Garth Brooks Retirement
 Garth Brooks' eponymous first album, Garth Brooks, was released in 1989 and was a critical and chart success. It peaked at #2 in the US country album chart and reached #13 on the Billboard 200 pop album chart. Most of the album was traditionalist country, influenced in part by George Strait. The first single, Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old), was a country top 10 success. It was followed by his first country #1, If Tomorrow Never Comes. Not Counting You reached #2, and then The Dance put him at #1 again; this song's theme of people dying in the course of doing something they believe in resonated strongly and together with a popular music video gave Brooks his first push towards a broader audience. Brooks has claimed that of all the songs he has recorded, The Dance is his favorite.
His follow-up album No Fences, was released in 1990 and spent 23 weeks as #1 on the Billboard country music chart. The album also reached #3 on the pop chart, and eventually become Brooks's highest-selling album, with domestic sales of over 16 million records. It contained what would become Brooks' signature song, the blue collar anthem Friends in Low Places, as well as two other Brooks classics, the dramatic and controversial The Thunder Rolls and the philosophically ironic Unanswered Prayers. Each of these songs, as well as the affectionate Two of a Kind, Workin’ on a Full House, reached #1 on the country chart.
While Brooks' musical style placed him squarely within the boundaries of country music, he was strongly influenced by the 1970s singer-songwriter movement, especially the works of James Taylor (whom he idolized and named his first child after) and Dan Fogelberg. Similarly, Brooks was influenced by the operatic rock of the 1970s-era Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen. In his highly successful live shows, Brooks used a wireless headset microphone to free himself to run about the stage, adding energy and arena rock theatrics to spice up the normally staid country music approach to concerts. This was also one of his earliest grade school musical influences of the hard rock band KISS, as his shows often reflected this. Brooks said that the style of his show was inspired mostly by Chris LeDoux.
|
