Keith Urban: The Album That Didn’t Happen
Keith Urban has already released a few songs from his fourthcoming album, which will be released later this year, but before he started that album, he had another album done. Then something happened.
Keith told us in an interview, “The previous album, I felt like I was 98 percent in when I was listening to it, and that may sound like that’s good enough, but not for me. I have to believe in them from top to bottom.”
He added, “There can’t be one that I’m like, ‘Not sure about that one.'”
Of the album he is releasing, Urban said. “The album got shorter, forty minutes, top to bottom. The sequencing was important, as to how the album starts and how it ends. The stories, the tempos, the energies, and everything that happened in between are like an eleven-song set list for me. It all made perfect sense to me.”
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In the same interview, Urban explained to us his motivation to make music. He says that motivation hasn’t changed since he was a teenager in Australia, wanting to come to Nashville to make it big in country music. Keith told us, “If anything, I think I’ve just gotten more clarity on why I love what I get to do. I don’t think it’s changed. My understanding of why I love it has become clearer.”
He continued, “I left school at fifteen, playing in cover bands five nights a week, four hours a night in the clubs, and only playing covers for years well into my early 20s.”
Urban had a plan from day one. He said, “I just wanted to be able to play my own music. I was hoping one day, I could write some songs that the audience would know, so I could be playing my own music, and the audience would sing along like they were singing along with Reba or like they were singing along with [Jimmy Buffett’s] ‘Margaritaville.’ I was hoping that I would do one of my songs, and they would do that.”
Now that he is a huge music star, the fact that he got just what he wanted is not lost on him even today. He said, “To be able to put together a lengthy set list with all originals, and they sing along with almost all of it, just made going out there and what I want to do and have everyone become one. That’s all I’ve ever tried to do.”
