B-Side Guys

Estella Dawn doesn’t want to be herself—she wants to be obliterated by someone else’s attention. “Drunk & Messy” opens with a fight on Clementine street, split lips and blood on white tank tops, then spirals into something more complicated than simple breakup territory. The New Zealand-born, San Diego-based artist has crafted a late-night confessional about the kind of magnetic, volatile love where self-destruction feels like the point rather than the problem.

The production showcases Dawn’s ability to handle every element herself—she writes, records, and produces all her material, maintaining control over the exact texture of her vulnerability. The alt-pop framework allows for both intimacy and punch, with a chorus that arrives early and cuts deep. Her powerhouse vocal carries the weight of someone who’s simultaneously desperate to be seen and desperate to disappear, a paradox that drives the entire track. The indietronica elements add modern polish without scrubbing away the rawness.

What makes the song resonate beyond typical relationship chaos is Dawn’s specificity about what she’s actually craving. This isn’t about being loved or validated in conventional ways—it’s about feeling see-through, becoming somebody else, losing yourself until you forget who you are. The imagery throughout captures intoxication and addiction: rubies left like vampire marks, courage in veins, salt on the rim of sin. Dawn frames desire as erasure, connection as a way to escape rather than enhance the self.

The lyrics acknowledge their own messiness without apologizing for it. There’s a self-aware quality to admitting you’re tripping over words, showing up drunk and desperate, making threats about cutting splits off the end while tears stream down. Dawn notes her partner isn’t the prettiest in the room but inspires more desire than anyone else—honesty that feels refreshingly free of Instagram-ready sentiment.

With over 7 million streams this year and features on major Spotify playlists including New Pop Picks and The Drip, Dawn has built momentum through tracks like “514 Denim,” “Big Enough,” and “Locked In.” “Drunk & Messy” fits that trajectory: relentless, independent, unforgettable. For an artist who fuses pop, soul, hip-hop, and rock while maintaining complete creative control, she’s found her lane—writing about the parts of desire we’re supposed to grow out of but never quite do, the relationships built on mutual destruction disguised as connection.