KEITH URBAN

                                                               "Street Called Main" 

                                                                Capitol Records

Keith Urban has always been an artist who is unapologetically unafraid to test the boundaries of the country music genre by fusing several different outside influences into his core brand of music, which has kept him uber relevant in an ever-shifting music landscape.

He once again swerves slightly outside the normal comfort boundaries with his newest release, “Street Called Main,” the follow-up to his currently charting “Brown Eyes Baby” and our next glimpse into the project he’s currently working on that’s set to release in 2023.

Keeping just enough familiarity that he holds the listener’s attention in an otherwise mostly unexpected movement of his vocal styling, Urban reminisces through the moments that shaped his coming of age years when he sings of the first time he learned to drive on the gravel in a Chevy, bonfire hanging with a couple of buddies on a Saturday night, and jumping into the cold, summer river water from the bridge that stretched out over it.

But when we punch into the first chorus, as well as with the remainder of the song that then follows, Keith slaps us right into the memories of the one who got away, which still always get triggered whenever he’s anywhere on any given street called Main:

“But anytime I'm on any street called Main

Girl, it's you and me like it never changed

Spilling two-beer secrets, dancing with some band

Drawing finger hearts on the back of my hand

All leanin' and laughin', like anything can happen

Never imagined it would last this long

But no matter where I am, girl, it's all the same

Anytime I'm on any street called Main”

The bridge ties these memories of her together as he faces the mirror and owns up to the fact that he’s creating his own misery when he asks - nearly shouting at himself - “Why do I do this to myself?” referencing how he always finds a Main Street knowing that it will remind him of her when he could choose to go down any other road, but consciously decides not to.

In some ways there’s a safety net around Keith Urban’s experimentation as this type of pop laden tempo has become synonymous with his more recent releases. But in other ways, we absolutely see him testing some new waters as he filters in some oddly timed structures and a lyrical approach that sees him talking out some of the words while singing through others.

Like with many of Urban’s songs, though there’s an ultra-memorable and very catchy, moody melody attached to this, it still may take a few listens before it will click with the listening audience, but once it does… it becomes a song that you can’t stop listening to!

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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