That the title of Caroline Polachek's new single, Starburned and Unkissed, sounds like a track name you might find on a late '90s Smashing Pumpkins album is no coincidence, as the song - described by the New York-born alt. pop star as “straight-up grunge” - features in the new A24 movie I Saw The TV Glow, set in... the late '90s.
Polachek actually wrote the song in 2022, before writer/director Jane Schoenbrun got in touch with her about contributing to the soundtrack, but when she heard the outline of the plot, which concerns two teenagers in the mid'90s obsessing over The Pink Opaque, a fictional TV drama in which two psychically connected girls battle against evil, she realised that her 'misfit' song might finally have a home.
