Keith Urban Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing CD

The fair-haired Aussie who came across the pond with guitar in hand to show Nashville how it's done, Keith Urban became a country music phenomenon in the early 2000s. Like his contemporary Brad Paisley, Urban combined songs with a broad-based appeal and fiery fretboard skills to gain a wide audience. LOVE, PAIN & THE WHOLE CRAZY THING finds Urban refining his approach ever further, to achieve the perfect marriage of pop, rock, and country.

Electronic-sounding beats, soaring string arrangements, and searing lead guitar mesh seamlessly with banjo, steel guitar, and mandolin throughout the album. The amalgamation of '70s/'80s widescreen pop-rock a la Elton John and Bryan Adams with contemporary country sounds surprisingly natural here. From the airborne "Shine" to the down-and-dirty "Raise the Barn" (with a guest turn from Brooks & Dunn's Ronnie Dunn), Urban never falters. Whether the reason lies chiefly in his guy-next-door persona, hook-heavy songcraft, or instrumental deftness, LOVE, PAIN has platinum written all over it.

Personnel: Keith Urban (vocals, guitar, E-bow, bouzouki, mandolin, piano, bass guitar, percussion); Ronnie Dunn (vocals); Tom Bukovac (guitar); Rami Jaffee (keyboards); Jimmie Lee Sloas (bass guitar); Chris McHugh (drums, programming).

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.Rolling Stone (p.124) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Imagine Daryl Hall with Nashville guitar skills and an Australian's fascination with Southern culture, and you have Keith Urban....He's accomplished in ballads, unafraid to scuff up his smoothness."
Entertainment Weekly (p.79) - "Urban has a flexible tenor voice, with just a hint of rasp in it; he excels at singing ballads..." -- Grade" B-