Keith Urban Says Country Music Has Always “Contracted” and Expanded”

Having kicked off his country music career in the early ’90s, Keith Urban has seen a few tidal shifts in the industry. Now 56, the “Blue Ain’t Your Color” singer is a Nashville lifer. However, Urban is embracing change rather than clinging to the past, even covering “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen. The 15-time ACM Award winner recently opened up about his genre’s “moment.”

Keith Urban: “Country’s Always Embraced All Kinds of Things”

During a recent appearance on Australian talk show The Project, Keith Urban pointed to artists like Morgan Wallen and Post Malone as examples of country music’s ever-broadening appeal. He also cited Luke Combs and reigning Entertainer of the Year Lainey Wilson. Urban teamed up with the latter for “Go Home W U,” off his forthcoming 12th studio album High.

[RELATED: Keith Urban Gushes Over His “Go Home W U” Duet Partner, Lainey Wilson]

The resurgence isn’t happening by accident, Urban said. Aside from country acts like Keith Whitley and Eric Church, Wallen has also listed the rock bands Breaking Benjamin and Nickelback among his musical influences, along with rapper Lil Wayne. The “Cowgirls” singer has successfully incorporated those seemingly discordant sounds into a fusion that fans can’t get enough of.

Additionally, Lainey Wilson’s GRAMMY-winning record Bell Bottom Country borrowed from ’70s rock, funk and soul.

“So all these influences are coming into the genre,” Keith Urban said. “Country’s always embraced all kinds of things within it. It’s had this ability to embrace pop elements. And then, kind of when it starts to lose its way, [it] contracts back to the more pure country. And then it expands.”

Urban is here for the resurgence of country music. “It’s a very story-oriented, relatable genre, always has been,” said the four-time GRAMMY Award winner. “And I think the way in which it’s being made now, the sounds that are incorporated into it, is having a wider audience. It’s amazing.”

New Album Hits Shelves This Month

Fans last heard new Keith Urban music in 2020, when the the 13-time CMA Award winner released The Speed of Now Part 1. The wait is over Sept. 20 when High hits the airwaves.

Urban has promised to take listeners on a journey. “What makes you ‘high’ can mean whatever you want it to mean,” the singer told Billboard. “It might be physical, spiritual, herbal, meditative, chemical, or musical, but it’s definitely a place of utopia.”

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