Keith Urban doesn’t measure the success of his songs based on how well they do in the charts.
The 56-year-old Grammy winner gave an example of Taylor Swift’s song ‘Cruel Summer’, which she didn’t release as a single from her 2019 LP ‘Lover’, but quickly became a fan-favourite despite not climbing to the top of the charts.
After being included in her setlist for her ‘Eras Tour’ last year, it went viral on social media, prompting her record label to release it as a single in June 2023, and Keith says fans’ connections to the songs far outweighs chart positions.
Asked if he can tell if a song will be a hit, Keith – who released his latest album, ‘High’, this month – told GRAMMY.com: “I can’t even tell you how many years ago it was that I completely detached from what songs work, what songs connect, which ones don’t, or how they do it. And even more so now, the definition of success is so individual. That’s a good thing — that that definition now can have infinite meanings for an artist.
“The success of the song, if it only barely cracked the top 50, and yet you meet somebody at a concert who says it completely saved them and changed their life, you would deem that song an incredible success. Those definitions are changing constantly.”
He said of ‘Cruel Summer’: “It was on her Lover album, and it did nothing. But her fans really liked it. So about four years later, they released it as an official single. And then it was absolutely massive. It just hadn’t been discovered yet.”