Ripcord is arguably Keith Urban’s best album to date. It certainly is one of the best-selling country albums of 2016, according to Billboard and Nielson Music, selling 412,000 copies. There is no arguing that.
And the fourth single from the album, “Blue Ain’t Your Color,” has simultaneously occupied the top spot on four Billboard charts: Country Airplay, Hot Country Songs (airplay/sales/streaming), Country Digital Song Sales and Country Streaming Songs. It’s no wonder that Keith wanted to share a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Ripcord.
“I wanted the album to feel a certain way and make me feel a certain way when I heard it,” Keith reveals in the video. “I want to be able to feel like I can access the song—like it’s right here, right in front of me, bristling like it’s alive.
“This whole album has been ideas and imaginations come through that I’ve just acted on,” adds Keith. “I didn’t think of any sense of time, we’re going to make music and experiment and at some point it will start to form but I didn’t have any feeling like it needed to be done at a certain point. That in itself was really liberating. It’s a great way to make music.”
Keith also touches on how the album came to be called Ripcord.
“‘Ripcord’ was a great, strong, energized word and then the more I thought about it, it felt like it fit the energy of the record. And then I sort of also thought what a ‘ripcord’ is, which is that thing that you grab to save your life. That’s what music is for me.”