her record – ‘Fly To You’, which saw her collaborate with Grimes and Dido.
Rounding the Everasking Edition out, ‘Meanwhile’ seems like an interlude that could have easily slotted into Desire I Want To Turn Into You, while ‘Gambler’s Prayer’ glimmers despite being slightly more understated. They’re not quite as striking as the covers and features that make up the tracklisting and although the interlude is gorgeous, it might have taken away from the flow of the songs that did make the cut.
Though Desire I Want To Turn Into You: Everasking Edition may contain some of Polachek’s best work, pop simultaneously at its most polished and experimental, it makes sense that certain songs didn’t make the final tracklisting of the original album. Perhaps those songs are all the more special for their exclusion, or perhaps they should leave us all wondering how many more gems Polachek has hidden away.
