Here is what I wanted to say about Kiefer Sutherland’s new country music video and single: “Are you Walker, Texas Ranger? Are you walked and woke, Kiefer Sutherland?”
Here is the other thing I wanted to say about Kiefer Sutherland’s new country music video and single: “As Ross from Friends once said: ‘You should think of, um, my work as wordless sound poems.’”
But after watching Kiefer Sutherland’s new country music video, both of these things are things I cannot say. Instead, there are only three things I can say for certain: a) I may or may not be craving a whiskey right now, b) I need whiskey because I’m not exactly sure how to process this (?), and c) “Hello, single-shot music video, did you misplace your Alejandro González Iñárritu?”
For those of you who, like me, were unaware that the son of Donald Sutherland was coming out with a country music album titled Down in a Hole, he is, and it’s due this summer.
As someone who selectively likes country and thought a second opinion might be helpful in this particular endeavor, I turned to my good friend Steven Edelstone, a music critic at Paste and the SF Weekly, to confirm the things that I already thought. Here is what he said via Facebook messenger, unedited after I insisted immediately (and nicely!) that he run back from the bodega to his apartment, watch this video, and give me commentary (which he very, very nicely did):
“this song tries so hard to hit every single country stereotype in the book
him going up to the mirror to drink whiskey
the song is pretty devoid of any meaning
it’s clear that he isn’t really writing from his perspective whatsoever
he’s trying to be someone he definitely isn’t
he uses lyrics more just to rhyme, rather than them meaning anything in particular
how much whiskey does he drink in this video?
this song is pretty much ‘how many cliches can we hit in less than 4 minutes’”
“Him going up to the mirror to drink whiskey.” Guys.
As someone who somehow inherited at least two seasons of 24 on DVD from my step-brother and never got around to watching them, how does this compare to things that you already knew about Kiefer, you Kiefer-acolytes of the world?
Contact the author at jamie.reich@jezebel.com.
Image via YouTube.