If you know her… there’s no surprise -and it’s no coincidence- that she would premiere a new song on a Friday The 13th.

There’s not that many voices out there today like Jesse Jo Stark, more importantly there aren’t that many visions like hers out there. When she gets up on stage or on camera, all eyes are immediately on her, and the second her lyrics hit your ears you’re immediately locked into this danger zone full of pulpy weirdness, cinematic gravitas and goth-Americana eroticism. Jesse Jo’s newest song is called “So Bad”, and in a totally good way… yeah she is! In fact, she’s as bad-ass as it gets, and even if she wasn’t such a great singer and storyteller, I think she could still easily build a career with her image and attitude alone. Fortunately she’s like a perfect storm of all these qualities together ready to sweep everything in her path towards stardom.

 

I won’t spoil the music video too much.

 

My first take on this song was noticing its very strong pop groove. Stark’s sound usually leans so much on rock and blues textures that this one stands out a bit from what we’ve heard so far from her, specially at first, because then that old, dark “gothabilly” sound creeps in from the edges of the california desert, clawing at your ears and turning the song werewolf-like into the kind of morbid, melodramatic ballad that I’ve come to love so much.

 

Swinging between Baroque Pop, goth-pop and alternative rock, Jesse’s music is actually hard to accurately describe in a single sentence, but it’s also extremely easy to “get” because she’s adept at evoking and communicating what she’s all about aesthetically, and this is in no small part thanks to her band, who were amazing as usual. I find that her style is probably amongst the most strongly well-branded and easy to recognize out of most emerging artists I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing over the years. Every single release is solid and exciting, everything feels like Rock & Roll being vindicated in a very modern vibe that feels vigorous and fresh.

 

There’s no way to make someone as gorgeous and confident look bad, but still we ought to give props to Director Ramez Silyan for really bringing the best out of Jesse on camera, and really understanding the assignment. The video features a callback to great female revenge movies of the past such as the cult classic “Faster, Pussycat! Kill Kill!”,  and though it harkens back to  these old, campy exploitation films, they play it all straight and without a hitch of irony or discomfort, which is the way to go when doing this kind of stuff. You don’t want to be too self-aware and over-the-top so as not to come off as condescending to the material that very clearly inspired it, and I’m sure Jesse wouldn’t have allowed that. This music video features cameos from various people near and dear to to Jesse, including her father, Richard Stark (Chrome Hearts), Steve Jones (Sex Pistols),Luka Sabbat, and of course Jesse Rutherford who co-produced the song and has some vocals of his own in it.

It’s not enough for Stark to be a killer songstress and musician, she also has her own brand of clothing/merch for all of us dark weirdos and femme fatales out there. it’s named Deadly Doll, after one of her most iconic songs.

This particular release is probably one of the most important ones from Stark so far, because it is the single that sets the stage for her upcoming debut album “DOOMED” schedule for release on September 21st, and that’s certainly something I’ve been looking forward to for a really long time now.

 

FOLLOW JESSE ON HER PATH OF REVENGE

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