CD Review - Keith Urban "Get Closer"

         (Photo courtesy of www.amazon.com) 

First off, the CD only contains eight tracks.  Overall, the CD is the average Keith Urban CD.  If anyone has heard his last several CD's, this is very similar.  I am not sure if Dann Huff produced it again but, it has the same pop/country sound that Keith has been a part of since "Love, Pain, & The Whole Crazy Thing".  The theme throughout the entire CD is love.  There is happy love and sad love.  There were only two or three songs on the CD that showed off what Keith is known for and that is his guitar playing.  The break down goes like this:

"Put You In A Song" - This is a good choice for an opening track.  It's upbeat and good road trip type song.  It would be a good song to hear live.  It reminded me a bit of "Your My Better Half".  It is one of those happy love songs.

"You Gonna Fly" - I thought this track had a little feel of "Where The Blacktop Ends" only with kind of a low groove to it.  It is upbeat and has more of a country feel to it (you can hear a banjo in the background) then "Put You In A Song" did.  It also had a guitar solo in it.  The theme is just simple optimistic love. 

"All For You"  - A piano ballad and a love song.  It is kinda cheesy however, I am bitter and scorned about love so maybe it is just me. 

"Long Hot Summer" - An upbeat song that is yet another road trip type song.  It sounds more country than some of the other songs that you hear on country radio.  I kept thinking of Rascal Flatts while listening to the song.  It isn't a bad song (not great either) but it has a strong beat to it and would be another good song to perform live.  The lyrics are bit trite, basic, and simple however. 

"Without You" - This is a slow love song.  I am a bit confused (and maybe I am taking this out of context - and I hope I am).  There is a line in the song that baffles me.  The line is, "And up until you came along, no one ever heard my song, now it's climbing with a bullet".  I am assuming that Keith wrote the song and I am curious to know what motivated him to say that. 

"Georgia Rain" - This is another upbeat song that reminded me of "Long Hot Summer" as far as the theme of the song went.  It is another love song with simple lyrics.  This track really shines on Keith's guitar work, however.  It includes an epic solo at the end that Keith is famous for.  Think "Raining On Sunday" or "Stupid Boy" - the unedited non-radio CD version.   

"Right Back On You" - This is the rare broken hearted love song on the CD.  It is a story of a man pining for his woman on the side of the road in a (I'm assuming) broken down car.  He must have been driving the last car that I drove.  Anyway, it is a medium tempo song and includes more guitar work.  It kinda has a "Raining On Sunday" type feel to it in the music part but not so much in the lyrics. 

"Shut Out The Lights" - This is a curious song.  It is upbeat but not a happy sort of way.  It's a song about trying to make a relationship work when there are so many obstacles in our way.  The resolution in the song sounded like (to me) that instead of fighting, let's just turn out the lights and worry about this in the morning.  Funny, 'cause I have been told that the key to a successful relationship is never to go to bed angry or fighting...I guess whatever works. 

In conclusion, I can't say that I loved it or that I hated the CD.  It was just kind of middle of the road for me.  I would like to have seen more of an expansion on Keith's guitar work and maybe a golden jem of song that would blow me away (either muscially or lyrically) but, I didn't really here any of that.  Most retailers are pricing the CD around seven dollars (and Target has their own deluxe version) so if you want to shell out a few bucks for it, it could be worth it. 

~ Gabber Christina

Comments

[keli]

Well...I AM a huge KU fan and I am slghtly dissapointed.Slightly.
In my opinion, KU is THE best guitarist on the planet and this album did not step up in that way. He did not blow my mind.
The album is in no way DONE. Sounds like a love letter to his wife. I'm left wanting WAY more and I keep listening to it and am not feeling the love for me the fan? Wish he would've dug deeper and really got his songwriting abilities to shine through! I said the same thing to one of my buddies" the writing was cheezy-ish". Too poemy and not deep.Sorry Keith, truly! Just know that I'll buy whatever you put out and love you through it all. Can't wait for the next installment!

[Shannon]

Geez Ryan, take a chill pill. Not everyone is into the technical side of things. You can review a CD without having a clue who wrote what. Reviewing means telling people how you feel about the music and if someone trusts your opinion then they may or may not go and pick up a CD based on what you've said. When I do music reviews myself I never mention who wrote what or who produced what because I could care less. To me a review is about the music - period - and obviously Christina reviews music with the same thing in mind. Does the fact that Dan Huff produced the CD change her opinion of the CD? I don't think so.

This is one of the main reasons I don't like doing reviews on the site myself, because there's always gotta be someone in the cracker jack section who attacks you because you're more interested in how a song makes you feel then who wrote the darn thing.

[Ryan]

How can you "review" a CD, when, you don't know who produced it, and whether or not KU wrote one of the key tracks?

Dan Huff did produce with Keith.

"Without You" was NOT written by Keith.

Best KU album since Golden Road. Get to Target and get the additional 3 new tracks, including a cover of Santana's "Winning".

[joe]

Keith did NOT write "Without You". You can stop being confused.