<\/p>\n
Keith Urban<\/a><\/strong> is a celebrated country music<\/a> star with 13 CMA Awards. He recently spoke to the Associated Press<\/a> about why he went in a different direction for his new album.<\/p>\n The 2026 record \u201cFlow State\u201d includes 10 yacht rock covers and an original song with Michael McDonald<\/strong>. The genre swap is a surprise to many, including Urban. He didn\u2019t see it coming, sharing, \u201cI didn\u2019t either, no.\u201d<\/p>\n The 58-year-old was interested in creating a yacht rock album because of its ability to connect people.<\/p>\n \u201cOne theme, one feeling, one emotion that just lets us all exhale for a minute \u2014 and look up and see a blue sky \u2014 just for three minutes and 30 seconds, is so needed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Not knowing they were creating Urban\u2019s next album, the singer recorded two songs in one day with his band and producer Dann Huff<\/strong>. They knew they had something and kept going back to the studio.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought, well, maybe this will be an EP, something that\u2019s in between albums,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really took on a life of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s when \u201cFlow State\u201d was born.<\/p>\n The “Somebody Like You” singer wanted the songs he included on the record to be as meaningful now as when they were originally released.<\/p>\n \u201cThe music<\/a> was almost an antidote to the stresses of the times. And I think the reason it hits now is for the exact same reason it did back then, which is \u2014 there\u2019s just so much divisiveness,\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a difficult year for Urban. The country music star and actor Nicole Kidman<\/a> officially divorced in January after 19 years of marriage.<\/p>\n \u201cThe record\u2019s called \u2018Flow State\u2019 for a really good reason,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really was about just constant movement. And yeah, it was a challenging record to make at the same time, for something that kind of sounds so effortless. It was quite a juxtaposition at the time. But I\u2019m really grateful for the way that the record turned out and obviously I\u2019m very, very protective of my family and I\u2019ve remained that way the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFlow State\u201d will be available on digital platforms and CD June 12.<\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Jun 11, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Keith Urban is a celebrated country music star with 13 CMA Awards. He recently spoke to the Associated Press about why he went in a different direction for his new album. The 2026 record \u201cFlow State\u201d includes 10 yacht rock covers and an original song with Michael McDonald. The genre swap is a surprise to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2453985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[22846,387434,467428,310298,368933],"class_list":["post-2453984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-country-music","tag-dann-huff","tag-flow-state","tag-keith-urban","tag-michael-mcdonald"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Keith-Urbans-New-Album-Flow-State-Offers-Comfort-Amid-Personal.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2453984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2453986,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453984\/revisions\/2453986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2453985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2453984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2453984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2453984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}