Keith Urban Playfully Teases New Song — His First in Two Years! [Listen]
Keith Urban is back on his music game, and it sounds like he's sticking to his roots.
A social media video shared to his channels on Tuesday (Jan. 30) shows the country crooner in the studio, seated at the soundboard while an unreleased new song called "Straight Line" plays in the background.
He released a second video providing more details about the song.
The track sounds like a classic Urban hit, with a bouncy guitar line, driving drums and perhaps a hint of a banjo. In it, the "Wild Hearts" hitmaker sings about a man and his lover driving off into the sunset without a care in the world, as long as they have each other.
Urban says the song will be available on Friday (Feb. 2), but did not provide further details about any subsequent songs, projects or tours he may have coming down the pike. He did, however, talk about a new studio album coming in 2024 back in August.
"Most of the album, I’d say, is finished," he told the Associated Press at the time. "I think I’ve got one basically one more song to record from the ground up and then a whole bunch of others that just need to be mixed."
"I’m in the final stages of landing the plane right now. An album will come out sometime next year," he added.
Urban's last album, The Speed of Now Part 1, was released in 2020. It's the longest break he's ever taken between albums, which may have been for a reason. After working on an album in 2022, he scrapped the project because he didn't feel that any of the songs were speaking to him.
"There was another album in me, I guess. It was a weird feeling. I actually never had that happen with a record, where I bailed on two thirds of it," he explains. "I probably kept about three out of those 12 or so songs."
Further details about Urban's musical plans for this year have yet to be revealed, but it's likely he'll keep to tradition, releasing a new album and touring this summer.
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Gallery Credit: Carena Liptak