GOING BACK TO WHERE IT ALL STARTED FOR KEITH URBAN

Long before New Zealand born KEITH URBAN was a high profile judge on AMERICAN IDOL, long before he hooked up and married australian movie actress NICOLE KIDMAN, long before he formed the short lived american based country group THE RANCH, and long before he become a household name across america and australia and was selling bucketloads of albums, he released a self titled pop and contemporary AOR flavoured country-ish debut album way back in 1991. Originally it was only released in Australia, reaching a very underwhelming No. 98 on the australian pop chart, but was re-released worldwide by EMI in 2005 to much greater commercial success, obviously because by then Urban had become an international superstar and sex symbol who was selling millions of any album with his name on it. Although the songs off the album tend to sound a bit too similiar to the one before and after it, it's still an accomplished effort, particularly in terms of its production quality. The stand out song is the one single released off it, called ONLY YOU, which was co-written by TODD HUNTER, one half of the famous Hunter brothers from 70`s australasian mega-pop group DRAGON. Urban also made a great job of the PAUL KELLY penned BLUE STRANGER, one of the more earthy and straight out country songs in the collection. The rest of album is made up mainly of songs co-written by Urban and MARK HOLDEN, who become more famous as a judge on AUSTRALIAN IDOL than he ever was for his sugary pop as a performer in the 70`s. KEITH URBAN self titled 1991 is not a masterpiece but is very pleasant to listen to, perfect background music for a dinner party. You would have to wonder why Urban or his record company would bother to do so, but embedding of the video above has been disabled by request, but you can still listen to ONLY YOU by clicking on the 'watch it on You Tube' link in the You Tube window.