Grammy-winning band Alabama Shakes are probably about to go from being the most famous music act from Athens, Alabama, to second banana. That’s because the buzz around Jessie Murph is building into thunderclap.

Murph is a provocative and talented 20-year-old singer/songwriter who stands approximately 4-foot-11. She’s got Lana Del Rey’s sultry charisma and cinematic sound, young Priscilla Presley’s wigs, and a country drawl filtered through Amy Winehouse’s rap-swagger. And she’s about to have the world by the throat.

On July 18, Murph released her excellent sophomore album, the subtly titled “Sex Hysteria.” Del Rey posted a video on Instagram of her pole dancing to one of Murph’s songs. On “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” Murph delivered a stylized performance of her single “1965.” Fallon beamed, “That is how you do it right there!”

Meanwhile at a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit fashion show, she sang on the catwalk surrounded by bikini models and brandishing a whip. Murph’s also featured on SI Swimsuit’s digital cover for July and in an accompanying pictorial. And oh yeah, her music, including songs like “Blue Strips” and Jelly Roll collabo “Wild Ones,” have piled up more than a billion Spotify streams. And counting.

Then there’s the matter of the music video for “1965.” The clip is artfully shot and edited. It also puts the N in NSFW, thanks to images including five seconds of (possibly) faux onscreen fornication by two actors.

Also in the vid, Murph sticks a cocked and loaded pistol into the mouth of an older man in bed. Later, another older man is pleasured under the table at a dining party by a younger female. Elsewhere, Murph’s tied up bondage-style on a couch. Lots of cig are smoked. Perhaps most eyebrow-raising is a scene with a child actor’s spliced among the debauchery.

That’s on top of the song’s lyrics. There are winking references to affordable cocaine, physical abuse, benefits of cigarettes, and women belonging in the kitchen.

The hook contains the couplet “I think I’d give up a few rights/ If you would just love me like it’s 1965.” Eleven f-bombs are dropped. Part of the second verse goes, “And I would be twenty and it’d be acceptable/ For you to be forty and that is f—-d up I know, But at least you wouldn’t drive off before I get in the f—ing door.”

The “1965” video posted on YouTube has drawn more than 12,000 comments. Mostly pearl-clutching observations like “since when is pornography allowed on youtube,” “there’s still time to unrelease this” and “I need to get this out of my search history.”

On TikTok, where Murph has 11 million followers, the singer defended the “1965” video in a caption to a video post: “This entire song is satire r yall stupid.” Media outlets with names like BroBible and Whiskey Riff have published content focusing on the purposely button-pushing “1965” video.

Meanwhile, in an album review of “Sex Hysteria,” Variety praised Murph for “her soaring, powerful voice,” “fierce rhyming skills,” “empowerment and humor.” The Variety review concludes that with “Sex Hysteria,” which follows her “impressive” 2024 debut album “That Ain’t No Man That’s The Devil”, Murph has “truly arrived.”

A recent Rolling Stone feature on Murph focuses on her backstory. Currently a Los Angeles resident following a stint in Nashville, Murph says when she comes back to Athens for a visit she heads straight to a local gas station for a big cup of boiled peanuts.

The RS feature addresses Murph’s complicated relationship with her hometown, which has a population of about 32,000. Athens is located in North Alabama about 30 minutes from Huntsville.

“My relationship with home has changed so much since I’ve left,” Murph tells Rolling Stone writer Jonathan Bernstein. “I really remember being 15, 16, even younger, and just knowing that I was not meant to be there. I didn’t feel right there. But I go back and I’m so grateful to be there. There’s something so sweet, something very nostalgic and beautiful, about the South.”

Rolling Stone’s feature also alludes to a dark past. ““I was really f—ed up when I was 17,” she says. “I was very severely depressed, dealing with a lot of s—. I was really struggling, and I think people like to have music they can relate to. I’m very grateful for the music I put out during that’s just not … Thank God I’m past some of that.”