On this day (April 18) in 2009, Keith Urban celebrated a major career milestone. His album Defying Gravity topped the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart, giving him his first No. 1 on that survey. Crossing over to the “pop” albums chart solidified his place as one of the most popular acts in country music.
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After a pair of Australia-only releases, Urban dropped his self-titled debut album in the United States in 1999. The album peaked at No. 17 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and No. 145 on the Billboard 200. He would continue to climb both charts with subsequent releases. His third album, Be Here, gave him his first No. 1 on the country chart and peaked at No. 3 on the all-genre survey, giving him his first top 10 on the survey. His next album, Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing brought saw the same peak positions. Then, he topped both charts with his 2009 album Defying Gravity.
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Released on March 31, 2009, Defying Gravity shot to the top of both charts. It climbed to No. 1 in less than a month and spent a total of 75 weeks on the Billboard 200 and 78 weeks on the country chart. To date, Urban has only topped the all-genre albums chart once more with the album Fuse in 2013.
Defying Gravity was nominated for Best Country Album at the Grammys and Album of the Year at the CMA Awards. However, Taylor Swift won both awards for Fearless.
Keith Urban Reflects on Defying Gravity
Keith Urban sat down with Billboard to talk about Defying Gravity ahead of its release in 2009. He told the publication that the album represented a “prolific period” in his life after the release of Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing.
“I felt a lot of clarity in making this record,” Urban said. “I was just ready to go in and make great music. It had been two years since I did Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing, and since that record, we toured so much, and I came into a phase where I was just writing a lot of music,” he explained.
Urban also talked about his recording process for the album. He revealed that he did some “preliminary recording” for Defying Gravity, but none of it was on the final album. “I just don’t like doing demos, I think. I’m not trying to recapture magic. I like to create a song in a much more organic process. I like to keep everything very spontaneous, and I think it’s a much stronger record because of that approach.”
Featured Image by Justin Renfroe/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
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