Toby Keith has always been a man of honesty and integrity. And although he was an incredibly successful country artist, he always put the love of his craft first.
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The "As Good As I Once Was" hitmaker has had 20 number 1 songs during his career. Yet despite this lucrative career, the country legend was never over phased by his success. He just wanted to make good country songs.
Back in 2018, Toby Keith sat down with Los Angeles Times' Mikael Wood, where he talked about the decline in top-of-the-chart presence.
In their enlightening conversation, Keith Urban admitted that public and media opinion held no power over him. For he had accepted that he is who he is.
"It doesn't matter to me," he said. "About 15 years ago I just said, I don't understand the world anymore, but it's not gonna stop me from being who I am." Words to live by for sure.
"Right now it'd be real easy — real easy — for me to grab a couple of my younger buddies that are doing this hip-hop country and just blow some of that kind of stuff up," he explained.
But as easy as it would be to reinvent himself and ride on the coattail of what's successful, he never did.
Toby Keith Wasn't Here To Chase No. 1's
Wood then simply asked Keith why he didn't do that.
After Wood pointed out that Keith's last no. 1 song was "Made in America" in 2011, Keith said, "It wouldn't be true to myself."
"Just because the songs that we've always written aren't working and aren't getting played right now doesn't mean that I have to go do something else," he continued.
"Everybody gets their window; everybody has their time. I'm not gonna rail against the machine. These kids got every right in the world to make their living. If that's what's selling, then that's what it is. [In the '90s] they were punching us in the face, saying we were too pop, and I swore I'd never be that guy."
Toby Keith accepted that times change and that he can't be the top dog forever. It's that mentality that made having chart-topping songs meaningless. He was here to make good music. And not to be a show pony for the music industry.
