Caroline Kingsbury

Caroline Kingsbury channels New Romantic aesthetics from the early 1980s in both sound and, at moments, visual presentation, adapting the foundational MTV framework for listeners in the 2020s with buoyant, tuneful compositions driven by synthesizers beneath a powerful, emotive vocal delivery and candid, inward-facing lyrics that confront subjects from queer identity to personal loss.

Born in Melbourne, Florida, Kingsbury reached pop music through a winding route shaped by her religious upbringing, which postponed exposure to current sounds until her teenage years, when her first passion centered on folk traditions. After her brother received a terminal cancer diagnosis, she left school. She relocated initially to Nashville, issuing several alt-folk tracks under her surname and completing a handful of touring appearances, before settling in Los Angeles. There she reshaped her approach around layers of electronics, gated drums, and resonant guitar lines suited to her expressive voice, which recalls Kate Bush paired with Cyndi Lauper, while also embracing matching presentation through multicolored hair and vivid makeup that echoed Duran Duran’s earliest videos.

This phase of her work opened with the 2021 release of Heaven’s Just a Flight, her debut album on the independent Fortune Tellers label founded by Peter Matthew Bauer of the Walkmen. The expansive LP contained songs that joined uplifting melodies with emotionally exposed lyrics spanning queer heartbreak in “Kissing Someone Else” to mortality in the title track, which stemmed from her brother’s death. In 2024, while advancing her next project, the EP I Really Don’t Care!, “Kissing Someone Else” gained wider notice after placement on algorithmic and editorial playlists alongside Chappell Roan, that year’s leading breakthrough pop artist, thereby generating interest ahead of further gleaming tracks such as “Fly Too Close,” “Take My Phone Away,” and “Alabama.” She supported the EP through a cross-country tour opening for Pom Pom Squad in 2025.