Japanese Breakfast has returned with another single ahead of her new album, Jubilee, due out June 4th via Dead Oceans. It’s called “Savage Good Boy” and it comes with a cinematic music video in tow. Check it out below.
“Savage Good Boy” continues Japanese Breakfast’s foray into funky new-wave pop. Like lead single “Be Sweet”, it uses airy synths, a rubbery bassline, and snappy percussion to ground her cheery falsettos and vocal harmonies. All in all it’s fairly brief, clocking in just over two minutes, and leaves the listener wanting more from her follow-up to 2017’s Soft Sounds from Another Planet.
The single’s accompanying music video, directed by Michelle Zauner herself and starring Michael Imperioli of The Sopranos, continues the story started in the clip for “Posing in Bondage”. Now, her character is stuck in a lavish, albeit troubling, relationship with an older man in a bunker. In a press release, Zauner explained the idea behind “Savage Good Boy” and cited Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden, Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, and Sally Potter’s Orlando as influences on both her and her cinematographer, Adam Kolodny.
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“‘Savage Good Boy’ came from a headline I read about billionaires buying bunkers. I was interested in examining that specific type of villainy, and I found myself adopting the perspective of a rich man coaxing a young woman to come live with him underground, attempting to rationalize his almost impossible share of greed and miserliness,” said Zauner. “I knew I wanted the music video to be a pretty literal interpretation of that idea. I wanted to juxtapose images of this post-apocalyptic, industrial bunker with the lightness and extravagance of rococo fashion and set design.”
Last month, Zauner released her debut memoir Crying in H Mart and announced a bunch of US tour dates for Japanese Breakfast later this fall. Tickets are currently on sale for those shows, including some discounted options here.
