Chelsea Jade had an ambitious career in the music industry working behind the scenes as a songwriter for the likes of The Chainsmokers and Jai Wolf before self-releasing her own debut LP Personal Best in 2018. This record put her full creativity on display, merging her pop sensibilities and thoughtful lyrics with a bizarre sense of humor, which got magnified in her music videos, like those for “Life of the Party” and “Laugh it Off.”
Today she’s following suit with another entertaining video, adding visuals to her loose single “Superfan” released earlier this month. But, as always, there’s some logic behind the goofy, surreal imagery of the clip: “I’ve always felt cumbersome at parties, never knowing when to retract or contract,” she says. “I think everybody contorts themselves in reaction to company in order to be acceptable. I’m tall and imposing and I mitigate my behavior to account for that feeling. This video takes that experience to a surreal place. A physical manifestation of internal warping. Also, It’s become an incidental tradition to put myself in strange danger for videos and committing to stilts felt appropriately terrifying.”
Of the track itself, Jade shares how its meaning has changed since she’s found herself quarantined in Los Angeles, away from friends in family back home in New Zealand. “Their distance gives them a kind of celebrity to me,” she explains, “where my love turns to adulation in lieu of real contact. Which is to say, fan culture is so complex and hearty. More than occasionally aggressive. I wondered how I could apply it to the minutiae of my relationships and my own less-than-flattering set of behaviors.”
Watch the video below. Jade was set to open some shows for Allie X later this year, though the tour has understandably been postponed.
