flow state

Keith Urban goes yacht rock? On his first-ever covers album, the answer is a big, unapologetic yes. The Australian country artist had no intention of releasing an album dedicated to the polished soft-rock genre—he’d simply bought a studio in Nashville and was eager to break it in with a fun, fast-paced project. Teaming up with producer Dann Huff, they recorded a couple of yacht-rock covers and were so pleased with the results that they decided to do a few more. Five months later they had a full album. A smooth, harmony-soaked antidote to the stresses of the modern world, Urban tackles faithful renditions of staples such as “Steal Away” (Robbie Dupree), “Baby Come Back” (Player), “Just the Two of Us” (Bill Withers and Grover Washington, Jr.), and “Summer Breeze” (Seals & Crofts). He ropes in John Mayer on Bread’s “Guitar Man” and Little Big Town on Walter Egan’s “Magnet and Steel,” and duets with The Doobie Brothers’ Michael McDonald on the album’s sole original, “We Go Back,” a light and breezy song about first love and lost chances.