Garth Brooks - Classic or Dud?

"Yeehaw! I'm not going to do what you tell me!"

A special message for you all (if you were on his email list, I gather):

Hey everyone,
I so appreciate you trusting us with your email and I try not to abuse our direct connection with you. I have a couple of things I would like to make you aware of...first and foremost, our family lost our sister Betsy on Halloween night, 2013. Since then, we have flown the "B 13" on the guitar in her honor. We will fly it one last time on the two shows in Lexington this Halloween night. It has been an honor to fly her salute for the past year, she was and is loved by so many and she will forever be with us every time we take the stage.

Second, from family to the music...a friend of mine at GhostTunes asked if we would take a different look at sampling for this new record...he wanted to know if we would speak a little bit on each song as a snippet of the song was playing. Because he asked, we went into studio and tried it. We were all surprised to hear how cool it turned out. Because it was his idea and his ask, I felt it fair to keep this to GhostTunes. Because it is GhostTunes, Halloween seems like the perfect time. So, for 24 hours, starting at midnight Thursday night, October 30th and for the entire 24 hours of Halloween, 2014, a sneak-peek at the new album will be available...only you all know about it so no sweat if you don't get over there, I just thought you all should be the first to hear it if you wanted to. I really hope you like the new music.

All my love and gratitude...g

I'm still not sure what he's saying in that second paragraph. "Instead of a straight sample, here's me talking over it!"

I still think he should have called it "Ol' Pumpkinhead is Back."

I hope he reads his breakfast bowl recipe over every song

Since then, we have flown the "B 13" on the guitar in her honor

i wonder if someone's ever spotted that in the audience and assumed garth got into parkour

So I realize that this is from a year ago but I can't deal with this.

http://menbat.tumblr.com/post/132745236559/moragbong-this-video-of-garth-brooks

I decided to buy the Garth Brooks vinyl boxset on Amazon. I know what you're thinking, don't buy vinyl on Amazon, support your local retailer, blah blah blah. But this thing was 15 bucks, and it shipped for free. That's fucking crazy! Shipping this probably cost like $7-8 alone! And it's seven records and seven CDs!! If anything, I'm doing my part to bankrupt them! Plus, every album I actually want was delayed 6 months because they had to press a million copies of this stupid thing, so I might as well grab it while I'm waiting.

The thing is, I actually don't know anything about Garth Brooks!! I am sure I have heard his hits but country music is so in one ear and out the other for me. And so I'm listening to No Fences now, trying to figure out how the fuck this thing sold 18,000,000 copies in the US alone. It's some of the blandest shit I have ever heard in my life. The songs are fine, but not exactly great. Garth's voice is about as "generic country dude" as it gets. I actually managed to somehow memory hole "Friends in Low Places" because it's that fucking dumb. And yet this was the breakthrough album for the greatest selling solo artist of all time not named Elvis Presley. It's not like he was only popular for a minute like Lou Bega, he fucking dominated the charts for a solid decade after this. How am I supposed to explain this to my kids?

Credit where it's due, though...the pressing itself is really great!!

ok that's a funny story

oooh wait I think I get it now, it's that "Unanswered Prayers" song isn't it? must've soundtracked the wedding to every shithead guy who cheated endlessly on their first girlfriend

by the way I don't wanna make it sound like I'm down on Garth Brooks. he's one of the original "dudes rock" guys. everything he does is funny for reasons I can't really explain

Dude is doing crazy business this year. Just gargantuan shows. And is finally going to get to do the five nights in Ireland that he canceled back in '14. Still not streaming, though.

Am I the only one kinda blown away by this tour? He sold 86,000 tickets in both Boise and Lincoln, Nebraska. 140,000 in Minneapolis. 120,000 in Edmonton. The show in Baton Rouge registered on a seismograph.