Keith Urban Gives New Album Update: 'I've Recorded a Lot'

When Keith Urban released his No.1, platinum-selling Ripcord album in 2016, it would have seemed logical that the New Zealand-born star would have taken some time off, maybe even given his creativity a bit of a break.

Instead, Urban got right back to work. The singer wrapped up his Ripcord Tour at the end of last year and immediately began working on a new set of tunes, with many of the songs already recorded.

"I'm writing, I'm recording,"Urban tells Nash Country Daily. "I've recorded a lot. I don't know which ones are going to be on the album yet. The songs tend to tell me that. They did with Ripcord. I recorded maybe 25 songs for Ripcord and the ones that spoke to me were the ones that made the record. I have a particular vision in mind. I wish there was an audible version of 'vision.' People always say they can 'visualize' an album, I say I can 'audio-lize' it. I can hear it before it's finished. So what I try to do is just bring it to life the way I already hear it in my head."

Urban might try to bring his thoughts to music, but he says it's the songs instead of him that have the final say.

"But what I also do is stay extremely open to it moving into some other direction," he adds. "It's a real balancing act between, is it wandering off this cliff because it's not being guided by me, or is that where it's supposed to go in that direction? For me, the most valuable thing in making records is time — time to live with the decision, time to live with a song, and to keep feeling good about it before it goes out. Because once it goes out, that's it. There's no pulling it back after that."

The first single from the new record, "Female," is in the Top 15. Download the song on iTunes.