Caroline Rose by CJ Harvey
Caroline Rose could be the name of your sweet Southern cousin or your English tea-drinking alter ego. But “prim and proper” is not the feeling you get when you listen to Rose, a singer-songwriter from Long Island, New York, who embraces the weird.
After debuting with an Americana sound almost 10 years ago, Rose pivoted. Her 2018 album “Loner” leaned heavily into alternative pop with an emphasis on synth and sharp-witted observation. “Jeannie Becomes a Mom,” inspired by a friend’s accidental pregnancy, is a sarcastic earworm for the ages and a flagship track on a nominally feel-good record that poked fun at mainstream celebrity culture and everyday life while making Rose an indie sensation. The follow-up, Superstar, took that sardonic streak further, turning the topic of fame and L.A. life into a whole concept album.
Rose shed their armor for 2023’s The Art of Forgetting, a break-up album with the songwriter’s acute gaze directed inward. “It was just a perfect storm of events that led to just feeling — I don’t want to say desperate, but maybe, like, emotionally desperate in a way,” Rose told NPR. “I was going through a split with my partner, and I realized I had left very little for myself. And I had kind of forgotten how to be kind to myself.”
Strings gleam and glitches dance around Rose’s ethereal voice, contributing to a deeper, more earnestly emotional listening experience on standouts such as “Miami.” Snippets of voice messages from Rose’ grandmother throughout the album show how close this material is to their heart.
Rose has talked before about another side of her private life — how publicly to identify as queer. “I was kind of afraid to make being queer a part of my identity for fear that it would consume it,” she told Out in 2018. In hindsight, the soul-baring of “The Art of Forgetting” sounds like the more terrifying leap. “I’ve never really been this vulnerable,” Rose told Them in 2023. “It does really expose my private life in a way that I’ve never done before.”
Caroline Rose plays Saturday, February 24 at Winterland Six at James Weldon Johnson Park in Jacksonville. carolinerosemusic.com ~ Olivia Feldman
