Troll
01-13-2006, 1:33am
Urban shakes country music
Singer Keith Urban doesn’t ponder what he does in terms of image.
Keith Urban would rather not be the new face of country music.
“I never think of what I do in terms of image,” the 38-year-old new country star says. “The country music genre’s too diverse to focus on just one artist. That’s when the problems start, when people narrow the field down to one performer. For me, it seems to be the right time for this (success) to happen.
I’ve been building this for a long time. It all seems very gradual to me, though to everyone else it seems to have happened overnight.”
If radio industry scuttlebutt pans out, we may be seeing and hearing a lot more of Urban around these parts in the very near future.
Whether he likes it or not, this New Zealand-born Urban is the new phenomenon on which the American country music industry is hitching its crossover aspirations.
“He’s a phenomenal entertainer, a wicked guitar player and very personable,” says Fraser Hill, head of artists and repertoire, special projects division, at EMI Capitol Virgin Music Canada, which handles Urban’s product in this country. “He’s genuine and he delivers. There has been a long, slow, percolated feel for him. Everyone in the business seems to be behind him.”
Indeed, no artist has rocketed out of Nashville with more force since Garth Brooks and Canada’s Shania Twain more than a decade ago, nor so perfectly captured the public imagination than this pub rocker with the lanky blond hair, hangdog expression and rugged charm.
Urban dominates the genre, spawning — as Brooks did in the 1990s — a new wave of replicants. And if country radio needs a mascot to make a strong entrée into the Toronto market, Urban may be the man.
http://www.metronews.ca/entertainment_news_detail.asp?id=13044
Singer Keith Urban doesn’t ponder what he does in terms of image.
Keith Urban would rather not be the new face of country music.
“I never think of what I do in terms of image,” the 38-year-old new country star says. “The country music genre’s too diverse to focus on just one artist. That’s when the problems start, when people narrow the field down to one performer. For me, it seems to be the right time for this (success) to happen.
I’ve been building this for a long time. It all seems very gradual to me, though to everyone else it seems to have happened overnight.”
If radio industry scuttlebutt pans out, we may be seeing and hearing a lot more of Urban around these parts in the very near future.
Whether he likes it or not, this New Zealand-born Urban is the new phenomenon on which the American country music industry is hitching its crossover aspirations.
“He’s a phenomenal entertainer, a wicked guitar player and very personable,” says Fraser Hill, head of artists and repertoire, special projects division, at EMI Capitol Virgin Music Canada, which handles Urban’s product in this country. “He’s genuine and he delivers. There has been a long, slow, percolated feel for him. Everyone in the business seems to be behind him.”
Indeed, no artist has rocketed out of Nashville with more force since Garth Brooks and Canada’s Shania Twain more than a decade ago, nor so perfectly captured the public imagination than this pub rocker with the lanky blond hair, hangdog expression and rugged charm.
Urban dominates the genre, spawning — as Brooks did in the 1990s — a new wave of replicants. And if country radio needs a mascot to make a strong entrée into the Toronto market, Urban may be the man.
http://www.metronews.ca/entertainment_news_detail.asp?id=13044