Jana Kramer Releases Official Video for Whiskey: Worth the Wait?
Jana Kramer’s second official single from her self-titled debut album, “Whiskey” has been heard over the airwaves for quite some time without any real video. There was a video posted a couple of months ago to her channel, called ‘Kickin’ It With @Kramergirl’, and many websites and blogs assumed THAT was the video for ‘Whiskey’. And, while it’s a nice video, it is rather simple (in fact it’s just one camera shot with nothing much going on in the scene), so I’m glad Jana has released this video too, to let us get to know the song on a deeper level.
And that has happened, I think. I was a little surprised by the nature of the video – I just expected it to be about your slightly runaway small-town heart breaker, but instead the video shows scenes of something entirely different. From Jana meeting the guy in a bar, their eyes doing that “I want to sleep with you” thing, and then the guy being ‘called’ (ha, clever play on the lyrics) by another man, only to start punching this other man and getting into a brawl, the rowdy and passionate nature of the relationship is clear. Jana obviously looks shocked at first, but as soon as her love interest returns to her after his brawl, back comes the flirty smile and they go off together. Err, huh?
Just an interjection, but I don’t care how cute a guy is, if he starts fights I’m not going to go home with him. Seems like sound advice, as the video ends with said lover being arrested in the middle of the night from the trailer where he and Jana are sleeping. Jana looks betrayed and slams the trailer door as her lover gets put into the police car. Finally, she gets it.
Between this start and end scenes we get a lot of Jana looking gorgeous, yet sad and dramatic in various scenes, lying down in her trailer, sitting in the woods with a shawl wrapped round her, it’s standard music video stuff, and I wouldn’t have expected anything less from someone who is also partly selling her sex appeal alongside her music (we have to admit it’s a marketing tactic for many). There are some very obvious interpretations of the lyrics, such as the lover drinking copious amounts of Jack Daniels straight from the bottle, in front of a campfire, symbolizing the fire of the relationship. Something interesting to note about this video is the amount of time it focuses on the passionate kiss between Jana and her on-screen lover. Country music is still a rather traditional medium, so to have this and a brief showing of them taking each others’ clothes off, is quite risqué, especially considering the criticism Shania Twain received in the nineties for showing her midriff. You could say country music has moved on, but there’s still a lack of openly sexual visuals in country music videos. So, I’ll be interested to see how this does in the video charts and whether fans take to it or not.
Overall this song allows a different interpretation of the song than I was expecting. I was hoping, after the wait, we’d get a little more going on, as it is a little repetitive with the shots at times. It would also be nice to get a little more narrative and a little less Jana looking pretty, but they might be trying to work a crossover video, particularly with the sexy/intimacy stuff.
There was a lot more scope for this video, so part of me is disappointed, but it’s good enough and I like the way it doesn’t quite conform to clichés, but provides a point of interest. I look forward to seeing its progress.
