Keith Urban‘s new album, HIGH, will be out soon. The country music superstar announces the 12-track project will be released on September 20, which includes “Wildside,” out now.
“I’ve always been drawn toward the subject of living in the moment, because it’s all there is, and it’s hard to do,” Urban said of the record. “And these days with so much ‘content’ flying at us, it can feel like drinking from a fire hose.”
Although sober, Urban was drawn to what the word “high” means, both for himself and others.
“What makes you ‘high’ can mean whatever you want it to mean,” Urban explained. “It might be physical, spiritual, herbal, meditative, chemical or musical, but it’s definitely a place of utopia.”
“For me it’s my family, my friends, and this rollercoaster musical journey I’m on,” he continued. “Playing guitar, writing songs and the place where I always feel high – playing live. Every night I get a chance to bring an energy and a release to people.”
HIGH comes almost exactly four years since The Speed of Now came out in September of 2020, a span Urban mentions when announcing the new project on social media. Urban initially finished another record, which he then decided not to release after it was completed.
“This album is the result of a prior record I started in 2022,” Urban said on social media. “It’s 40 minutes top to bottom, and is completely expressive, true, honest and is so much more of what I actually wanted to say when making that scrapped record. I hope these songs bring you joy, levity, some new understanding, energy, and escape!”
HIGH. September 20.
This album is the result of a prior record I started in 2022. It’s 40 minutes top to bottom, and is completely expressive, true, honest and is so much more of what I actually wanted to say when making that scrapped record. I hope these songs bring you joy,… pic.twitter.com/gQPLX7gDAd
— Keith Urban (@KeithUrban) June 28, 2024
Urban teased the new set of tunes in a video he shared on social media, showing him hitting the number four in an elevator, which indicated the fourth track, “Wildside.” HIGH also includes his current Top 25 single, “Messed Up As Me,” along with “Straight Line,” and his “Go Home W U” duet with Lainey Wilson.
The 56-year-old has been very open about his disappointment when he finished the original album, only to realize it wasn’t the record he wanted to make.
“I started working on an album at the beginning of last year,” Urban told the Associated Press last fall. “I spent the better part of the year in and out of the studio while I was touring, only to get to probably February of this year and sort of look at it all and feel like it really wasn’t a group of songs that was speaking to me. There was another album in me, I guess.
“It was a weird feeling,” he added. “I actually never had that happen with a record, where I bailed on two-thirds of it. I probably kept about three out of those 12 or so songs.”
Urban was understandably devastated to realize, while playing his record for those within his camp, that he spent so much time working on a project that would never be released.
“I hate saying this, but it’s so true: I left that meeting, went out, sat in my car, and I bawled my eyes out,” Urban admitted on Audacy‘s Rob + Holly. “I literally did, I know that sounds pathetic to a lot of people, but after putting in that much work and knowing what was ahead of me workwise, which I didn’t want to do, it just gutted me. It was like being kicked in the stomach. And sure enough, it took a year. It took a year to finish out the record.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC
Urban later acknowledged that most people would have kept the finished project, but since he didn’t love all of it, he felt he had no choice but to scrap the entire record.
“The previous album, I felt like I was 98 percent in when I was listening to it,” Urban said (via Country 103.7). “And that may sound like that’s good enough, but not for me. I have to believe in them from top to bottom. There can’t be one that I’m like, ‘Not sure about that one.’”
The father of two also previously hinted that the new album was succinct and concise, saying what he wanted to say in a much shorter time than some of his previous records.
“The album got shorter, forty minutes, top to bottom,” Urban revealed. “The sequencing was important, as to how the album starts and how it ends. The stories, the tempos, the energies, and everything that happened in between are like an 11-song set list for me. It all made perfect sense to me.”
Urban was just announced as one of the inductees, along with George Strait, Green Day, Depeche Mode, American Idol‘s Fantasia Barrino, the B-52s, the Isley Brothers, Busta Rhymes and Prince into the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He will head to Las Vegas in October for his HIGH in Vegas residency.
See a track list for HIGH below. Pre-order/pre-save the project here. Find all of Urban’s music and upcoming shows at KeithUrban.com.
HIGH Track List:
1. “BLUE SKY”
2. STRAIGHT LINE
3. MESSED UP AS ME
4. WILDSIDE
5. GO HOME W U (WITH LAINEY WILSON)
6. CHUCK TAYLORS
7. DAYTONA
8. LOVE IS HARD
9. HEART LIKE A HOMETOWN
10. LAUGHIN’ ALL THE WAY TO THE DRANK
11. DODGE IN A SILVERADO
12. BREAK THE CHAIN
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the CMA