- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Defying Gravity builds on the skill set that gave listeners "Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing" and takes it further, seamlessly combining hook-laden crafty songwriting with a pop sensibility in the modern country vernacular that blazes a new trail and underscores Duke Ellington's dictum that there are only two kinds of music: good and bad. This is a shining case in point for the former.
-
The album, co-produced by Urban and Dann Huff, has a smooth, lush sound that fits the material like a well-tailored suit.
-
Keith Urban plays it so safe on Defying Gravity, you'd think he got a musical lobotomy when he went to rehab.
-
Good thing Urban has a gift for making radio-baiting hooks and production feel enthusiastically fresh, whether he's cribbing an intro from the New Radicals' 'You Get What You Give' on 'Standing Right in Front of You,' borrowing Kenny Chesney's beachcomber vibe for 'Why's It Feel So Long,' or ripping himself off left and right with just about everything else.
-
So much of the album feels so deliberately tasteful and conservative. Defying Gravity barely gets off the ground.
-
Urban hardly rests on his laurels on Defying Gravity, trying some interesting new directions.
-
Keith Urban's music and the themes that fill it rarely stray from predictable territory, but his pop-friendly country constructs are fueled by outsized charisma that keep them consistently above the pack.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 16 out of 19
-
Mixed: 1 out of 19
-
Negative: 2 out of 19
-
barrygMay 11, 2009
-
LindaDMay 8, 2009
-
RonLApr 12, 2009