Garth Brooks - The Ultimate Hits Review
Posted by Mitch Michaels on 11.08.2007
Three discs and four new songs, but are they necessary?
My Story
When I heard the one-two punch of “The Dance” and “Friends In Low Places” on Country radio back in 1990, it blew my mind. It also completely changed country music and the whole world’s perception of the genre. Since he came on the scene, Garth Brooks has been one of my favorite singers. His live show is something every one should experience and his songs are some of the most unique and universal to ever play over the Country airwaves.
Yes, he’s been repackaged seemingly endlessly since his retirement in 2001, but I still feel compelled to pick up his releases. The Ultimate Hits is the first album since 2001 to boast honest-to-God newly recorded material. How will those cute stack up against the 30 landmark tunes they hold place beside?
His Story
Garth Brooks was raised outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma during the 60’s and 70’s. His mother was a former country music singer and his father worked in the oil fields. Brooks was a member of a very large family (one of six siblings) and music was a big part of their time together. Upon completing high school, Garth attended Oklahoma State University on an athletic scholarship for javelin throwing. He completed a degree in advertising there in 1984, which is when he would set out to establish a music career.
Brooks made a name for himself on the local circuit, playing country covers at the honk-tonks and clubs. In 1985, Brooks made his first trip to Nashville, but washed out quickly, returning to Oklahoma only a few days later. He continued to pursue his music career in his home area and earned money by working as a bouncer. It was while breaking up a fight between two women in a bar restroom that he met Sandy Mahl. The two were married in 1986 and, that year, Brooks returned to Nashville, determined to make a name for himself.
Brooks worked the clubs and as a demo singer for a while, before finally signing his first contract with Capitol Records in 1988. Garth Brooks arrived the next year, lead by the single “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)”, which Garth co-wrote. The single reached #8 on the Country charts, but it was the song’s successor, #1 Country hit “If Tomorrow Never Comes”, that propelled Garth to #2 and #13 on the Billboard 200. Two more singles would follow, including the memorable #1 Country hit “The Dance”. By the middle of 1990, Garth Brooks had been certified platinum.
You could say that Brooks came along during a revival period for country music. New artists like Clint Black, Alan Jackson and Travis Tritt were blazing a trail on the country airwaves with a mixture of traditional country and a dash of the contemporary. And while those other artists saw an even greater amount of success with their debuts, Garth Brooks was only getting warmed up. In August of 1990, Capitol released No Fences. Preceded by the undeniable #1 smash “Friends In Low Places”, No Fences would go on to produce a total of four country #1’s (“Friends..”, “Unanswered Prayers”, “The Thunder Rolls” and “Two Of A Kind, Workin’ On A Full House”) and spend and spend nearly the second half of 1990 and part of 1991 on the top of the Country album charts. No Fences also began to gain widespread national attention, reaching #3 on the Billboard 200. By the fall of 1991, the album had been certified 5x platinum, while Garth’s debut sold another million. A self-titled video was also released and certified double platinum that year.
With hype around Garth and country music as a whole reaching a fever pitch, Brooks delivered with his third album. Ropin’ The Wind was released in September of 1991, lead by the #3 Country hit “Rodeo”. Ropin’ The Wind would smash records, becoming the first album in history to debut at #1 on the Country charts and the Billboard 200. By the end of 1991, the record had been certified 5x platinum. Four more Top 5 Country hits followed, including the #1s “What She’s Doing Now”, “The River” and “Shameless”, a Billy Joel cover. With the release of Ropin’ The Wind, Garth’s live show also began gaining a deal of notoriety. A few months after the record hit stores, NBC aired “This Is Garth Brooks!”, the first of what would become several network specials for Brooks.
1992 would begin Garth’s long dominance of the music scene. By the time his fourth album reached stores in September of that year, Garth had already amassed a room full of awards and RIAA certifications. No Fences was certified 9x platinum, Ropin’ The Wind had moved over seven million copies and Garth Brooks reached the 4x platinum pinnacle. Along with the now 4x platinum Garth Brooks video, the VHS version of the first NBC special was also certified 4x platinum.
The Chase was released in fall of 1992, followed quickly by Beyond The Season, a holiday CD. The Chase became Garth’s second #1 on the Billboard 200, reaching a 5x platinum status in less than two months. Beyond The Season also enjoyed strong sales, reaching double platinum. The Chase spawned two more #1 Country hits (“Somewhere Other Than The Night” and “That Summer”), along with “Learning To Live Again”, which peaked at #2.
Garth’s back catalog continued to sale strong throughout 1993. No Fences was certified diamond, while Ropin’ The Wind trailed hotly at 9x platinum. Both Garth Brooks and This Is Garth Brooks! reached the five million mark.
By now, the formula seemed clear. Garth released his fifth album, In Pieces, in late summer of 1993. It debuted at #1 and spawned five Top 10 Country hits, including the #1s “Ain’t Going Down (‘Til The Sun Comes Up)”, “American Honky-Tonk Bar Association” and “Callin’ Baton Rouge”. In Pieces sold nearly five million copies in its first year, proving that, while Brooks may not ever again reach the pinnacle of his early success, he was still one of the most reliable hitmakers in all of music.
1994 would be the first year in half a decade that Garth would not release an album of new material, though he was still plenty busy. Aside from a massive world tour, Capitol released The Hits in time for Christmas of that year. The 18-track set, which was considered a limited edition because it was to be removed from stores at an unspecified date, debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts. By the time Garth’s sixth album hit stores the next year, The Hits was certified 8x platinum.
The year would be another amazing one for Garth’s back catalog, as well. No Fences was certified 13x platinum, Ropin’ The Wind reached 11x platinum, and The Chase and Garth Brooks reached six million in sales. Garth’s holiday record hit the triple platinum mark, as did The Garth Brooks Collection, a set of album cuts sold exclusively through McDonald’s.
Fresh Horses arrived in November of 1995. The album was led by the single “She’s Every Woman”, which reached #1 on the Country charts. Despite the hype and the two-year gap between albums, Fresh Horses debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts, missing the #1 mark for the first time since Brooks exploded in 1991. After six months, Fresh Horses was certified 4x platinum, which also made it Garth’s slowest selling album since his breakthrough. It didn’t help that the second single, a reworking of Aerosmith’s “The Fever”, was pulled from country radio. Still, Horses managed to score three more Top 10 country hits, including the #1 “The Beaches Of Cheyenne”.
Reeling from the relatively lackluster performance of Fresh Horses, Brooks began to plot ways to ensure his next album was a hit. A giant free concert in New York City’s Central Park was planned to promote the album, which was originally scheduled for release in summer of 1997. However, Garth postponed the album when a management shake-up at Capitol didn’t go to his liking. The Central Park concert went on without a new album, though, and shattered records for outdoor attendance.
Sevens finally hit shelves in November of 1997. It put Garth back on top of the Billboard 200, debuting at #1 and quickly moving over 5 million units. It produced five more Top 10 Country hits for Garth, including the #1s “Longneck Bottle” and “Two Piña Coladas”.
Following the success of Sevens, Garth began to both branch out and capitalize on his clout in the music industry. 1998 saw two important releases. Double Live, his first live album, hit stores in November of 1998. The album, which featured a new cover for every million copies printed, became Brooks’ seventh #1 album and to date has sold over 21 million copies, making it the fifth best selling record of all time. It also yielded a Top 10 Country hit in “It’s Your Song”. A few months earlier, Garth had released The Limited Series, a collection of his first six regular studio albums in one box set. Each album was bolstered by an unreleased track (including the #1 Bob Dylan cover “To Make You Feel My Love”) and, thanks to the new songs and a low price, The Limited Series also debuted at #1 on the charts. The title was derived from the fact that only two million copies of the box would be made. Not only that, but at the end of the box’s run, Garth’s first six studio albums would no longer be pressed.
In 1999, Garth became very interested areas other than country music. Aside from charity work (which was highlighted by a spring training stint with the San Diego Padres), Brooks became interested in film and was tapped to star in a movie called The Lamb. Brooks would play fictional rock star Chris Gaines in the film. In preparation for the roll, Brooks decided to actually BECOME Chris Gaines, going as far as to put out an album of Gaines’ “Greatest Hits”. Titled In...The Life Of Chris Gaines, the album debuted in September of 1999, reaching #2 on the charts. The first single, “Lost In You”, became Garth’s first hit on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching #5. A second single, “It Don’t Matter To The Sun”, was a moderate Country success.
In all, the Chris Gaines experiment was an embarrassment. Brooks’ pop/rock makeover confused his fanbase and “Chris Gaines” quickly became a pop culture punchline. Though the album reached a respectable double platinum, it wasn’t the hit Brooks had hoped for. Worse still, The Lamb was never produced, making the record all the more confusing. A second holiday album, Garth Brooks & The Magic Of Chritmas followed, but suffered from its own problems, as the public just wasn’t buying Garth as a pop standard crooner. Still, the album managed a platinum certification.
With the Chris Gaines experiment behind him and a divorce to his wife of nearly 15 years ahead of him, Garth realized that his days as a top drawing star may be on a downhill slope. He announced that 2000 would be his final active year of touring, culminating in his final album, which would hit stores in September of 2001. Brooks would then retire from the business and spend time with his family.
Scarecrow, Brooks’ final studio album, hit stores in November of 2001. Though sales were as strong as they had been for Brooks’ previous albums (Scarecrow debuted at #1 and shipped three million units in its first month), the album only managed to produce on Top 10 Country single, the #5 hit “Wrapped Up In You”.
Since the release of Scarecrow, Garth has remained fairly consistent on his promise of retirement, though his back catalog has continued to be tinkered with. In 2005, Brooks signed an exclusive deal with Wal*Mart that would allow the company to be the only place to buy Garth Brooks albums. Special Edition versions of Garth Brooks’ first six albums were put into print and, in November, the pair released a second Limited Series box set, which boxed Sevens, Scarecrow and Double Live, as well as a DVD and a disc of unreleased material called “The Lost Sessions”. A new song from the set, “Good Ride Cowboy”, reached #3 on the Country charts, making it Brooks’ biggest hit in seven years. The Lost Sessions was expanded and released on its own in early 2006.
Recently, Garth Brooks married for the second time, this time to fellow country star Trisha Yearwood, with whom he’s collaborated several times throughout his career. Last winter, he released his final offering under his Wal*Mart contract, a 5-disc DVD set called The Entertainer, which boasted several of his TV specials and a compilation of several music videos, a few of which had been unreleased.
To date, Garth Brooks has scored one gold single, one platinum album, two double platinum albums, three triple platinum albums, one 4x platinum video, one 5x platinum album, one 5x platinum video, one 7x platinum album, one 8x platinum album, one 9x platinum album, three diamond albums, one 14x platinum album, one 17x platinum album and one 21x platinum album. Three of his albums are listed in the Top 30 best selling albums of all-time.
With his Wal*Mart deal finished, Garth announced in the summer of 2007 that he would be releasing a new hits album under his own Pearl Records. The 2-disc set would feature hits spanning his entire career, as well as a handful of newly recorded cuts. The lead single, “More Than A Memory”, became the first single to debut at #1 on the Country charts. To promote the album, Brooks is scheduled to play nine sellout shows in Kansas City next month. The 160,000 open tickets sold in under two hours.
The Album
On November 6, 2007, Pearl Records released The Ultimate Hits, a compilation album by Garth Brooks covering his entire career and his first for the label. It is also Brooks’ first release since his exclusive deal with Wal*Mart expired. The album is available on standard CD as well as a “pink edition”, which includes a limited edition cover. Proceeds from sales of the “pink edition” will benefit Susan G. Comen for the Cure Foundation. The CD includes the bonus track “Leave A Light On”. It is also packaged with a DVD, which includes video clips for each of the 33 songs.
The Band: 8.5
Garth Brooks: vocals
A lot of people attribute Garth Brooks’ massive success to his ability to mix traditional country and soft rock singer/songwriter tunes with an impressive 70’s rock arena live show. And while that’s true to an extent, the main reason people buy Garth Brooks albums is because there’s almost always something for everyone. This is true for his array of singles, too, which are collected here. You have your trad-country honky-tonk sound, your acoustic accompanied James Taylor-esque numbers, your big rockers and your towering ballads. With a definitively country vocal delivery that refused to be chained to a straight country sound, Garth Brooks somehow became everything to everyone, and fought to remain that way by immersing himself in all of those different styles. The result was something wholly unique that never sounded contrived or forced.
Each of the 33 tracks on this set is accompanied by a crack set of studio musicians (many of them who played on all eight of Garth’s albums). While Garth’s live band, Stillwater, definitely brought an energy and a uniform feel to his live shows, Garth’s studio players brought a freshness that isn’t usually found in Nashville. On genre-defying songs like “Shameless”, I dare say that the players pioneered new grounds for traditional country instruments like the steel guitar.
The new tracks stand pretty well beside Brooks’ hits. Huey Lewis is the oddball guest star on the newly recorded “Workin’ For A Livin’”, but the duet works pretty well, especially when you factor in Huey’s harmonica playing. The duet goes well with the handful of other guest stars here, which include Garth’s wife Trisha Yearwood, country legend George Jones and country guitarist extraordinaire Steve Wariner. Yearwood shines most brightly, as she provides background vocals on many of the cuts, too.
People look at Garth Brooks as responsible for the current crop of contemporary country artists who, for all intents and purposes, aren’t really that country. What people don’t seem to notice is that, while they me be a natural evolution of the sound Garth Brooks introduced to country music, they’re lacking the passion that Garth had, and that’s what shines through most here.
The Songs: 10.0
Disc One:
1. Ain’t Going Down (‘Til The Sun Comes Up)
2. Friends In Low Places
3. Shameless
4. Two Of A Kind, Workin’ On A Full House
5. The Beaches Of Cheyenne
6. If Tomorrow Never Comes
7. Papa Loved Mama
8. More Than A Memory
9. Good Ride Cowboy
10. In Another’s Eyes (with Trisha Yearwood)
11. The Fever
12. Midnight Sun
13. Learning To Live Again
14. Longneck Bottle (feat. Steve Wariner)
15. To Make You Feel My Love
16. We Shall Be Free
17. The Dance
Disc Two:
1. Callin’ Baton Rouge
2. Two Piña Coladas
3. The Thunder Rolls
4. That Summer
5. The River
6. Beer Run (with George Jones)
7. Unanswered Prayers
8. Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)
9. Workin’ For A Livin’ (with Huey Lewis)
10. What She’s Doing Now
11. When You Come Back To Me Again (from Frequency)
12. Standing Outside The Fire
13. American Honky-Tonk Bar Association
14. The Change
15. Rodeo
16. Wrapped Up In You
What can you say about a Garth Brooks song? The man has made a career out of writing or selecting tracks that, lyrically or musically, would be considered outside of the Nashville norm. He’s got rock song covers (Aerosmith’s “The Fever”, Bob Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love”, Billy Joel’s “Shameless”), he’s got rather upbeat songs about death (“Papa Loved Mama”, “The Beaches Of Cheyenne”, “Good Ride Cowboy”), he’s got major social commentary (“We Shall Be Free”, “The Change”), he’s got abstract uplifting ballads (“Standing Outside The Fire”, “The Dance”) and he’s got straight up country baby makin’ (“Two Of A Kind”, “That Summer”). And that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface (barroom singalongs, love and heartache tunes, rodeo numbers, etc.). I dare say that no one in country music has lyrical content as varied as Garth Brooks.
To that end, Garth Brooks is most definitely at his commercial best on The Ultimate Hits. Sure, he has his share of album tracks that also deserve praise, but the radio hits don’t get stronger then these 30 cuts. As a fan, I can’t help but see some glaring omissions, though. For instance, there are nearly a dozen strong Top 10 hits missing from the set, including three each from Fresh Horses and Sevens. Does Garth hate his late-90’s material that much, or is this just another shrewd marketing ploy to direct sales towards his later albums? When Garth is involved, you can never be sure. Still, as much as I’d like to see songs like “Somewhere Other Than The Night”, “She’s Every Woman” and “That Ol’ Wind” get their due (not to mention “Wild Horses”, which strangely went Top 10 in 2001, despite being released in 1990), you can’t argue with what IS included here. It’s classic country music and, more or less, the best of what you’d hear on Country radio in the 90’s.
As for the new cuts, I’m of two minds. The Huey Lewis cover is just plain fun, as is the honky-tonk tune “Midnight Sun” (which desperately tries for the “Friends In Low Places” nostalgia card), but neither have that EPIC feel that new Garth Brooks material should have, especially given the time since his last album. “More Than A Memory” is a great ballad, but once again, love lost just doesn’t seem to be the right kind of cut to reintroduce GB to the post-millennium music-buying public. While all the new songs are good, they left me wanting more. Maybe that’s the point, though.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the bonus DVD, which contains a video for each cut on the set. Turns out, it’s just Garth’s regular crop of music videos augmented by live performances, most of which can be found on the Entertainer DVD set that Wal*Mart put out last year. Still, since I’m the kind of person who cares about such things, I’ll tell you where all the cuts come from:
Promo Videos: If Tomorrow Never Comes, The Dance, The Thunder Rolls, We Shall Be Free, Learning To Live Again (NEW), Standing Outside The Fire, Ain’t Going Down (‘Til The Sun Comes Up), Callin’ Baton Rouge, To Make You Feel My Love, The Change, In Another’s Eyes, Wrapped Up In You, When You Come Back To Me Again, Good Ride Cowboy, More Than A Memory (NEW), Workin’ For A Livin’ (NEW), Midnight Sun (NEW) Austin City Limits, 1990: Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old) This Is Garth Brooks: Shameless, What She’s Doing Now This Is Garth Brooks, Too: American Honky-Tonk Bar Association Garth Live In Central Park: Friends In Low Places, Unanswered Prayers, Rodeo, The Fever Ireland And Back: The River VH1 Special from late 90’s: Two Piña Coladas, Longneck Bottle (sorry, can’t find the name of this special, though I believe it was used to promote the Chris Gaines project) Coast To Coast Live – Norfolk: Papa Loved Mama, The Beaches Of Cheyenne Coast To Coast Live – Los Angeles: Two Of A Kind, Workin’ On A Full House, That Summer Country Music Association Awards, 2001: Beer Run
And there you go!
The 411: Garth Brooks’ Ultimate Hits are exactly as advertised. While some legendary artists coast on their early material, this set proves that Garth stayed as strong on the radio throughout his career as he did on the album charts. There’s no drop-off in quality on the late-90’s or newer material and the brand new cuts are solid, if not quite as epic as you’d expect. The DVD is a little disappointing, but it does contain a few previously unavailable performances, so hardcore fans won’t mind. Plus, the promo videos for the new songs are very good. Seeing as how The Hits is both out of print and outdated, Ultimate Hits is the new essential Garth Brooks collection. If this set doesn’t at least bring back some good memories of the big country boom years, you just suck.
