A Time to Change?

There appears to be a bit of a metamorphosis going on with Keith Urban right now. It is subtle, but a change is happening. It is becoming more and more obvious that Keith Urban is becoming an Adult Contemporary artist. Keith, no longer Country? That can't be right, can it? It became crystal clear the night of the CMA's, that Country music has moved on from the scruffy barefoot poet. What is a middle aged crooner supposed to do?

Keith Urban was never really a country artist. He never fit in. In most reviews of his shows you will see the words ‘not a typical country concert’. It’s not. They are rock shows, not unlike those put on by Journey, Styx or Billy Squier in the 1980's. They are high energy shows built on radio rock. Today that kind of Rock is what Country music is made up of, however, Country has had a habit over the years of drifting back towards traditional, roots Americana music. This is what is happening along with the bubblegumming of the genre with people like Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley.

Paisley, who has the chops and the credentials to be a traditional performer, chooses to include a number of hokey, simple, funny songs that deride his true talent. Keith has never been in the same league as a George Strait or Reba who can keep contemporary but never lose their connection to the roots of the music. Kenny Chesney is taking some time off at a good time. He knows what has been normal for the last few years is no longer. Garth Brooks is going the Vegas route just as Cher, Sir Elton and Mr. Manilow did. He knows he has the fans that will go to see him. This leaves Keith Urban.

You will start seeing this change very soon. Til Summer Comes Around has just been released as the new single. This moody haunting song of loss and obsession is not a country song. Of course, Making Memories of Us, Tonight I Wanna Cry and You'll Think of Me aren't either. With Summer, Keith is turning away from Country and what it is becoming. He tried to conform; Sweet Thing and Kiss a Girl are both songs that can fit in the bubblegum country that is on the charts, but Keith is much more talented than those songs. His fans know that. He knows that. It is time to make a change that will put him in the future. The video for Summer was filmed recently. The pictures that were released, and this is a first that the gossip sites got full layout pictures from an Urban video shoot, show ‘Keith Urban – Crooner’. He is playing his guitar, but he is also walking along the beach, crying in the mist, doing something that he hasn't for a very long time - acting. There is no band with him; he looks good, too. The video wasn't shot by a director known for doing Country videos, Noble Jones. This director is known for working with non-Country acts and from seeing the shots of Keith on set this is going to be a great video and will move him beyond country.

So why make the move? Keith is of the age that moving into a new genre with his established fan base will be fairly easy. This move means he can still tour the arenas but also the clubs and cabarets. As his wife said recently, Keith is very ambitious. He always has been. Working with new writers like Timbaland and John Mayer and recording a new CD very soon are all signs that he is moving away from the country rock into the introspective singer songwriter arena. We will see if he is going to do as his friend and former tour mate, Faith Hill, has done and drop Borman Entertainment as management. We will see if he chooses a new record company, as rumors of his parting with Capitol Nashville get louder and louder, but we can see the changes that are starting; and for this long term Keith Urban fan this will be a good thing.

Just a note to Keith & Nicole...

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Urban,

Please quit using your daughter as a prop to take the attention off whatever is wrong in your private/public lives. We understand Keith, that the outcome of the CMA's were not what you expected and now you are on to the next part of the year, which is really a wind down of the tour and this CD. Nicole, we are hearing that if there is a weak part in Nine, it is your replacement performance for Catherine Zeta-Jones. And you have had some questionable incidents in public lately. However, is that really cause for both of you to take your little girl out in public as much as you did recently? No. She doesn’t appear to like the attention. Are the paps scaring her? Let her live her life in private, please. Both of you have said you want her privacy, yet you have no regard for it. You are fully capable of staying hidden when you choose to do so. She is not Suri. You don’t have to prove anything with her. Keith, if you are going to talk about her, could you at least get the script straight? She’s been to Oz already.

Now it’s being spouted that she was baptized on your little vacay to Italy. How convenient; just in time to promote Nine. Did you fly all the grandparents and nieces and nephews in for the ceremony? Usually Catholic baptisms are performed in the family’s church, with necessary preparations completed by the Godparents. How nice that your superstardom allows you the freedom to disregard “your” Church’s teachings and protocols.

Your daughter has done nothing to deserve being shilled for your careers.

Happy Holidays!

Urban Myths Weekend News Recap

It was a busy weekend for the Kidman & Urban Clan:

We were treated to pics of Keith alone on the beach making his new video for Til Summer Comes Around.

Keith performs another free acoustic show for Verizon in Pasadena, CA. Word is that he was half an hour late.

Kidman presents an award at the CNN Heroes show to be broadcast on Thanksgiving. No red carpet before the show, no Keith in sight.

AMA Rehearsal – Keith with 3/5 of his band.

AMA Red Carpet – The usual forehead touching shots of the loved-up couple. Kidman holding her ass. Kidman holding her belly, pretending she has a secret for the paps.

AMA Show – Keith wins his first AMA Award. He does thank the fans (it is a fan-voted award, after all). Says the award is for his Baby Girl – his 42-year old wife – oh, and Sunday. Kidman was in the audience long enough to be shown blowing Keith a kiss at the appropriate moment.

AMA Backstage – The following was in the LA Times:

After winning the country male artist prize, Keith Urban had only one thing on his mind: some downtime with his family -- wife Nicole Kidman and the couple's young daughter, Sunday. "This is the first time we'll be able to take her to Australia," Urban said.

Urban said he remains grateful for his success: "I just love playing music. I've come from a place where I've played in front of three people to a place where I play in front of thousands."

American Music Awards... another Reward for Keith?

Keith is nominated for an AMA... and is performing. Well just look who is presenting an award that night... Did she snag a performance slot for the dutiful hubby? He has been such a good boy lately, non?

Kidman Popping Up at American Music Awards

Today 3:00 PM PST by Marc Malkin

Nicole Kidman is coming to the American Music Awards.

I can exclusively tell you that the Oscar-winner will be a presenter at the show on Sunday—but not for hubby Keith Urban...

Ms. Kidman will join Kate Hudson to introduce the Black Eyed Peas.

Why?

Well, Kidman, Hudson and Fergie are three of the mega-stars we'll be seeing next month in the musical movie Nine.

Kidman joins previously announced presenters Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Kristen Bell and Colbie Caillat.

The awards broadcast live from downtown L.A. on Sunday on ABC.

Another Example of Kidman's Lies...

From Oprah.com:

Air date: November 18, 2009:

9 Questions with the Women of Nine:

Q. What is your favorite meal?

Nicole: I think probably pasta, or when we were in Italy this summer, we had homemade pizzas straight out of the pizza oven. I had a pizza which was ricotta cheese and strawberries, which was amazing.It was just something that has to be experienced. We all thought, "No, we don't want the strawberry pizza." They brought it anyway, and we gobbled it down.

May 2006:

LeAnn Rimes discovered superstar neighbour Nicole Kidman is allergic to strawberries when she invited the actress to breakfast and laid on a spread of fresh fruit. The singer and her husband Dean Shermet live on the same Nashville, Tennessee, street as Kidman and her fiance Keith Urba, and the foursome have formed a firm friendship. Rimes explains, "Keith lives two doors down from us. We went out for dinner one night and Dean was bragging about how he makes the best breakfasts, so we invited them round the next morning. "Dean spent ages digging out these huge grapefruits and stuffing them with strawberries. When they turned up, Nicole said, 'Oh, 'I'm allergic to strawberries.' "We ended up having omelettes."

July 2008 Vogue Interview:

Our surroundings, most assuredly, are not. We're at the top-floor bar of the Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan's Battery Park and enjoying the healthiest of refreshments, bottled water and a lavish fruit plate from which Kidman—a devotee of red meat—takes everything but the strawberries (she's allergic). It's a clear spring day, and down below us is the harbor that Kidman's husband, country-music star Keith Urban, says looks a bit like her native Sydney.

Thanks to the Huffington Post ... Third Lip or Not?

You take a look then vote in our poll to the right...

1983:

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2009:

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I think we can have a little fun with this... the Urbans enjoying a night out on the town...

Behind Nicole Kidman's Perfectly Airbrushed Facade

by: abc

For far too long now Nicole has fortuitously flown on the wings of allure and enigma – of the fine kind ... and despite saying (in GQ) that ‘if you know what is going on inside somebody’s head all the time, that’s not a good place’, she would regularly and timeously (in terms of a movie launch) toss out little bits of intriguing personal info to the piranha’s, (being everyone other than herself, that is), but woe betide those who would digest those tidbits and attempt to reach some form of (realistic) concluding legit opinion of their own about this *STAR* who is constantly, and now, more than annoyingly, being shoved in the public’s face, way past her use-by-date and relevance, especially given the ultimately poor quality of the ‘product’ itself. Those of us who have constantly scratched away at the clearly manufactured veneer and seeming (outspoken) inconsistencies, (call it hypocrisy, if you will), are always denigrated from the dizzy depths of her diminishing fan base, (irritatingly accusing all and sundry “haters” of “taking her words out of context” and being ordered to “get a life!”), but, finally she agrees with us on a major point; in her own words: ‘I became very famous because I was the wife of somebody,’ ... ‘the huge profile that brought to me’ ... admitting that (she) “got married (because) I wanted to work with people who intrigued me.” (Good career move then, as we have always maintained, given that we would “only find out bad things” if we were to read the journals of that married life, she tells us.) Tom is going to love that quote! She should be investing in lip-zipper not lip-filler.

In 2008, the walls seemed to crash in upon this “Queen of the Screen and Sheen” ... suddenly there was worldwide cross-cultural questioning of (virtually all aspects of) this supposed “best actress of her generation” ... and having been a runner all her life, she never ran as fast as she did then, and now even more so, from this growing swell of disillusionment of her *star power*, and, in fact, integrity, being adjudged over-rated, overpaid, irritating and increasingly ‘plastic’ and dull, things I had been feeling for quite some time. Her fans (mostly congregated at NKU) tore their hair out trying to figure out why ‘Nicole-bashing’ had become so prevalent and put it down to the critics (professional and otherwise) being people who had ‘no lives of their own’ and were clearly hateful and ‘jealous’ of their ‘cute’ saintly heroine, despite it being common knowledge that frizzy-ginger-haired, freckled and flat-chested used to be the least desired physical attributes - NK first came to wide public attention when she appeared on a mag cover in Oz with just the very features NOT normally deemed cover-worthy; in the days when mag covers mostly featured ‘perfect’ models, usually bronzed and blonde, not actresses, let alone ‘quirky’ awkward ones. Yet, even she herself has since spent a fortune erasing every trace of frizz, freckle and ginger ... and upping the curves – on both chin and chest; slowly turning herself into a generic barbie caricature. Jealous? Not of what she has become.

Anyhow, she seemed to ride out the storm and suddenly this year had a golden opportunity when there was a surprising backlash at ‘Nicole-bashing’ ... being described as “so 2008” ... even though even I began to give her some slack, there was still no ultimate proof that she was not the barbie bimbo pretending to be altruistic and earthy that many of us were suspecting. Until recently. Until the GQ shoot and interview. Obviously this was created before the testifying at Congress. And when the questioning there turned to Hollywood’s role in endangering women in society, she started to back-track. Too late, the GQ stuff was already in the mill and I would love to credit her with enough intelligence to have recognized the incredible hypocrisy (or double standard) that would become self-evident. Most alarmingly: her saying that (her present marriage is) “incredibly dangerous” ... help; a woman is in danger ... of what? violence? being abandoned? what “danger”? And then to show more flesh in public than is considered classy, (the adjective most used to describe her – in the past), which will only lead men to think about her while they are making love to their own women, or their hands, which ultimately amounts to mental rape ... of the saint herself. What was she thinking? (What would her husband feel?) I think, given the film Nine, and the fact that she is low down on the call sheet and voting polls, she is futilely competing with Fergie, Hudson and Cruz, who all have this GQ look in that film. In my opinion, Nicole miscalculated radically, and couldn’t help wanting it to be all about her as usual; she was supposed to be portraying (in Nine) an iconic 60’s movie *star* (muse) ... she had the perfect opportunity to again create an iconic Monroe or Bardot type image which she could pull off; though, being a sex-kittenish roleplay, is still spiritually inconsistent with her coy black-jacketed ‘female empowering’ ambassadorial role at UNIFEM; however, still better than “give me risk, danger, darkness” and “kinky fetish sex". UNIFEM must be cringing. For some reason, she is really trying to be (VERY) SEXY. She doesn’t know that you either are or you are not and trying to be that only ever looks desperate and is only ever a turn-off generally, but especially in her case – and she had such a good thing going, for so long. Silly girl. She is SUCH a wannabe/wannahave (everything). She doesn’t seem to be able to draw the line at ‘enough already’; slowly busting the genuine allure and mystique that had working to her advantage.

Nicole has become the poster girl for the public’s growing disenchantment with the media’s obsession with portraying impossible beauty ideals and eternal youth – turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse: on the one hand to make more money for the publishing houses and studios and on the other turning many millions of girls into disempowered sex objects or (lifetime) eating disorder victims – eternally dissatisfied with God’s gift to themselves – THERE’S the ‘dark’, the ‘risk’ and the real ‘danger’.

When Mrs. Urban says she has “explored monogamy”, does that mean she has returned to or also explored the opposite? I wonder how Keith feels that his wife publicly claims she wants to “honour” her union to Cruise by not revealing ANYTHING about it, but then bleats about the raw intimacy of her marriage to him; negatively, busting the carefully honed image of the cosy homeliness of life on the farm in the countryside; which of course, the “no-life haters” have not bought entirely. Quite obviously the fetish stuff was with Kravitz or during the filming of EWS, but she leaves an indelible image in the mind’s eye of her being that way now; given her current attire on the GQ cover. I think her brain must be made of rubber.

For me, however, the most hideous, hypocritical and dishonest of her comments is: ‘I’d just given birth, so I was like “OK, I’m [still] a woman – I want to do this film (Nine), “I do have a life other than simply feeding this baby” and “I think when you give birth you get itchy to get back to work and you want to feel life still goes on.” She had previously stated that after she gave birth she absolutely did not want to work again but was ‘lured back’ by the ‘irresistible’ film Nine. Is having a child not “life” itself? But the “life that still goes on” is what, making films? Making make-believe, not reality? Is not ‘feeding’ a baby life itself? And is life with a baby not more than “simply feeding” it? “This baby”, not ‘my’ or ‘our’ baby. Of course, we knew she didn’t change diapers, or breast feed, or do any other tiresome child-rearing stuff, like even carrying the child in the first place (a certainly crazy rumour that I certainly can’t quite shift out of my own mind!) There is not a single picture of NK and her child that shows they are truly bonded; clearly she was handed bottles of feed to attempt that clearly impossible task; to her simply a tedious interruption to her actual “life”.

In the fascinating and funny book “Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over The World And Why We Need An Exit Strategy" (Random House), Marina Hyde discusses the phenomenon of celebrity humanitarianism and writes “of course, in the manner of many stars keen to augment their achievements with – what? Something that might bring that elusive sense of self worth? – Nicole has made plenty of statements about it being famous folk’s ‘duty to give something back’. Maybe she could just settle for putting money back, and keep for herself the belief that she can bewitch repressive regimes into playing nice.” Or trying to lead the public into thinking there is much below her shiny perfectly airbrushed facade. Certainly not dignity or even run of the mill intelligence.

Kidman is Kinky

She makes it too easy for us...

Nicole Kidman reveals her love life has been kinky as she opens up about 'strange sexual fetish' encounters

By Jo Clements
Last updated at 11:44 PM on 03rd November 2009

She has always remained tight-lipped about her 10 year marriage to actor Tom Cruise and vows she will take all her secrets to the grave.

But in one of her most revealing-ever interviews, Nicole Kidman let slip how her experiences of love ranged from ‘mundane’ marriage to ‘strange sexual fetish stuff’.

The 42-year-old actress, currently married to country singer Keith Urban, said her life had been about exploring different types of love.

‘I’ve explored obsession. I’ve explored loss and love in terms of being in a grief-stricken place, I’ve explored strange sexual fetish stuff, I’ve explored the mundane aspect of marriage, and monogamy,’ she said.

But while she confessed she had previously experienced the ‘mundane’ side of relationships, she described her present marriage as ‘raw’ and ‘dangerous’.

‘You work on it,’ she said. ‘It’s a very extraordinary, adventurous place to be: incredibly raw, incredibly dangerous and you’re very much out at sea. You're exposed. You could drown.

‘When you commit to someone like that, you live and die together by that decision.’

The Oscar-winning film star admitted that her marriage to Cruise had been responsible for her rise to fame and revealed that her agents had told her not to tie the knot with the Days Of Thunder star.

‘I became famous very young. I became very famous because I was the wife of somebody,’ she told GQ.

‘I did a lot of good, worthwhile work in Australia between the ages of 14 and 19 and then I married someone famous. And really, despite the huge profile that brought to me, I was still finding my feet.

‘I know my agents at the time were like “Do not get married! It will ruin your career!” and I was like “But I’m in love”. All I know is that I wasn’t someone interested in fame. And that’s not why I got married. I wanted to work with people who intrigued me.’

Miss Kidman married Cruise in 1990, after they became romantically involved on the set of Days Of Thunder. The couple, who have a son Connor and adopted daughter Isabella, split in 2001, less than two months after their 10th wedding anniversary.

While rumours have always been rife about the reasons behind their split, Cruise and Kidman have refused to address the speculation.

‘I want to honour that marriage for what it was, and there is nothing I would go into about that. I have never discussed the intricacies of it and I never will,’ the actress said.

And she revealed how she even set fire to some of her diaries after she married Australian singer Urban in 2006.

Talking about people’s obsession with blogs and social networking websites, she said: ‘If you know what is going on inside somebody’s head all the time that’s not a good place. 'You can’t read somebody’s diary. You shouldn’t read it. I burnt most of my journals after I remarried… You’re only going to find out bad things.’

Miss Kidman, who gave birth to daughter Sunday Rose – her first child with Urban – last year, recently finished filming the big screen version of musical Nine.

The film, which also stars Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren and Kate Hudson, was her first film since Sunday Rose was born.

‘I’d just given birth, so I was like “OK, I’m [still] a woman – I want to do this film. And I do have a life other than simply feeding this baby”,’ she said.

‘I think when you give birth you get itchy to get back to work and you want to feel life still goes on.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1225066/Nicole-Kidman-reveals-love-life-kinky-opens-strange-sexual-fetish-encounters.html