Urban takes the "Straight Line"

High

Following hits "Straight Line," "Wildside" and "Go Home W U" featuring Lainey Wilson, Keith Urban drops thematically driven and pleasantly electrifying album "High," a nearly four-year drop since 2020's "The Speed of Now Part 1." Urban took great interest in feelings and experiences associated with the word "high," reflecting on his own passions approaching the sensation or "place of utopia" as Urban dubs it . ...

THE SPEED OF NOW Part 1

It's getting tougher and tougher all the time to justify categorizing Keith Urban's music as country. "The Speed of Now, Pt. 1" doesn't help. (What, is there a pt. 2 of this largely lame music on the way? Say it ain't so!) It's a relatively good pop album, for a Nashville pop effort, but there's just too much real country (Jon Pardi, Luke Combs) getting played on mainstream radio these days. The world just doesn't really need new Urban pop music. ...

Graffiti U

It's telling how two songs on Keith Urban's "Graffiti U" album chug along to a reggae beat because pop rhythms and non-country elements are the obvious inspirations for this collection. Opener "Coming Home" may borrow (steal?) a guitar riff from Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried," but this is where that country road begins and ends. Urban follows "Coming Home" with "Never Comin' Down," which is introduced with a funky bass line ...