I have pretty mixed feelings about mainstream country music. I grew up around a lot of it, living as dangerously close to Texas as I did it was pretty unavoidable, and as time went by I began to despise it. Country music was as far from rebellious as one could get at the time, and my attention was better spent on alternative genres. It really wasn’t until after high school that I gave country music a fighting chance, though I eventually became very glad that I did.
As much as I had become disillusioned by acts such as Brooks & Dunn and Clint Black, I had consequently become enamored by dynamic artists such as Gram Parsons, Bob Wills, Hank Williams and the country music influence that saturated a good deal of ‘70s classic rock music. My love of a the less main stream side of country led me to alternative country bands such as The Bottle Rockets, early Wilco and the fantastic Old 97’s (whose ’08 album Blame It On Gravity was one of my very favorite discs of last year). While I dove into the more under the radar side of country and roots music, I only became more and more disgusted by the direction that mainstream country music was heading in. While artists like Toby Keith and Tim McGraw become the face of country music, I wanted to become less and less associated with the genre. That was until I came across an Australian singer with a dynamite voice on the radio one afternoon.
My first impression of Keith Urban was that he was playing an overly polished mix of modern pop and contemporary country. And yet, as much as I was supposed to dislike the music I was hearing, I found myself enjoying it quite a bit. I soon set off to dig into Urban’s catalog of music, which was rather small at the time, and after enjoying what I heard for the most part I decided that Urban was the one mainstream country artist I would follow musically at the time. A few years later and he’s still the only artist on that list.
Urban’s 6th full length album, Defying Gravity, is pretty much what you would expect from Keith. He doesn’t do anything groundbreaking on the disc; instead he sets out to make another glossy, arena ready pop album with a strong country undertone. It’s what we’ve come to except, and it’s basically a love it or hate it kind of thing. Though the disc does seem to improve on Urban’s last album, the convoluted Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing, it also lacks the terrific bread winning single that Urban has hung his hat on in the past. As a complete album though, Defying Gravity is one of Urban’s most well rounded and fulfilling LPs.
The album’s lead single, “Kiss a Girl,” balances on the border of tripe and is one of the weaker singles Urban has put out in recent memory. Luckily, Defying Gravity only gets better. The following track, the banjo filled “If Ever I Could Love,” is a call back to some of Keith’s more country fried early part of the century tracks. A couple songs later the highlight of the disc, the beautiful “‘Til Summer Comes Around,” is one of Keith’s loveliest laments. In the middle of the album, “Hit the Ground Runnin’” is an attention grabbing sped up honky tonk/rock mix. And “Why’s It Feel So Long” is a skittering love song with a “Margarittaville” vibe that, just like Jimmy’s claim to fame, is just catchy enough to warrant repeated listening.
Defying Gravity may set the bar for future Urban albums, but the bar is in no way too high to surpass at some point soon. It’s a fun listen, but apart from the brightest gem in the bunch, “’Til Summer Comes Around,” the disc does seem a bit tentative and somewhat set in its ways. The lack of great creativity or dangerous experimentation may limit how many people will perceive the album, and I’m quite aware of all of this. The lack of depth in most of Urban’s music is a reason why I don’t go back to it nearly as much as I do a lot of other new music I enjoy, but sometimes Urban’s music – Defying Gravity included- just catches a nerve for my joint love for both good pop music and good country music.
The last song on the record is the scaled back piano ballad “Thank You,” which allows Urban to truly open up emotionally after succeeding a batch of rather generic love and heart break lyrics on the album’s previous songs. Singing quite frankly about his trying last of couple years (Urban recently went in to rehab for alcohol addiction) and thanking his famous counterpart Nicole Kidman for sticking by his side, “Thank You” is a terrific album closer that wraps up the disc at a nicely rounded 11 songs. We may see a better Keith Urban album in the future, but every album released prior to Defying Gravity will have to try and live up to this year’s solid effort.
"Defying Gravity" is on sale March 31, 2009 from Capitol Nashville.
