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Keith Urban - Be Here
CD DetailsArtist: Keith Urban Brand: Baker Drivetrain Edition: Music CD CD Release Date: 2004-09-21 Model: 00724357748926 Music Label: Capitol Soundtracks: - Days Go By
- Better Life
- Making Memories Of Us
- God's Been Good To Me
- The Hard Way
- You're My Better Half
- I Could Fly
- Tonight I Wanna Cry
- She's Gotta Be
- Nobody Drinks Alone
- Country Comfort
- Live To Love Another Day
- These Are The Days
Music reviews of Be HereMusic Review: Urban takes listeners down the next mile of the beautiful Golden Road Rating: 5 Stars
Golden Road is a wonderful body of work, destined to become an essential part of one's contemporary country collection. Having said that, Be Here is Urban's best work to date.
Easily transitioning between country, rock, pop and tinges of bluegrass, Urban busts them all wide open and creates his own signature style that distinguishes him from the rest of the pack and displays his deep love of music. His musicianship is other worldly: his blistering guitar work speaks his emotions when he can't quite find the words, yet he also plays mandolin, ganjo (six strings), piano, and even drums! Don't put him in a box. This is truly, as oxymoronic as it sounds, "Urban Country".
Hop on the back of his motorbike and be ready to travel another full circuit of emotions as he lifts you up and puts you on the summit of Mt. Everest, then brings you straight down to the barren, desolate, sunburned bush and back again.
Urban is unafraid to admit that some of his work is purely commercial and that he loves hearing himself on the radio, but that commercialism is one of the best parts of his work, because the albums he creates contain infectious, radio-friendly singles and deeply felt, haunting album tracks.
All the tracks are strong on their own, and it would be too much to list them all here, especially since three of the first four singles have been multi-week #1s, but there are some that are worth highlighting. "Better Life" is perhaps my favorite of all the singles, with it's lively, bouncy, foot stomping melody and the climactic ending solo that offers the listener the album's first step of emotional ascent. Catch the video to see Urban play it in all it's backbending, hair swishing, teeth gritting glory. "Making Memories" is the most eloquent Valentine ever written, beautifully preserved in an acoustic melody, rather than a shoebox. "God's Been Good To Me" is a joyous, ganjo laden retrospective on his incredible life and career that he wrote in a hotel room in Nashville while awaiting the completion of his new house.
"This golden road's been long
And sometimes I've lost my way
I've been down some darkened detours
Leanin' heavy on my faith
But where the devil had me chained
Lord, Your love done set me free
Hallelujah! God's been good to me!"
Other standouts include: "Tonight I Wanna Cry", a heartbreaker with a piano based production so stripped of extraneous noises and instrumentation that the listener feels like they've snuck into the vocal booth to hear it being put down before the final mixing; "She's Gotta Be", a dark, slightly angry post-breakup lament with a heart pounding, spine tingling solo that could be classified with heavy metal work like that of Eddie Van Halen; "Country Comfort", the most outwardly country piece in Urban's entire body of solo work, with wonderful images of Southern pines and country roads; the downright funky "Live To Love Another Day", which Urban has proclaimed "a ray of hope" for single Urbanites, and the daddy of them all, "Nobody Drinks Alone", a haunting reminder of all the baggage that can come with taking a swig, with a lovely crescendoing solo that draws the listener into it until all that's left is your inner thoughts.
Get yourself a copy RIGHT NOW, drown yourself in musical bliss, and when he and the band come to your town, get a ticket and go! You will never be the same!
More Be Here free music reviews: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Description of Be Here Keith Urban Photos More from Keith Urban  Golden Road |  In the Ranch |  Keith Urban | Australian-born Keith Urban, hot off the double-platinum success of his 2002 sophomore album, Golden Road, is kind of like contemporary country's Tom Cruise. The kid is just so unjustly talented, likeable, and good-looking that it's hard not to hate him. But such jealousy is apt to melt into begrudging admiration and affection after a quick listen to this third album. True, some of Urban's self-penned adolescent love laments and bright-eyed paeans to life in the slow lane do sound a bit callow and derivative. But, with his resolute tenor and his dazzling lead guitar work, he breathes real pain and passion into moving confessionals like Matraca Berg's "Nobody Drinks Alone," "Tonight I Wanna Cry" (a heart-rending ballad co-written by Urban), and a gentle Rodney Crowell gem called "Memories of Us." --Bob Allen
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