Debate: A Canadian Keith Urban Review with a Difference

15 years ago Liv Carter 1
Photo credit: Ted Rhodes/Calgary Herald

A lot of CD and concert reviews are just puff pieces praising everything about the artist so I love it when reviewers stick their necks out and really speak their mind.

Heath McCoy, of the Calgary Herald, reviewed Keith Urban ‘s recent Saddledome show. After extolling the skills Keith demonstrates during his life show (Urban’s sizzling six string skills? If those weren’t established definitively enough in the quick, tasty licks of the first two tunes, there was no doubt with the fiery guitar solo featured in the ballad) he goes on to say that:

Urban is a man with big talents, unquestionably. That makes it all the more frustrating that as a recording artist and a songwriter he’s so seldom lived up to his potential.

Oh, the numbers will say I’m dead wrong on that one with hit singles and platinum albums aplenty, his latest, Defying Gravity making Billboard’s number one spot. But artistically I have to believe that Urban can deliver so much more than he does on his glossy recordings where his guitar chops are too often defanged by the Nashville machine.

Urban’s songwriting suffers even more, the majority of his tunes, as catchy as they are just too middle-of-the-road. Catering to contemporary country radio is not necessarily a bad thing, but Urban’s work just doesn’t bear the distinctive personal stamp that we find with, say, Brad Paisley or Tim McGraw.

The numbers may not agree, but I do. ‘Defying Gravity’ is a good record (our review) and it still gets a fair number of spins here but if you compare it to the live show, well, it doesn’t compare at all. On stage, Keith passionately struts his stuff with unbridled joy and you can only conclude you are watching someone doing what he loves most.

It’s not easy to get that same vibe on a CD but in an environment where country radio rules supreme, you almost have to wonder if they were trying in the first place. The songs on ‘Defying Gravity’ were polished up just a little bit too much and it ate away at the record’s ‘personality’. Of the two artists McCoy mentioned, Tim McGraw‘s new CD isn’t out yet but Brad Paisley‘s ‘American Saturday Night’ (our review) is a display of creativity not seen in Keith’s career since the days of The Ranch.

So, your two cents, please. Do you agree or disagree that there is a disparity between Keith’s live shows and recordings? Or is the live performance so good that he has no hope of matching it on record anyway?

Leave us a comment or tell us via Twitter.

Liv Carter

Liv Carter

Liv is a career coach for creatives, and the people who work with them.
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.
Liv Carter

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