The transformation of Jewel

It’s been 8 years since Jewel recorded her debut album. Since then her career has soared and she’s sold 25 million records worldwide. But now she’s undergone an image and music makeover, as you’ll see in the making of her latest video “Intuition.” “Today” host Matt Lauer reports.

On the eve of her 29th birthday, Jewel has already enjoyed a career that most aspiring pop stars only dream about.

Her well publicized rise to fame included a period of living in her van while playing coffee houses. Once in the limelight, Jewel made a name for herself with a soulful down-to-earth style.

Of course that was then, but this is now!

While resistant to being labeled, the release of Jewel’s fifth album, “0304” sends out the message that she intends to be known for more than just guitar strings and granola. But why the new look? We caught up with Jewel on the set of her new video, “Intuition.”

“Jewel’s image is so set up in a certain way. I thought doing something like this would really play off of it big time and she was totally game. I mean she kept wanting to go more and more over the top with it,” says Marc Klasfeld, director of Jewel’s “Intuition” video.

Jewel says the video begins with, “a lot of the sexy outfits in the video are done in jest. It’s done as a parody of rap videos, of runways, of pop culture.”

It begins with home video as if it’s one of Jewel’s friends or a tourist filming her.

“Then we got a really cool soda ad where Jewel is just kind of sitting with a bottle of soda but suddenly the camera goes in on her and the wind blows her shirt open/and she sips the soda,” says Klasfeld.

“I’m doing things in this video that I never thought I’d do… I’m dancing I’m getting sprayed down with a fire hose. It’s silly, and completely over the top and something you would absolutely see in a music video, says Jewel.

“My favorite is when our protesters, turn into dancers, do like a Britney-Christina type choreographed thing. So that’s the basic idea. So going to go from video to film, video to film, and it’s going to be this whole statement on what’s actually real in this culture of ours,” says Klasfeld.

Jewel says she enjoyed being glamorous and dressing up during the making of the video. But it didn’t always come easy. “I get embarrassed showing off my body a lot. I’ve never really wanted to be known for cleavage as much. I’m shy, something people are always really surprised about.

But that shyness isn’t on display when a crosswalk turns into a fashion runway.

Jewel says, “I had to take my robe off and there’s traffic behind me and my butt’s hanging out. It was so embarrassing. I’ve never had to quote-unquote sell out and I wanted to have a video that sort of walked that line and sort of was showing the difference between one’s normal self and one’s fantasy self or the commercialization of America, the commercialization of myself.”

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