City of Black & White is the third studio album by Mat Kearney. Released on May 19, 2009, it follows his 2006 major-label debut, Nothing Left to Lose. The first single, "Closer to Love", was released on March 10, 2009, as a digital download. To promote the album, Kearney toured with Keane and the Helio Sequence.[4] On the day of its release, the bonus track version peaked at #7 on the iTunes Top Albums, and the standard version peaked at #19.[5] Kearney wrote the title track while traveling in Turkey. He explained that this song "was born on a ferry as I crossed the Bosphorus River, which splits Istanbul in two.".[6] "Fire & Rain" was also released as a digital download to MySpace the week of the album release. Immediately after the album was released, "Lifeline" was used in commercial advertisement for season 3 of Lifetime Television's Army Wives. The commercial has been aired not only on Lifetime but ABC as well.
According to Soundscan, as of September 21, 2010, City of Black & White has sold 87,459 copies in the US.
Track listing
All songs written by Mat Kearney unless stated otherwise.
"All I Have"- 4:49
"Fire & Rain"- 3:50 (Mat Kearney, Robert Marvin)
"Closer to Love" – 3:37 (Mat Kearney, Robert Marvin, Josiah Bell)
In 2019, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the album, an EP titled City of Black & White Revisited was released. It peaked at number 46 on the Top Christian Albums chart.