Caroline Kingsbury – Pain + Pleasure
Earlier this summer, Florida native and Los Angeles-based queer indie pop star Caroline Kingsbury announced her electric and daring new EP, Shock Treatment, due for release September 26th via Seeker Music.
Inspired by the 1981 musical comedy film of the same name—a cult follow-up to The Rocky Horror Picture Show— Shock Treatment draws on the film’s themes of societal pressure and the blurred lines between reality and fantasy. With her signature fearless style, Kingsbury imagines a world of reverse conversion therapy, where queerness is not only normalized but celebrated, and heterosexuality is marginalized—flipping the script in that’s both thought-provoking and emotionally resonant.
Today, Kingsbury shares the EP’s third single, “Pain + Pleasure”—a stripped-down piano ballad that channels all the raw emotion, catharsis, and flashes of synth magic signature to a Kingsbury track. This time, however, the track is delivered with a quieter intensity that highlights Kingsbury’s vulnerability and emotional depth and confirms her artistry is as expansive as it is fearless.
While on tour with Pom Pom Squad this past March, Kingsbury waved the Transgender Pride Flag and reminded audiences: “It’s now more important than ever for us to be together, experiencing queer joy.” That spirit pulses through Shock Treatment, and it’s a message she carried across the country this summer—from her debut performance at Lollapalooza to Capitol Hill Block Party. Later this month, Kingsbury kicks off her co-headlining Give Me a Tour! with MARIS and will take the stage at All Things Go.
2024 was a breakout year for Kingsbury, highlighted by her viral hit “Kissing Someone Else”—a collaboration with Math Bishop (Taylor Swift, The Killers)—which led to a tenfold increase in her streaming numbers and online following. She also made waves with “Give Me A Sign,” a glittering glam-pop anthem created with fellow retro-pop artist MARIS, which racked up over a million streams in a month and landed on Spotify’s global New Music Friday playlist. Most recently, Kingsbury’s “Blurry Now,” a fittingly cinematic and ethereal post-breakup ballad was featured in Netflix’s Forever, now the No. 1 show on the platform.
With the release of Shock Treatment, Kingsbury stands poised to convert the masses.
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