Princess Chelsea

Princess Chelsea is a New Zealand based songwriter, producer, and visual artist. Her music has been described as baroque-pop, helium pop, and “Nancy Sinatra for the Shazam era” (The Fader). Alongside her music, she is widely recognised for a distinctive DIY visual approach developed through self-made music videos such as 'I Love My Boyfriend' and 'The Cigarette Duet,' which have influenced visual practices across social and digital platforms.

Classically trained, Chelsea emerged from Auckland’s underground music scene as a member of Teen Wolf and later The Brunettes, before releasing her debut solo album Lil’ Golden Book in 2011 via Lil’ Chief Records. The album received early international attention, including coverage from The Guardian, which described her music as “ravishingly strange.” Its feature track 'The Cigarette Duet,' and accompanying self-made video, achieved early viral success on YouTube and later experienced a major resurgence through TikTok more than a decade after its initial release.

Her second album, the synth-driven The Great Cybernetic Depression, was a finalist for the Taite Music Prize (New Zealand’s equivalent of the Mercury Prize). Visual collaborations with Wellington-based artist Simon Ward further established a cohesive visual language that has since been widely referenced within contemporary music video culture in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.

Chelsea’s third album, The Loneliest Girl, generated another significant pop-cultural moment with the single I Love My Boyfriend. Its glitchy, self-directed Y2K-era video spread widely across TikTok and Instagram, eventually soundtracking a global Yves Saint Laurent campaign.

Her most recent album, Everything Is Going To Be Alright (2022), won the Taite Music Prize for Outstanding Artistic Achievement and was later named the #2 New Zealand Album of the Decade by Rolling Stone. In 2024, she received the Aotearoa Music Award for Best Alternative Artist.

Across five albums, Princess Chelsea has developed a distinct auteur-led sound rooted in bedroom production and shaped by vintage synthesisers, orchestral textures, expansive drum sounds, and cinematic arrangements. Influenced by 1960s girl groups and pop, her songwriting is recognised for its lyrical simplicity, dry humour, and emotional darkness.

Her cinematic sensibility extends into her visual practice. Beginning in 2011, Chelsea developed a distinct visual language through self-made, low-budget music videos, drawing on references including Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests and the films of Robert Altman. Her work favours long, voyeuristic shots, mixed media, and VHS textures. In recent years, she has expanded this practice to directing and editing visual work for other artists, including Jonathan Bree’s 'In The Sunshine' and 'Politics.'

Live performance remains central to her practice. Together with her band The Dream Warriors, Princess Chelsea has presented large-scale, theatrically considered shows, including appearances at the Aotearoa Music Awards, the Taite Music Awards, and her annual Midwinter Balls. In recent years, she has increasingly embraced collaboration in the studio, moving beyond a strictly auteur approach to explore new creative directions. This shift is closely tied to her ongoing relationship with her band The Dream Warriors - a collective of Auckland-based musicians including Joshua Worthington-Church, Joe Kaptein, Simeon Kavanagh-Vincent, David Harris, Jasmine Balmer, and Kate Tindall - many of whom come from backgrounds in jazz and improvisation.