CAROLINE ROSE THE ART OF FORGETTING

On March 24, Caroline Rose released their new album The Art Of Forgetting, an emotive collection of songs detailing a tumultuous personal and professional period between it and the release of 2020’s Superstar. Headliner caught up with Rose for an insightful, in-depth chat about piecing oneself back together through music…

An intriguing juxtaposition exists between Caroline Rose’s new album The Art Of Forgetting and its predecessor Superstar . The former could be described as a concept album of sorts; a tale of a doomed pursuit of pop stardom played out across 11 tracks. From its linear narrative to its shiny production and cover shot of Rose looking like a lifeless plastic doll, it is a meticulously executed piece of work in which each and every element is seamlessly stitched together.

Fast forward three years to The Art Of Forgetting and once again Rose has constructed another record around its central character’s trials and tribulations. Yet what may appear to be a familiar proposition on the surface looks very different underneath.

“They’re both autobiographical,” Rose tells Headliner as we join them over Zoom, sat outside in a friend’s garden on a sunny spring Florida morning. “With Superstar I took a lot of creative license, but that whole time I was still actualising what I was going through. It was more in the way that you make a movie about someone’s life; there’s going to be truth to it but you’re stretching it. With this it’s different because I wasn’t planning on making an album, I was just writing songs about what I was feeling. The arc of the story didn’t really come until later, when I looked back on the year-and-a-half of writing I’d done and was like, this is me piecing myself back together, having really lost myself and any understanding of how to love myself… maybe I never knew how.”

In keeping with the cinematic analogy, if Superstar was a looselybased-on-true-events tragicomedy, then The Art Of Forgetting is more gritty, unflinching documentary. While previous releases have occasionally employed melodrama and wit to soften their more emotionally charged moments, Rose makes no such attempts to mask or obfuscate the trauma that anchors so many of these songs. There are pockets of humor and hope to be found, but they are less frequent, or perhaps less obvious, than before.

The album’s roots can be traced back almost to the point of Superstar’s release. Having seen plans for that album’s tour almost immediately derailed by the pandemic, Rose was dealt another blow in the form of a harrowing breakup. All of which was compounded by the fact she had to manage this time of personal and professional crisis in isolation.

“I released Superstar on March 6, 2020, and we got about four shows in before the whole thing got its head cut off,” Rose recalls, explaining the origins of The Art Of Forgetting . “It was such a bizarre time. There was a lot of grieving and so many big emotions happening all at once. I was grappling with all the shows being canceled and I’d worked so hard on this thing to try and get my career off the ground. We were looking at what we all thought was going to be our champagne year, with touring and hopefully a nice relaxing break after that. That happened simultaneously with a break-up that was very difficult for me. And not to mention the collective worldwide grieving and loss of people’s lives and the millions of lives being affected. And then mix in a human rights crisis and you’ve got a fizzy bottle that’s ready to explode.”

“That was happening at a global level and a personal level for me,” they continue. “I had all of these intense feelings that needed to come out, and I had nowhere to go, nowhere to be, and there were no distractions. It was like, if you have nothing to do right now, you might as well start diving into some of the sources of this pain. That’s what the whole album was about, just trying to find anything to feel better. I had really lost myself in the process of making Superstar. And the whole storyline in Superstar ended up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Looking back, it’s like, of course that’s how it ended. It’s bizarre.”

It’s testament to Rose’s artistry that they have been able to take the turmoil of the intervening years and create a record that places all of their experiences front and center without ever creaking under the weight of its subject matter. In fact, far from morose, The Art Of Forgetting is arguably the most vibrant, sonically rich, and musically eclectic set Rose has released yet. From one track to the next, it is an album that rolls and swells tonally, and narratively. Snippets of conversations between Rose and their parents appear in certain lyrics, while Jill Says is built around an exchange between Rose and their titular therapist. Meanwhile, a handful of voicemails from Rose’s ill grandmother are scattered throughout, adding further to the tenderness and intimacy that course through its 14 tracks.

“It’s documenting every moment I was feeling, every big thought I had,” says Rose. “And the beauty of making an album is that you can tell a story with it, and you can use all sorts of devices to tell that story. You have all this music, and you tell the story through the sequencing of it and any other flourishes you have in there - things like using my grandma’s voicemails and conversations with my family that are almost word-for-word what we talked about. They are these little grounding moments that capture that time.

“I like hearing people’s thoughts on how this album came together,” Rose smiles when Headliner asks if they had a specific vision for the record from the outset. “I learned a lot from the last record, as it was the first time I produced an album in its entirety. This time it was different in that I didn’t go into the studio and start writing for an album. I had all these songs, but they weren’t necessarily albumready. For example, there’s a song on the album called Tell Me What You Want , and I had a version, or versions, of it that I would play to my friends and family, and my dad is my fiercest critic. I played him the song and I had to rewrite it three times because he tore it apart. He’s also really sweet when he does like something, so when you give him something and he says it’s really good you know he means it.”

After spending some time discussing the reactions of those closest to Rose upon hearing the record, our focus fixes on single Miami . A significant musical departure from the electro indie pop of Superstar , were there any surprised responses to such a raw outpouring of heartbreak?

“I don’t think there have been many reactions of people being surprised by it, which is maybe more surprising to me,” they laugh. “ Miami was a song that came quickly, and you don’t need a whole lot to feel the impact of it because it’s just raw emotion. It’s a bit like when teenagers first start a band and it’s just full of all these unbridled emotions. It’s like smashing three chords on the guitar and screaming, ‘I hate you mom, I hate you dad!’ There’s something so amazing about those songs because they are completely raw and completely honest, and I think of Miami as one of those songs.”

At the time of our chat, Rose is gearing up for a full international tour in support of The Art Of

Forgetting . It’s a prospect they are relishing but, in light of what transpired last time around, are not taking for granted.

“There are no guarantees, that was a big lesson for me last time,” Rose reflects. “These wrenches can get thrown in the mix that can stop your plans, but you can find something different to do instead. I’m more open minded to things now. At the end of the day, I went through this time, made an album about it that I’m really proud of, and that’s a big feat for me.”

That Rose has not only been able to overcome the circumstances that underpin The Art Of Forgetting but emerge with a record of such scope and creative dexterity is an achievement of which any artist should be proud. The evolution they have undergone in the space between albums has been profound. And in this stark articulation of personal experience, they may have produced their most universal and affecting work so far.