Personnel: Keith Urban (electric guitar, slide guitar, piano, Fender Rhodes piano, background vocals); Dann Huff (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, background vocals); Tom Bukovac (electric guitar); Steve Nathan (piano, Hammond b-3 organ); Charles Judge (keyboards); Jimmie Lee Sloas (bass guitar); Chris McHugh (drums); Jerry Flowers, Perry Coleman (background vocals).
Released following a string of personal problems that landed the formerly clean-cut Australian cowboy on the pages of gossip magazines the world over, GREATEST HITS was a chance for Keith Urban to sweep the decks and start fresh. This 18-track anthology contains all Urban's hit singles and a pair of new songs, a full-band remake of the previously solo tune "Got It Right This Time (The Celebration)," and a swell banjo-powered cover of Steve Forbert's late-1970s soft-rock masterpiece, "Romeo's Tune."
Urban has long been one of the few contemporary Nashville country stars whose taste for old-fashioned rock seems genuine, as proven by many of the earlier hits found here. Highlights include the sly "Who Wouldn't Wanna Be Me" and the wistful "Where the Blacktop Ends." GREATEST HITS was also released in a special limited-edition version that includes a bonus DVD of live tracks and music videos.
Keith Urban had a rough go of it in late 2006, when the tour for his brilliant Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing was delayed fore health-related reasons. Urban has nonetheless been a road dog in 2007, and this greatest-hits package couldn't have come at a better time. Covering eight years, these are not merely album cuts, but in most cases the actual radio edits of hit singles -- album lengths are generally longer -- so these are the actual versions of tunes that made country radio and the video channels, so it doesn't replicate previous collections. From "I Told You So" and "Making Memories of Us" it goes right on through to the far more powerful version of "Days Go By" and "Where the Blacktop Ends." The 16 catalog tracks top what is the norm for compilations like this, which usually stop at ten or twelve cuts. But there's a bit more; a lot more actually. There are two new tracks that lead this baby off, and the first one's a doozie. "Romeo's Tune" was written by Steve Forbert who, back in the mid- and late '70s, was the next up-and-comer on the songwriting scene (and who appeared on an early Cyndi Lauper video), who has been compared to both Bob Dylan and John Prine, but at the time, his brand of easy, open rock was far more refreshing than that of either of those comparisons. The song is a great fit for Urban, whose voice has just enough graininess in it to recall the original, but it also rocks harder. Urban is faithful to the original but lets his guitar do plenty of talking in the mix. This should be released as a new single to country radio and hopefully there'll be a video coming to boot. The other bonus is "Got It Right This Time (The Celebration)," which was self-penned. It begins with a B-3 and a Fender Rhodes, a slippery drum loop, and one of those trademark, mid-tempo love ballad hooks that Urban can write all day long. Given his travails over the past few years, this sounds like a love song for his new wife, Nicole Kidman. That's conjecture, but given that it was written in 2006, it's a pretty good bet. When the guitars open up and the snare starts to crack, Urban's croon glides over this soulful, easy rocker and builds to a killer bridge where the electric six-strings, percussion, organ, and piano swell to the bursting point and it's all joy. Bottom line: it's one of the great romantic rockers of 2007. Equal parts Tom Petty, Don Henley, and Bob Seger, it's a country-pop song that will go down as one of his best. Clocking in at almost 76 minutes, this is a comp for the fans, and for the uninitiated as well. ~ Thom Jurek minimize