Miranda Lambert Shares 'Wranglers' Video

06-13-2024

(EBM) With smoldering vocals and electric barbed wire guitars turned up, "Wranglers" arrived last month as three-time GRAMMY winner Miranda Lambert's biggest streaming debut ever, serving as an emphatic introduction of her new alliance with Republic Records with strategic support from Nashville-based Big Loud. As the fire continues to grow both at Country radio and across streaming platforms, the most-awarded artist in Academy of Country Music history now offers an official music video for the tour du force of empowerment.

Filmed outside Austin, Texas - the same city where Lambert convened a band of iconic musicians at the storied Arlyn Recording Studios alongside fellow GRAMMY-winning songwriter/producer Jon Randall to craft the new music - the video puts to film the song's sense of hard-won freedom for anyone leaving a situation that didn't serve them.

Directed by Lambert's longtime collaborator Trey Fanjoy, the creative force behind nearly all of her music videos - including CMA Music Video of the Year winners "The House That Built Me" and "Bluebird" - the video features her childhood best friend, Laci, who also appeared in "White Liar," as well as actress Elle Lamont, who previously appeared in "If I Was A Cowboy," plus Jessica Stroup ("90210," "The Following," "Jack Reacher," "Iron Fist") and Christopher Backus ("Big Little Lies," "Mindhunter," "Jett").

The scorching visuals also harken back to Lambert's fiery breakthrough hit, "Kerosene." As Lambert sets fire to a less-than-stand-up paramour's Wranglers while donning her own Idyllwind Denim, the gas can used to fuel the flames is a replica of her first kerosene can and the matchbook is the exact one used in that original shoot nearly two decades ago.

"When people think of country superstar Miranda Lambert, one of the things that first comes to mind is pyro - not because she has that huge a penchant for setting things off on stage (though it happens), but because of lyrical connotations going back to her first platinum single, 'Kerosene,'" notes Variety of the bookend parallels. "When it comes to her own career, though, things have consistently gone too well to ever need to go into burn-it-all-down mode. As she's subtly changed approach from album to album and single to single, Lambert has been all about controlled burns."

In that sense, the "Wranglers" video - just like the song itself written by Audra Mae, Evan McKeever and Ryan Carpenter based on a real-life, woman-to-woman conversation between Lambert and Mae - displays the East Texan's signature don't-tread-on-me ethos, but also suggests a creative force finding new levels. Having served as the go-to woman for tender toughness and reckoning when it comes to no-good men for almost two decades, she continues making music that speaks to the heart of women who love hard, live out loud and are fearless about how they take on the world around them.

"'Wranglers' is a classic tale of a woman taking her power back," Lambert says of the sizzling post-Outlaw classic. "I think we can all identify with the character in this video, because we have all had a time in our life where we needed to find our strength, and also get a little revenge on someone who did us wrong or hurt us. This offers such a cool, raging take on how something like this unravels; I am so proud to sing this song."

Naming "Wranglers" among the most notable new music upon its release, The New York Times declared, "country queen Miranda Lambert commands an atmosphere of smoky guitar licks and smoldering defiance," while The Wall Street Journal proclaimed, "Country Music Is Riding High. Miranda Lambert Is in the Driver's Seat."

The track offers a preview of more new music to come, with Lambert recently teasing her forthcoming project to People: "Going home to Texas to make it felt really right for this new season and this new chapter... this new team has just given me so much fire and inspiration, because it's all about the music with them."

Lambert is also returning to the road for select engagements this year following the recent conclusion of her twice-extended, critically-acclaimed Velvet Rodeo Las Vegas residency, including a special "Music for Mutts" benefit concert at Nashville's Ascend Amphitheater on Oct. 5 in celebration of the 15th anniversary of her MuttNation Foundation, which has raised nearly $10 million to date in support of its mission to advance and support the welfare and adoption of shelter pets nationwide.