Lost in You (8/7/99) #62 CW, #5 US, #70 UK, #9 AC. Gold single.
It Don’t Matter to the Sun (8/28/99) #24 CW
That’s the Way I Remember It (3/4/00) #26 AC
In the Life of Chris Gaines
Garth Brooks
Review:
“When his popularity reached a plateau in the late ‘90s, Garth Brooks knew it was time to try something new, deciding to become somebody new: Chris Gaines, a brooding, leather-clad rock star” (Erlewine). He then proceeded to release an album called Greatest Hits under the Chris Gaines moniker instead of Garth Brooks. Such a move was confusing, since no one had ever heard of any rock singer named Chris Gaines. The album was later retitled the more appropriate In the Life of Chris Gaines and was identified as being by Garth Brooks.
“When Brooks’ new persona and his album was revealed to the public, they were unforgiving – they didn’t think that he was playing a role, they simply though he’d lost his mind. Granted, the story behind Chris Gaines – both the invented biography and the reasons why Brooks decided to become Gaines – is more interesting than the record itself” (Erlewine).
Musicially, one might think Brooks would make an attempt to replicate “mainstream pop from the mid-‘80s through the end of the ‘90s, thereby sounding like a true ‘greatest hits’” (Erlewine), but instead the album sounds like “the state of adult pop at the close of the ‘90s…[such as the] acoustic balladry Babyface constructed for Eric Clapton's ‘Change the World,’ with little touches of Mellencamp rock, lite Prince funk, and Beatlesque pop-craft” (Erlewine).
“While the tunes might not have much flair, they’re all sturdy, whether it’s the silky ballad Lost in You, the self-conscious Beatles tribute Maybe, the folky It Don’t Matter to the Sun, or the Wallflowers-styled Unsigned Letter. Judged as Brooks’ first pop album, it's pretty good, and if it had been released that way, it likely would have been embraced by a wide audience. As it stands, it’s an album more fascinating for what it is than for the music itself” (Erlewine).
2 million
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2.5 million
