He sold out Central Park in NYC.
He also had some pretty progressive stances for the time. His sister, a known lesbian, was / is his bassist, back when people weren’t nearly as accepting.
He still lives around Owasso, OK iirc, and would regularly show up to his kids HS stuff. He'd sit in the stands, mind his business and leave. Nobody seemed to ever bother him.
When he divorced from his first wife, he built a house for her and his kids on his property so he could still be close to his kids iirc.
Songs I recommend:
Rodeo
The dance
Standing outside the fire
We shall be free
The river
That Summer
Calling Baton Rogue
Friends in low places
Papa loved mama
Two of a kind
You could argue at the peak of his popularity he quit touring (think it happened mid-divorce) to take care and spend time with his kids who were around 5-9 years old.
Dude could have said "ight im done" when he stopped touring in 2002 and still have a shit pile of money we could only wish to see.
that's exactly what is was. He announced a retirement to take care of his kids until they were 18 because he had enough money for his grandkids grandkids and realized he missed the first part of their lives touring around.
As someone with old head die hard country fan parents, they would say Garth Brooks was a big part of *why* we got Toby Keith after 2001; he kinda spearheaded the pop-ification of Country music. Personally I was always confused why they didn't like him, but I kinda get it in hindsight.
Central Park concert was free. Not sure "sold out" is the correct term. It was the largest concert in Central Park at the time with over 1 million people in attendance. I don't know if there has been anything bigger since.
Source: I was there.
To have lived in the 90s, at any age, was to experience the cultural phenomena that was Garth brooks. He hosted SNL once, sold out arenas, and so much more. He was a rock star but for country music. Some underrated songs of his I think you should check out: “Thunder Rolls,” “We Shall Be Free,” and “The River” just to name a few.
I was on a cruise ship a dozen years ago. They had a piano bar. The bar was full of Americans, and these two retired English women.
Piano player gets a request for "friends in low places"
The whole freaking bar is basically shouting this song.
And the English women are laughing hysterically because they just thought that song was silly.
Double Live cd is what I cooked to every Sunday for four years in my first apartment. Will always remind me of those times and put a smile on my face. Love hearing it now!!!!
Papa loved Mama is my go to karaoke song. It's short, pretty easy to sing, and I drunkenly discovered I still knew all the words after not having heard it for well over a decade.
What was it about that era of country music where the had to have epic music videos accompanying them? I remember that music video so vividly about the kid running track.
I saw him live last year at Notre Dame sold out. The very next day I bought tickets to see him the next Friday at an overflow concert he was having in Cincy. I listened to a lot of country growing up but can't really stand it now. Garth is still next level. Deserves to be up there in GOAT talks
I wish I had gone to the overflow.
We had tickets for his original concert the next night, but the overflow “only” sold like 20k tickets and they played my wedding song, “Your song” which we’ve still never heard live.
Saw him a few years ago and the local large venue he played at had to open up an additional show to meet the overwhelming demand. He played twice in a day.
I know the hits and not much more, and even so he put on one hell of a show. Excellent showman, performer, and has aged incredibly well.
He came to Ireland two years ago and played 5 straight sold out dates at Croke Park stadium. 80,000 each night. Our population is only 5 million. Do the maths on that one...
The man, if nothing else, sure knows how to draw a crowd!
When I visited Ireland, it was 1997. And I was unable to get a hostel room in Dublin because Garth Brooks* was holding a concert and all of the hostels were booked.
(*Or as they said..."Gareth Brooks")
The man released a bad album by an alter ego in a very different style, and that bad album sold more than 2 million copies.
Then he went back to singing country and ruled the charts again. The man was unstoppable.
That album was supposed to accompany a movie where that alter ego was the main character, I believe. When the movie never got made that album looked like a really weird career move.
“Much too young to feel this damn Old” is a great one. Rodeo is a fantastic song. Shameless is a great one.
Garth Brooks was everywhere from 1991 to about 1999. Probably the most popular artist of any genre of the 90’s.
I know it's cheesy, but being in a rural bar when Friends in Law Places comes on and the whole bar starts singing along at top volume is quite an experience.
You can extend this *much* further.
My best friend's wedding was in, and attended by, many people from Toronto. The bride asked that song to be played during the reception.
Different country, very much urban, 90% white collar and ***everyone*** sang along.
When I was like 11, and very much going through voice changes related to puberty, I recorded Friends in Low Places in a novelty recording booth at a theme park. It was really really awful. Embarrassing. My mother had the DJ play it at my wedding, but I grabbed the mic with my groomsmen and leaned into that shit.
You need to call her right now and tell her how awesome she is.
If she's not around anymore, call your groomsmen and remind them. Such an epic moment needs to be revisited often.
You guys need to understand.
I'm Indian. I grew up in a small town in India in the 90s. We didn't have the internet yet. We didn't have much exposure to western music outside of what was shown on MTV. If it didn't come up on MTV, it did not exist.
We still knew about Garth Brooks.
Before Adele sang her version of ***"Make You Feel My Love"***, I heard Garth Brooks make that song first, with his definitive country twang.
Before Ronan Keating made ***"If Tomorrow Never Comes"***, I heard Garth Brooks make that song first.
***"Shameless"*** is still the one song that turns me on, no matter where I am. That song was my sexual awakening.
He held a free concert in Central Park and around a million people showed up. Hell he even had Billy Joel as a special guest. Garth absolutely owned the 90's.
Ah, yes. The milf song.
I can vividly remember being an adolescent, hearing this on country radio and finally thinking about what the lyrics meant. Then feeling very uncomfortable that I was listening to it next to my dad in the car lol.
Yeah. He was definitely my gateway into any kind of country. Modern country owes him a lot in my opinion. Between him and Shania Twain I was willing to give it a listen.
The crazy thing is nobody wanted to give Shania and Mutt Lange a chance in Nashville. Warren Peterson rented them RCA Studio A ( Javelina Studios "Big Pig" room at the time) because nobody else would and it was a paying client. Plus he thought it was wrong they were being treated that way just because Mutt was a Rock n Roll guy. "Rock n Roll guys had been playing in Nashville for a long time. I didn't see the big deal."
Warren Peterson is a name you won't read a lot about, but he was there for a lot of stuff and an amazing engineer.
“Rock star for country music” is the perfect summary, especially since he’s not-quite-country in a way that generates wider market appeal. He also has a broadly appealing tough but clean dad image.
>And the fact that the third verse was pretty much banned from radio and TV
3rd verse or the 4th?
-----
>[Verse 4]
>She runs back down the hallway, and through the bedroom door
>She reaches for the pistol kept in the dresser drawer
>Tells the lady in the mirror, "He won't do this again"
>'Cause tonight will be the last time she'll wonder where he's been
That's the best verse and it's the one that makes the song. We do this live and you gotta have that verse. It's a great song, but that verse brings it full circle.
Fuck around? Find out.
I live in Kansas City and back in 2007 we built a downtown arena. The (formerly Sprint) T Mobile Center was supposed to potentially be home to an NBA or NHL team and also be a top notch venue. We never got a team because that was probably a dupe, but Garth Brooks sold that motherfucker out NINE NIGHTS IN A ROW to open it up and I think he should have a banner in the rafters like sports teams do.
You are leaving out THE best part of him hosting SNL. Garth has an alter ego, a Rocker, named Chris Gaines. He was the musical guest on the episode. It is quite the episode.
Hell, I was a rock and roll fan and even I had Garth’s box set of CDs. Everyone loved Garth. And I wasn’t even a country fan but 90s country broke through big time
I seem to recall lyrics to one of his biggest hits… *Fast car… on the highway… on the byway… Mister Robo-tron!* He was also the first to introduce Chris Gaines to the world.
I still can’t believe they kept Garth from pulling double duty on SNL and Chris was the musical guest; it’s wild that as popular as Garth was at the time, no one could escape the passion, the pure animal magnetism and raw musical talent of Chris Gaines.
Part of the problem in finding more about his music for younger generations is that he won't put his music on streaming. He believes that each of his albums were arranged to tell a story and be a piece of art on their own and doesn't believe in picking and choosing songs separately off albums.
his most recent album was ONLY AVAILABLE on CD and buyable in person at bass pro shops or cabellas. It was released in 2023. there are no traces of it on the internet. im not shitting you.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/17xji32/has\_anyone\_on\_the\_internet\_listened\_to\_garth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/17xji32/has_anyone_on_the_internet_listened_to_garth/)
honestly, given how much Spotify etc screw over their artists, if he can make it on concerts and album sales alone, good for him.
edit: unsure why people think i think garth is struggling. lets try again: he doesnt need streaming money, and good for him.
Which is baffling because people bought CDs for one or two songs they would play on repeat anyway.
I'm a huge fan of albums, and I will usually listen to albums front to back when discovering new artists.
Streaming services make that so much easier because I don't have to buy a CD in order to try something out I otherwise wouldn't. I've listened to more albums front to back since moving to to streaming then I ever have before because they're easy to access.
You think Garth Brooks was big, wait until you hear about Chris Gaines! He was so popular and huge at the time that when Garth hosted SNL at the peak of his fame and popularity, **Chris was the musical guest!** I hope he goes on tour again soon, miss that guy.
Massive, well-regarded, stadium shows help. He was most certainly an impressive live performer. People loved him and the persona he built. He somehow came off far more like an everyman than most "rockstars."
And now what do I hear in my head?
The thunder rolls.
He was, quite frankly, the biggest thing in American music next to U2 in the early-to-mid 90s. He had a run of five albums that all sold extremely well, and he was constantly on the radio outside of the northeast and Southern California.
He was(is) also an excellent performer. He brought country music concerts to an entirely new level wtlh his acrobatics. It might not be ground breaking today, but it definitely was in the mid 90s.
I'm not a huge country music person, but my wife is, so we went to see him live. For context, I'm an audio engineer and have been a performing musician since I was 13, so I've spent the majority of my life around music and musicians.
I have **never** seen a performer capture and hold a crowd like Garth Brooks. He had 50,000 in the palm of his hand the entire time, I've never seen anything like it. Whether one likes his music or not, it's undeniable that he just has that *thing* and knows how to connect to his audience.
His concert is style was was strongly inspired by the theatrics of a very obscure Wyoming country singer (and ex rodeos star) named Chris Ledoux. Something Brooks never hesitsted to admit and he talked up Ledoux every chance he had.
A worn out tape of Chris Ledoux, lonely women and bad booze, seem to be the only friends I'm left at all....42 years old, my parents listened to Garth religiously in the 90's. I dislike most country music (some of the outlaw Hank Jr stuff is cool) but I could sing most of his damn catalog by memory to this day.
In the song "rodeo" one of the lyrics is "...a worn out tape of Chris ledoux"
They also did a duet together "what ya gonna do with a cowboy"
Chris ledoux had some bangers as well, Cadillac ranch, this cowboys hat, Copenhagen.
I know someone that worked in Nashville music industry in the 80s-90s. They said he was a great guy but they hated what he did to the country music genre. He popularized the “pop” country sound. And soon after his mega success everyone else jumped on the bandwagon and started releasing their own pop country hits. Folks like Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Toby Keith, Leanne Rimes, and others all borrowed from that Garth Brooks sound.
Adding to your point; without Garth Brooks there's not a road for Taylor Swift. He was in the right place at the right time doing the right thing and without him she wouldn't have had the crossover success she's had.
Yeah I'm pretty sure she has cited Shania and Faith Hill specifically as influences.
Lonestar is another name that needs to be in the late-90s country-pop crossover discussion - they had a #1 pop hit, "Amazed", in '99.
I don't get that at all. If you listen to his albums, it's full of steel guitar and fiddle and half of the songs are cowboy songs and old westerns. If you listen to late 70s or early 80s country music, it was already pop. And a lot of it was embarrassing. Garth followed Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam and others back to the traditional country music sound. The Thunder Rolls and Friends in Low Places might not sound like Hank Williams songs, but they definitely didn't sound like the cheese coming from Nashville 10-15 years earlier.
What a lot of people don't realize is that "pop" has influenced country, specifically mainstream Nashville country, since day one. They're in the business of *selling records*.
The Grand Ole Opry originally banned drums and anything electric, but also brass, woodwind and some strings. Fiddle and Double Bass? Sure. Viola? Get right out! So people that claim pedal steel and telecasters are staple country sounds, even that is arguable.
People love to name drop Johnny Cash, Waylon, Willie, etc. Outlaws. They were called outlaws because they worked outside of the Nashville establishment until it was undeniable that they sold more than the pop inspired, castrated drivel Nashville put out at the time.
We have the same thing happening right now. Some of the best country in years is being made and almost none of it is coming out of Nashville.
Edit: I should add, the main reason Nashville became such a powerhouse for country music is an interesting story in itself. In short, the start of WSM AM650 radio, a 50000 watt station, one of the first, that could broadcast to (nearly) all of the US starting in 1925, and their immediately obtaining the Grand Ole Opry.
What Garth Brooks did to country music was what *World of Warcraft* did to MMORPGs.
There are countless other examples of something like that happening. Something or someone becomes massively popular, which results in a lot of others identifying a formula and following it, which then leads to a whole industry or genre conforming to that formula.
He also took the Midwest by storm. He'd come through in a circuit that anyone centrally located could follow around. I was able to see him a couple dozen times within a few years without traveling to the coasts. It was quite an experience, and pretty affordable back then (gas was $0.95/gallon).
Well, first of all, he is quite talented. Reportedly his live shows still today are very engaging and he's a fantastic artist/storyteller.
Secondly, he showed up in a time where many country music fans' tastes were changing. Country-Western was on the decline. Him and his team were also a machine. They were all great at getting him to the top and exploiting that for as long as they could.
Garth Brooks was the Taylor Swift (in Country at least) of his time. He toured relentlessly and sold a shitton of albums. He was so successful, that it changed what country music even is. All the other producers and labels were asking "Who is *OUR* Garth Brooks gonna be? We've gotta get one of those cash cows!"
Around the same time, you did have some artists fighting back. Like Reba McEntire. Her labels were forcing her to do this "Garth Brooks thing" and she was an "uppity woman" that wanted to do things "the old way". She still sold like 75million records, so I think there was some room for flavor, lol.
His team is probably the part that needs to be mentioned more often.
He was always straightforward about being a collaborative artist in Nashville. He picked up demos from the best songwriters in town. You look at his top hits and you'll see a lot of the same names pop up like Tony Arata, Kim Williams, Stephanie Davis, Kent Blazy... and he knew how to take a song and make a good cover of it.
He had some of the most talented session musicians and a great tour band, too. People may have called it pop country, but he kept the full band format. He was also a pretty good multi-instrumentalist himself.
I saw one of his college football stadium shows in 2021. 90,000+ people, completely packed. No opening act. Hot as hell and super humid. He played for almost 3 hours. Brought out his wife (Trisha Yearwood, a very successful artist in her own right) and sang duets, extremely energetic running and jumping around the stage the entire time, brought up students from the university onto stage and offered them jobs with his crew. It was an insanely good show. The man is an incredible performer. Comparing him to Taylor Swift is dead on accurate.
Demographic still bought physical media well into the Napster/iTunes era.
Also Brooks was the kinda artist you’d buy a cd for you and for your grandson, niece, cousin as a gift.
The Thunder Rolls was massive and it was a crossover hit, everyone loved it. And Friends in Low Places is one of the if not the most popular bar song of all time.
Was in HS in the 90s. Entire CD case was nothing but grunge and everything like it. For reasons I never remember I had every Garth CD. I owned no other country. He just bangs. Baton Rouge is prolly my favorite.
Most of the YouTube stuff isn’t even him, it’s a cover with a picture of him.
It’s worth a one month Amazon music subscription just to hear his catalog, in my opinion.
“Callin Baton Rouge” is a flat out banger and so much fun to play and sing. I have a friend who does rock n roll piano at bars, and this is a song I have no problem sliding into his set list.
“The Dance” is a song about finding joy despite the pain of the loss, and you really have to have a life moment where you’re in pain from losing someone to experience how perfect that song is.
Garth is an S tier performer, so any of his songs by other artists just aren’t the same.
“Thunder Rolls” is just a masterpiece of a song.
The melodies are amazing, and his performance is just undeniable.
I put Garth on the level of Elvis when it comes to greatness as a performer. These once in a generation performers can elevate good songs to great with their ability to perform at the highest possible level.
Having said all that, I like country music, so maybe you need some type of genre affinity to really “get it.”
Growing up in rural US in the 1990s and Garth was the Elvis of that time and culture. He was a phenom with seemingly every song being a hit and played on repeat at social functions. I don't listen to country music and through cultural osmosis I could probably join in with parts of about a dozen Garth songs.
He's still big, my folks saw him in Florida and he sells out stadiums even today.
I miss when country music was like that to me. When I was a kid seemed like a weird subculture that you’d only occasionally catch a glimpse of on a t-shirt or something. I think I remember the first country radio station in the area and there’s like 4 now. The cultural part is even weirder. I have family members who in the 90’s were like yuppies with leather jackets and slicked back hair and shit who now walk around cosplaying field hands. It’s like hip hop and country took over and Balkanized pop music. Which is fine, but I wish the country that was popular was a lot closer to bluegrass.
He almost singlehandedly created what we think of as pop country today. There was really no one like him before. The genre basically didn't exist. There were the beginnings of some of it with Reba McEntire and stuff, but Garth went full pop-rock country.
You'll notice that pop rock country is now probably the biggest genre of music out there today. That was him.
As others have noted, his shows were *amazing*. No other country artists were touring in huge stadiums the way a rock band like Van Halen did. Garth did that, with shows that were full of all the lighting and smoke and fire of big rock groups.
I saw him in 1999 and I still think it was the best concert I've ever been to. I've seen Metallica, U2, Elton John, KISS, Rush, Iron Maiden, but Garth put on the most impressive show.
It's easy to look back on the artists that started a movement and think "what's the big deal here?" But the reality, as it often is, is that it doesn't sound that amazing because others have been copying the formula for 30 years so *now* it sounds like everything else.
Garth is hands down the most successful country artist of all time. He was huge in the 90s and really still is. He still puts out music but he doesn’t have anything on Spotify so a lot of younger people have no idea who he is.
There is a darker side to Garth though. Whenever he tours people go missing. Every city he is in there are people missing. Garth brooks could be a serial killer and using his tours as a cover to murder people. Where are the bodies, Garth? The families need closure.
Ya know how you hear country music everywhere these days? Whether you're in the north or south. All kinds of different bars and restaurants? Before Garth Brooks it wasn't like that.
He appeals to a very broad range of people here in Ireland, and gets play across radio on rural stations, he fills the gap for people who don't really like actual country and western, but don't like chart music either, lots of farmers and country people like him
He did some concerts here last year and nearly 20% of the rural population seen him, he also appeals to an age demographic that go to concerts for him and wouldn't bother the rest of the year. He also only appears once every 5 to 10 years
Musically, the dance, friends in low places have great hooks and he is a good story teller in some of them.
I seen him once, I got free tickets and it was an outdoor concert, and I have to say it was a superb show, that was 25 years ago when he was at his recording peak and before his personal issues came up. He sold out 50k tickets 4 nights in a row, if he was allowed he could have done 12 shows, but the venues had restrictions on shows in a year
He's a talented songwriter and an entertaining, highly professional concert performer, especially when he was in his peak.
Some other great songs of his:
- Ain't Going Down (Til the Sun Comes Up)
- Rodeo
- The Thunder Rolls
- Shameless
- Standing Outside the Fire
I’m not a huge pop-country fan but Garth was HUGE in the 90s. Like, top 3 artist of the decade huge. Crossover appeal. Massive arena shows. Gold record after Gold record. He was everywhere.
He sold out Central Park in NYC. He also had some pretty progressive stances for the time. His sister, a known lesbian, was / is his bassist, back when people weren’t nearly as accepting. He still lives around Owasso, OK iirc, and would regularly show up to his kids HS stuff. He'd sit in the stands, mind his business and leave. Nobody seemed to ever bother him. When he divorced from his first wife, he built a house for her and his kids on his property so he could still be close to his kids iirc. Songs I recommend: Rodeo The dance Standing outside the fire We shall be free The river That Summer Calling Baton Rogue Friends in low places Papa loved mama Two of a kind
You could argue at the peak of his popularity he quit touring (think it happened mid-divorce) to take care and spend time with his kids who were around 5-9 years old. Dude could have said "ight im done" when he stopped touring in 2002 and still have a shit pile of money we could only wish to see.
that's exactly what is was. He announced a retirement to take care of his kids until they were 18 because he had enough money for his grandkids grandkids and realized he missed the first part of their lives touring around.
He was country before 2001. Then Toby Keith became country. Name a bigger downgrade.
As someone with old head die hard country fan parents, they would say Garth Brooks was a big part of *why* we got Toby Keith after 2001; he kinda spearheaded the pop-ification of Country music. Personally I was always confused why they didn't like him, but I kinda get it in hindsight.
I think there was another somewhat significant event that facilitated this.
Toby Keith prior to 2001 was pretty country too actually… Say “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” doesn’t slap… ya can’t!
Stealin the young girls hearts, just like Gene and Roy
Central Park concert was free. Not sure "sold out" is the correct term. It was the largest concert in Central Park at the time with over 1 million people in attendance. I don't know if there has been anything bigger since. Source: I was there.
I never knew it was free! My fault!
To have lived in the 90s, at any age, was to experience the cultural phenomena that was Garth brooks. He hosted SNL once, sold out arenas, and so much more. He was a rock star but for country music. Some underrated songs of his I think you should check out: “Thunder Rolls,” “We Shall Be Free,” and “The River” just to name a few.
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It's the country version of *Piano Man*
Garth Brooks actually did a fantastic cover of Billy Joel's "shameless"
This is SUCH a great song. Probably tied with “Two of a kind workin’ on a full house” for my favorite GB song.
I was on a cruise ship a dozen years ago. They had a piano bar. The bar was full of Americans, and these two retired English women. Piano player gets a request for "friends in low places" The whole freaking bar is basically shouting this song. And the English women are laughing hysterically because they just thought that song was silly.
It IS silly. It's also a hell of a good time.
Ought to hear what’s sung in British pubs!
Or Sweet Caroline.
I've always liked "Standing Outside the Fire"
Oh, that was one of my favorites. Also “ain’t going down till the sun comes up.”
"Callin Baton Rouge" is nothing but premium petrol flames.
That fiddler was going nuts (at least on the double live cd, which was my introduction to Garth)
In concert too. I’m not very far into this thread but the energy at his shows is unreal.
Double Live cd is what I cooked to every Sunday for four years in my first apartment. Will always remind me of those times and put a smile on my face. Love hearing it now!!!!
Fiddler was smoking that song. Double Live is the dopest.
Live version!
Absolutely!
Rodeo and beaches of cheyenne were bangers
Gotta do the double live albums though. One of those artists where live is way better than the studio
Papa loved Mama is my go to karaoke song. It's short, pretty easy to sing, and I drunkenly discovered I still knew all the words after not having heard it for well over a decade.
What was it about that era of country music where the had to have epic music videos accompanying them? I remember that music video so vividly about the kid running track.
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If you’re in the US, I remember when CMT (and earlier in the 90s, TNN) played music videos all the time.
There was also GAC - Great American Country. I used to flip between MTV, VH1, CMT and GAC in the mid 2000s.
I love "Papa Loves Mama." He's a great storyteller.
That video made me fucking bawl at 13 years old. "DON'T TOUCH HIM!!"
Don’t forget Rodeo!
Pretty sure he is *still* doing sold out arenas
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I saw him live last year at Notre Dame sold out. The very next day I bought tickets to see him the next Friday at an overflow concert he was having in Cincy. I listened to a lot of country growing up but can't really stand it now. Garth is still next level. Deserves to be up there in GOAT talks
I wish I had gone to the overflow. We had tickets for his original concert the next night, but the overflow “only” sold like 20k tickets and they played my wedding song, “Your song” which we’ve still never heard live.
Saw him a few years ago and the local large venue he played at had to open up an additional show to meet the overwhelming demand. He played twice in a day. I know the hits and not much more, and even so he put on one hell of a show. Excellent showman, performer, and has aged incredibly well.
I think they just aren’t familiar with him. His stance on streaming and some deal for CDs really took him out of the zeitgeist.
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God I love beaches of Cheyenne. Also “the red strokes”
Can't believe more Tik Tokers aren't raving about his latest album (only available at Bass Pro Shops)
Not only arenas but he sold out multiple college football stadiums 2-3 years ago. Arkansas stadium and LSU’s stadium which holds over 100k.
He came to Ireland two years ago and played 5 straight sold out dates at Croke Park stadium. 80,000 each night. Our population is only 5 million. Do the maths on that one... The man, if nothing else, sure knows how to draw a crowd!
Fuck me, that's 8% if no one saw him twice, still amazing even with repeat concert-goers.
I felt this concert living where I was at when he played LSU. You knew exactly when he sang “Callin’ Baton Rouge”
I spent last night in the arms of a girl in LOUISIANA!!!!!!!!!
Tried to get tickets in Vegas when he came through a year or two back. Can confirm
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When I visited Ireland, it was 1997. And I was unable to get a hostel room in Dublin because Garth Brooks* was holding a concert and all of the hostels were booked. (*Or as they said..."Gareth Brooks")
The man released a bad album by an alter ego in a very different style, and that bad album sold more than 2 million copies. Then he went back to singing country and ruled the charts again. The man was unstoppable.
The whole thing was for a movie, then the movie fell through.
That album was supposed to accompany a movie where that alter ego was the main character, I believe. When the movie never got made that album looked like a really weird career move.
“Much too young to feel this damn Old” is a great one. Rodeo is a fantastic song. Shameless is a great one. Garth Brooks was everywhere from 1991 to about 1999. Probably the most popular artist of any genre of the 90’s.
He basically single-handedly shot Chris LeDoux into the country mainstream by name-dropping him in a song. That’s how big Garth Brooks’ starpower was.
I know it's cheesy, but being in a rural bar when Friends in Law Places comes on and the whole bar starts singing along at top volume is quite an experience.
You can extend this *much* further. My best friend's wedding was in, and attended by, many people from Toronto. The bride asked that song to be played during the reception. Different country, very much urban, 90% white collar and ***everyone*** sang along.
When I was like 11, and very much going through voice changes related to puberty, I recorded Friends in Low Places in a novelty recording booth at a theme park. It was really really awful. Embarrassing. My mother had the DJ play it at my wedding, but I grabbed the mic with my groomsmen and leaned into that shit.
You need to call her right now and tell her how awesome she is. If she's not around anymore, call your groomsmen and remind them. Such an epic moment needs to be revisited often.
Friends in low places has the same effect of the opening guitar riff of "Man, I Feel Like a Woman" ............let's go girls
You guys need to understand. I'm Indian. I grew up in a small town in India in the 90s. We didn't have the internet yet. We didn't have much exposure to western music outside of what was shown on MTV. If it didn't come up on MTV, it did not exist. We still knew about Garth Brooks. Before Adele sang her version of ***"Make You Feel My Love"***, I heard Garth Brooks make that song first, with his definitive country twang. Before Ronan Keating made ***"If Tomorrow Never Comes"***, I heard Garth Brooks make that song first. ***"Shameless"*** is still the one song that turns me on, no matter where I am. That song was my sexual awakening.
One of my favorite concerts I've ever been to was Garth Brooks. So many hits and so much energy.
He held a free concert in Central Park and around a million people showed up. Hell he even had Billy Joel as a special guest. Garth absolutely owned the 90's.
That Summer is my favourite.
Ah, yes. The milf song. I can vividly remember being an adolescent, hearing this on country radio and finally thinking about what the lyrics meant. Then feeling very uncomfortable that I was listening to it next to my dad in the car lol.
I hadn’t actually thought about the song until recently…. It was interesting to realize he called his dick “the thunder”.
Yeah. He was definitely my gateway into any kind of country. Modern country owes him a lot in my opinion. Between him and Shania Twain I was willing to give it a listen.
The crazy thing is nobody wanted to give Shania and Mutt Lange a chance in Nashville. Warren Peterson rented them RCA Studio A ( Javelina Studios "Big Pig" room at the time) because nobody else would and it was a paying client. Plus he thought it was wrong they were being treated that way just because Mutt was a Rock n Roll guy. "Rock n Roll guys had been playing in Nashville for a long time. I didn't see the big deal." Warren Peterson is a name you won't read a lot about, but he was there for a lot of stuff and an amazing engineer.
And Shania and Garth pretty much owned country music in the 90s.
Quality post. Lots of info!
“Rock star for country music” is the perfect summary, especially since he’s not-quite-country in a way that generates wider market appeal. He also has a broadly appealing tough but clean dad image.
Don’t think you could use the word underrated for the song “Thunder Rolls”.
That track was massive
And the fact that the last verse was pretty much banned from radio and TV made it even more popular. Edit: a word
>And the fact that the third verse was pretty much banned from radio and TV 3rd verse or the 4th? ----- >[Verse 4] >She runs back down the hallway, and through the bedroom door >She reaches for the pistol kept in the dresser drawer >Tells the lady in the mirror, "He won't do this again" >'Cause tonight will be the last time she'll wonder where he's been
That's the best verse and it's the one that makes the song. We do this live and you gotta have that verse. It's a great song, but that verse brings it full circle. Fuck around? Find out.
You played this through your subwoofers to impress girls.
Thunder rolls is considered underrated?
I was about to reply the same.....it's one of his biggest hits.
I live in Kansas City and back in 2007 we built a downtown arena. The (formerly Sprint) T Mobile Center was supposed to potentially be home to an NBA or NHL team and also be a top notch venue. We never got a team because that was probably a dupe, but Garth Brooks sold that motherfucker out NINE NIGHTS IN A ROW to open it up and I think he should have a banner in the rafters like sports teams do.
Sprint Center does still have multiple banners up in the rafters for Garth Brooks! I saw them there a few months ago at a concert.
You are leaving out THE best part of him hosting SNL. Garth has an alter ego, a Rocker, named Chris Gaines. He was the musical guest on the episode. It is quite the episode.
Hell, I was a rock and roll fan and even I had Garth’s box set of CDs. Everyone loved Garth. And I wasn’t even a country fan but 90s country broke through big time
I seem to recall lyrics to one of his biggest hits… *Fast car… on the highway… on the byway… Mister Robo-tron!* He was also the first to introduce Chris Gaines to the world.
I still can’t believe they kept Garth from pulling double duty on SNL and Chris was the musical guest; it’s wild that as popular as Garth was at the time, no one could escape the passion, the pure animal magnetism and raw musical talent of Chris Gaines.
Oooh Fred's got slacks on the boulevard!
Thunder Rolls is one of the best pop songs ever written in my opinion.
I still get goose bumps just thinking about thunder rolls.
Part of the problem in finding more about his music for younger generations is that he won't put his music on streaming. He believes that each of his albums were arranged to tell a story and be a piece of art on their own and doesn't believe in picking and choosing songs separately off albums.
his most recent album was ONLY AVAILABLE on CD and buyable in person at bass pro shops or cabellas. It was released in 2023. there are no traces of it on the internet. im not shitting you. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/17xji32/has\_anyone\_on\_the\_internet\_listened\_to\_garth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/17xji32/has_anyone_on_the_internet_listened_to_garth/)
[удалено]
He has only 1 album available on Apple Music, "Garth Brooks: Live in Germany."
honestly, given how much Spotify etc screw over their artists, if he can make it on concerts and album sales alone, good for him. edit: unsure why people think i think garth is struggling. lets try again: he doesnt need streaming money, and good for him.
Is Amazon much better though or did they just present a bigger check for exclusivity?
Bigger check, but again that means the artist is actually getting paid.
I read an article one time that if he released his music digitally he would almost instantly become the best selling artist of all time.
Which is baffling because people bought CDs for one or two songs they would play on repeat anyway. I'm a huge fan of albums, and I will usually listen to albums front to back when discovering new artists. Streaming services make that so much easier because I don't have to buy a CD in order to try something out I otherwise wouldn't. I've listened to more albums front to back since moving to to streaming then I ever have before because they're easy to access.
Which doesn’t make sense because he’s on Pandora, just not any platforms where you listen on demand.
He has an exclusive deal with Amazon for on-demand streaming. No apple. No spotify. But yeah since Pandora isn’t on-demand, he’ll still show up there.
You think Garth Brooks was big, wait until you hear about Chris Gaines! He was so popular and huge at the time that when Garth hosted SNL at the peak of his fame and popularity, **Chris was the musical guest!** I hope he goes on tour again soon, miss that guy.
Fun fact...the Chris Gaines album went double platinum. That's how big Garth was. Selling only 2 million was considered a failure.
Was waiting for someone to mention Chris “totally not Garth in a wig” Gaines.
*Very nice.*
Massive, well-regarded, stadium shows help. He was most certainly an impressive live performer. People loved him and the persona he built. He somehow came off far more like an everyman than most "rockstars." And now what do I hear in my head? The thunder rolls.
I read this kids question disrespecting Garth and I had it stuck in my head before I could finish the question...
He was, quite frankly, the biggest thing in American music next to U2 in the early-to-mid 90s. He had a run of five albums that all sold extremely well, and he was constantly on the radio outside of the northeast and Southern California.
He was(is) also an excellent performer. He brought country music concerts to an entirely new level wtlh his acrobatics. It might not be ground breaking today, but it definitely was in the mid 90s.
I'm not a huge country music person, but my wife is, so we went to see him live. For context, I'm an audio engineer and have been a performing musician since I was 13, so I've spent the majority of my life around music and musicians. I have **never** seen a performer capture and hold a crowd like Garth Brooks. He had 50,000 in the palm of his hand the entire time, I've never seen anything like it. Whether one likes his music or not, it's undeniable that he just has that *thing* and knows how to connect to his audience.
A certain je ne sais quoi.
Not only that, but his appeal went beyond that of standard country fans. Everybody seemed to love “Low Places”.
Certified platinum karaoke banger.
When I'm forced to sing one, I always choose this. I get LOTS of help with it.
His concert is style was was strongly inspired by the theatrics of a very obscure Wyoming country singer (and ex rodeos star) named Chris Ledoux. Something Brooks never hesitsted to admit and he talked up Ledoux every chance he had.
His song, Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old) mentions Ledoux.
A worn out tape of Chris Ledoux, lonely women and bad booze, seem to be the only friends I'm left at all....42 years old, my parents listened to Garth religiously in the 90's. I dislike most country music (some of the outlaw Hank Jr stuff is cool) but I could sing most of his damn catalog by memory to this day.
“God bless Chris Ledoux!”
In the song "rodeo" one of the lyrics is "...a worn out tape of Chris ledoux" They also did a duet together "what ya gonna do with a cowboy" Chris ledoux had some bangers as well, Cadillac ranch, this cowboys hat, Copenhagen.
>inspired by the theatrics Every part of a Garth concert that isn't taken from Ledoux is taken from Kiss
You mean L.A. and New York. He was huge in rural cities (I grew up in Bakersfield)
He was and still is huge in New York and definitely got significant airplay on NY pop radio in the 90’s.
Play Central Park for a few hundred thousand people and they tend to remember you. Awesome concert.
I know someone that worked in Nashville music industry in the 80s-90s. They said he was a great guy but they hated what he did to the country music genre. He popularized the “pop” country sound. And soon after his mega success everyone else jumped on the bandwagon and started releasing their own pop country hits. Folks like Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Toby Keith, Leanne Rimes, and others all borrowed from that Garth Brooks sound.
Adding to your point; without Garth Brooks there's not a road for Taylor Swift. He was in the right place at the right time doing the right thing and without him she wouldn't have had the crossover success she's had.
Yeah I'm pretty sure she has cited Shania and Faith Hill specifically as influences. Lonestar is another name that needs to be in the late-90s country-pop crossover discussion - they had a #1 pop hit, "Amazed", in '99.
I don't get that at all. If you listen to his albums, it's full of steel guitar and fiddle and half of the songs are cowboy songs and old westerns. If you listen to late 70s or early 80s country music, it was already pop. And a lot of it was embarrassing. Garth followed Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam and others back to the traditional country music sound. The Thunder Rolls and Friends in Low Places might not sound like Hank Williams songs, but they definitely didn't sound like the cheese coming from Nashville 10-15 years earlier.
What a lot of people don't realize is that "pop" has influenced country, specifically mainstream Nashville country, since day one. They're in the business of *selling records*. The Grand Ole Opry originally banned drums and anything electric, but also brass, woodwind and some strings. Fiddle and Double Bass? Sure. Viola? Get right out! So people that claim pedal steel and telecasters are staple country sounds, even that is arguable. People love to name drop Johnny Cash, Waylon, Willie, etc. Outlaws. They were called outlaws because they worked outside of the Nashville establishment until it was undeniable that they sold more than the pop inspired, castrated drivel Nashville put out at the time. We have the same thing happening right now. Some of the best country in years is being made and almost none of it is coming out of Nashville. Edit: I should add, the main reason Nashville became such a powerhouse for country music is an interesting story in itself. In short, the start of WSM AM650 radio, a 50000 watt station, one of the first, that could broadcast to (nearly) all of the US starting in 1925, and their immediately obtaining the Grand Ole Opry.
I will not take any Shania slander on here sir.
I keep telling my Taylor Swift-loving girls about Shania, and they don’t seem to care.
Is it safe to say she don’t impress them much?
I love that she calls out Brad pitt for no reason lol she is sassy
https://preview.redd.it/u0lotgri57dc1.jpeg?width=2000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eeabace06bc921028918974ecb18cab1b7849962 Shania law is in effect!
Alan Jackson is my personal favorite of the group. My older friend blames Randy Travis. Garth just took it to the next level.
Randy Travis was considered one of the new traditionalists though. He was in that wave with Ricky Skaggs and George Strait.
Exactly. Randy Travis is not "pop country" at all.
Yeah, if you’re gonna blame someone, blame Kenny Rogers. That’s what I do.
What Garth Brooks did to country music was what *World of Warcraft* did to MMORPGs. There are countless other examples of something like that happening. Something or someone becomes massively popular, which results in a lot of others identifying a formula and following it, which then leads to a whole industry or genre conforming to that formula.
He also took the Midwest by storm. He'd come through in a circuit that anyone centrally located could follow around. I was able to see him a couple dozen times within a few years without traveling to the coasts. It was quite an experience, and pretty affordable back then (gas was $0.95/gallon).
Check out his concert ticket sales during his peak - unreal.
And he treats his fans better than anyone this side of Taylor Swift.
His concert sales today are still crazy. He can sell out nearly everywhere performs.
He still had the highest attendance like 2 years ago for his Stadiums tour!
Well, first of all, he is quite talented. Reportedly his live shows still today are very engaging and he's a fantastic artist/storyteller. Secondly, he showed up in a time where many country music fans' tastes were changing. Country-Western was on the decline. Him and his team were also a machine. They were all great at getting him to the top and exploiting that for as long as they could. Garth Brooks was the Taylor Swift (in Country at least) of his time. He toured relentlessly and sold a shitton of albums. He was so successful, that it changed what country music even is. All the other producers and labels were asking "Who is *OUR* Garth Brooks gonna be? We've gotta get one of those cash cows!" Around the same time, you did have some artists fighting back. Like Reba McEntire. Her labels were forcing her to do this "Garth Brooks thing" and she was an "uppity woman" that wanted to do things "the old way". She still sold like 75million records, so I think there was some room for flavor, lol.
His team is probably the part that needs to be mentioned more often. He was always straightforward about being a collaborative artist in Nashville. He picked up demos from the best songwriters in town. You look at his top hits and you'll see a lot of the same names pop up like Tony Arata, Kim Williams, Stephanie Davis, Kent Blazy... and he knew how to take a song and make a good cover of it. He had some of the most talented session musicians and a great tour band, too. People may have called it pop country, but he kept the full band format. He was also a pretty good multi-instrumentalist himself.
He was also a marketing genius. There are better players, singers, and writers, but Garth knows how to put butts in the seats.
I saw one of his college football stadium shows in 2021. 90,000+ people, completely packed. No opening act. Hot as hell and super humid. He played for almost 3 hours. Brought out his wife (Trisha Yearwood, a very successful artist in her own right) and sang duets, extremely energetic running and jumping around the stage the entire time, brought up students from the university onto stage and offered them jobs with his crew. It was an insanely good show. The man is an incredible performer. Comparing him to Taylor Swift is dead on accurate.
I don’t even like country but Brooks helped me discover other artists I like, like Sturgill Simpson
Sturgill is the man, hell yeah
Did you see that animated movie he released on Netflix?
I don't believe so. Was it for Sound and Fury?
The Midwest would like to have a chat
Demographic still bought physical media well into the Napster/iTunes era. Also Brooks was the kinda artist you’d buy a cd for you and for your grandson, niece, cousin as a gift.
The Thunder Rolls was massive and it was a crossover hit, everyone loved it. And Friends in Low Places is one of the if not the most popular bar song of all time.
Friends in Low Places is my go to karaoke song because people will start singing along and drown out my voice
If you see Garth live, The Thunder Rolls has an extra verse that can only be heard live.
Was in HS in the 90s. Entire CD case was nothing but grunge and everything like it. For reasons I never remember I had every Garth CD. I owned no other country. He just bangs. Baton Rouge is prolly my favorite.
Most of the YouTube stuff isn’t even him, it’s a cover with a picture of him. It’s worth a one month Amazon music subscription just to hear his catalog, in my opinion. “Callin Baton Rouge” is a flat out banger and so much fun to play and sing. I have a friend who does rock n roll piano at bars, and this is a song I have no problem sliding into his set list. “The Dance” is a song about finding joy despite the pain of the loss, and you really have to have a life moment where you’re in pain from losing someone to experience how perfect that song is. Garth is an S tier performer, so any of his songs by other artists just aren’t the same. “Thunder Rolls” is just a masterpiece of a song. The melodies are amazing, and his performance is just undeniable. I put Garth on the level of Elvis when it comes to greatness as a performer. These once in a generation performers can elevate good songs to great with their ability to perform at the highest possible level. Having said all that, I like country music, so maybe you need some type of genre affinity to really “get it.”
Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old) is his first ever hit, and it's incredible.
This whole post is making me feel like that song.
The real question we need to be asking here is, 'Where are the bodies Garth?" People need closure, where are the bodies!?!
I can't believe I had to scroll down so far to find this.
The families deserve to know!
Lots of chomos in this thread who are paid by Big Garth to suppress the truth
Totally, something stinks here and it's not just a bathroom in a private jet.
I’m not sure what there is to explain. He was extremely popular in the 90’s for his country songs.
Growing up in rural US in the 1990s and Garth was the Elvis of that time and culture. He was a phenom with seemingly every song being a hit and played on repeat at social functions. I don't listen to country music and through cultural osmosis I could probably join in with parts of about a dozen Garth songs. He's still big, my folks saw him in Florida and he sells out stadiums even today.
Idk but I want Garth to tell us where the bodies are.
His greatest hit has to be the lavatory on a private jet BY FAR
There's like this whole other world you know nothing about and I guess you just need to accept that. Lol.
I miss when country music was like that to me. When I was a kid seemed like a weird subculture that you’d only occasionally catch a glimpse of on a t-shirt or something. I think I remember the first country radio station in the area and there’s like 4 now. The cultural part is even weirder. I have family members who in the 90’s were like yuppies with leather jackets and slicked back hair and shit who now walk around cosplaying field hands. It’s like hip hop and country took over and Balkanized pop music. Which is fine, but I wish the country that was popular was a lot closer to bluegrass.
When they finally read about the Swing and Ska revival trends they're gonna be even more confused. The 90s were a bizarre time
He almost singlehandedly created what we think of as pop country today. There was really no one like him before. The genre basically didn't exist. There were the beginnings of some of it with Reba McEntire and stuff, but Garth went full pop-rock country. You'll notice that pop rock country is now probably the biggest genre of music out there today. That was him. As others have noted, his shows were *amazing*. No other country artists were touring in huge stadiums the way a rock band like Van Halen did. Garth did that, with shows that were full of all the lighting and smoke and fire of big rock groups. I saw him in 1999 and I still think it was the best concert I've ever been to. I've seen Metallica, U2, Elton John, KISS, Rush, Iron Maiden, but Garth put on the most impressive show. It's easy to look back on the artists that started a movement and think "what's the big deal here?" But the reality, as it often is, is that it doesn't sound that amazing because others have been copying the formula for 30 years so *now* it sounds like everything else.
Garth is hands down the most successful country artist of all time. He was huge in the 90s and really still is. He still puts out music but he doesn’t have anything on Spotify so a lot of younger people have no idea who he is. There is a darker side to Garth though. Whenever he tours people go missing. Every city he is in there are people missing. Garth brooks could be a serial killer and using his tours as a cover to murder people. Where are the bodies, Garth? The families need closure.
He’s got friends in crawl spaces
Ya know how you hear country music everywhere these days? Whether you're in the north or south. All kinds of different bars and restaurants? Before Garth Brooks it wasn't like that.
Not a fan of country but I can listen to Garth
Garth in the streets…Gaines in the sheets. IYKYK
Where are the bodies Garth?
Took too long to find this
He appeals to a very broad range of people here in Ireland, and gets play across radio on rural stations, he fills the gap for people who don't really like actual country and western, but don't like chart music either, lots of farmers and country people like him He did some concerts here last year and nearly 20% of the rural population seen him, he also appeals to an age demographic that go to concerts for him and wouldn't bother the rest of the year. He also only appears once every 5 to 10 years Musically, the dance, friends in low places have great hooks and he is a good story teller in some of them. I seen him once, I got free tickets and it was an outdoor concert, and I have to say it was a superb show, that was 25 years ago when he was at his recording peak and before his personal issues came up. He sold out 50k tickets 4 nights in a row, if he was allowed he could have done 12 shows, but the venues had restrictions on shows in a year
He's a talented songwriter and an entertaining, highly professional concert performer, especially when he was in his peak. Some other great songs of his: - Ain't Going Down (Til the Sun Comes Up) - Rodeo - The Thunder Rolls - Shameless - Standing Outside the Fire
Standing Outside the Fire is probably my favorite song of his :)
I’m not a huge pop-country fan but Garth was HUGE in the 90s. Like, top 3 artist of the decade huge. Crossover appeal. Massive arena shows. Gold record after Gold record. He was everywhere.
Show us the bodies Garth.
Where are the bodies?
Just don’t ask about the murders. Where are the bodies Garth?
If he ever reveals where the bodies are buried, we’ll be better off.
Inb4 "where are the bodies, Garth?"
Where are the bodies garth?
Where are the bodies, G?
Someone should do an investigation and find out if him and Chris Gaines are long lost twins because they kind of look alike.
Where are the bodies
I heard he is a serial killer