Keith Urban’s latest Graffiti U album landed at the top of the Billboard Country Albums chart (marking his fifth No. 1 album), and landed at No. 2 on the all-genre Billboard Top 200 chart.
“Just off a plane to a ‘screaming’ phone filled with texts and emails about Graffiti U and I still feel like I’m in the clouds!!” Urban says in a statement. “It’s amazing to know that these songs are connecting in the way that they are and I feel so blessed and thankful to everyone who is coming along on the ride with me. I can’t WAIT to get out on the road to bring these songs to life on the Graffiti U World Tour.”
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Graffiti U’s inclusion on both the country and the Billboard Top 200 means that Urban’s goal of not categorizing his latest set of tunes into one genre paid off.
“The listener is always going to decide what genre it fits into,” Urban tells Rolling Stone Country. “I’ve always made music that has felt not as country necessarily, that someone in Nashville may say, ‘Oh, this isn’t very country,’ but everybody else would say, ‘That’s totally country. What else is it?’ It’s all relative to where you are, what you’re immersed in, and how you define genres as a listener. My goal was to keep capturing my musical heart where it is right now. And it’s in motion. So this is musically where I’m at right now.”
Even the title, Graffiti U, became the Aussie’s way of trying to incorporate the listener into every part of the project.
“I hope that people can find their own personal connection to the stories, and how the songs make them feel,” says Urban. “Graffiti U is such personal expression, that I hope that the album makes someone feel inspired to be personally expressive in whatever they do in their own life. If the music does that, it’s a beautiful thing.”
The third single from Graffiti U, “Coming Home,” featuring Julia Michaels, is currently in the Top 15. Purchase Graffiti U here.
Urban will kick off his Graffiti U World Tour on June 15 in St. Louis, Mo., with Kelsea Ballerini serving as his opening act, and Lindsay Ell joining Urban for the Canadian leg of his tour. Dates and venue information can be found on his website.
Photo Credit: Instagram/keithurban
