Michael Bublé’s new album Higher will be out March 25, and an initial glance at the track list shows that it includes material you’ll find on most of his albums: originals, new interpretations of standards and pop classics, and a duet or two. But Michael says the album does have a theme: When you listen to it, he says he wants you to feel “joy and hope and peace.”

“It’s funny, I went from all of these different ideas of ‘Do I have a concept record? Is it this? Is it sexy, is it romantic…?'” Michael told ABC Audio last year about the project. “And the further I got along, the more I kept thinking, ‘No, I just want to make a great Michael Bublé record, and I don’t want to chase hits. I just want to try to chase great music.'”

Making the album during the pandemic further cemented Michael’s determination to make the kind of music that would lift people’s spirits.

As he explains, “As we got into COVID and as more and more of my friends, and people that I loved — or even strangers — [became] affected by it, and as we started to see people and the heartache of them losing people and…their fear and losing jobs…the more I realized that as a human being and as an artist, my job was simply to try to bring joy and hope and peace.”

Michael is also calling for hope and peace amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Posting an image of the country’s flag, he wrote, “I stand with the Ukrainian people. At a time when we can all feel a bit helpless and our hearts are breaking, join me in supporting them.”

He linked to Unicef’s home page — the charity is focused on helping children caught in the conflict.

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