Keith Urban Raves About Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’: ‘It’s Like Some Kind of Acid Trip’

Keith Urban‘s a major Swiftie. 

The country superstar and Taylor Swift go way back — they’ve been friends since she opened for him back in 2009 — but even he is blown away by her new album, Midnights, which he has listened to multiple times since it dropped Oct. 28 and deems it “extraordinary…This is among Taylor’s finest. This and 1989. Absolutely stunning, stunning pieces of work,” he says. 

“The lyricism, the fresh meters as far as some of the cadences she sang,” he raves to Billboard about the set, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with the biggest week for an album in seven years. “Jack Antonoff’s production is just exquisite for a guy like me, who is obsessive over fine, fine details. If you put headphones on, as an audiophile like I am, I can swim in that album with no vocals on it. It’s just so beautifully put together like some kind of acid trip, Jackson Pollock painting. It’s just beautiful. Absolutely love it, top to bottom. I think it’s one of her best albums ever.”

In an age when individual songs trump full albums, Midnights — which Swift described as “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life” — is “the perfect example of why you make an album,” Urban says.

Swift and Urban have collaborated a number of times over the years. In 2012, Urban played guitar on Tim McGraw and Swift’s duet “Highway Don’t Care.” Then Urban appeared with Swift last year on gorgeous versions of “That’s When” and “We Were Happy” from the Taylor’s Version re-recording of her 2008 Fearless album. (They are two of the six additional songs on 2021’s Fearless [Taylor’s Version] that were written for the original but didn’t make it and were recorded fresh for the remake.)

“His music has inspired me endlessly,” Swift tweeted when she announced that he was on both songs. In 2015, she brought Urban onstage to perform his hits “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16” and “Somebody Like You” during her 1989 World Tour.

Urban reached out to Swift and Antonoff to tell them how much he loved their new work. He’s heard back from Antonoff but not Swift yet. “I think she’s a little busy,” he says with a laugh.