But as Urban revealed in a Rolling Stone article published Friday (Dec. 20), he also loves plenty of pop, rock, electronic and hip-hop as well. Specifically he calls out 2013 releases by Blood Orange, Kanye West, Justin Timberlake and Lorde.

"I just [find] her magnetic on so many levels," Urban says of the "Royals" singer who, like him, was born in New Zealand. "She has a lot of artistic depth and gravitas for someone at that age."

As for Blood Orange, he says that he's been playing Cupid Deluxe "nonstop in my car for a week." He credits his wife, Nicole Kidman, for hipping him to that album. "I love electronic music," he continues. "It's a lot of what I listen to, because I hear fusion sounds in my head that it draws from. I just love the atmosphere and ambience and the sort of emotive soundscapes that comes from a lot of that music. This album captured it in a way that I don't think anybody really did. It took the best of Frank Ocean and Prince and New Radicals. I can kind of hear so many of my favorite artists and albums all in one album. I just find it amazing."

Timberlake's song "Mirrors" stands out for him because it "hits some deep melancholy places in me." And Kanye? He was knocked out watching the Yeezus singer on Later�With Jools Holland. "His performance was so mesmerizing because it was so bold and different from any type of art form," Urban says. "That combination of having pre-recorded music but then having the sharpness and bold aggressiveness � minimalism, conviction, singing blatantly through a vocoder and being unapologetic about it � the whole thing just reeked of 'totally new art form'; not just a musical performance, but an entirely new art form. And that stuff just exhilarates me, because there's endless new ways to make art, whether it's music or whatever."