★★★★★
Of four all-covers discs in Garth Brooks' Walmart-exclusive box set, Blue Eyed Soul feels emotionally rich, Classic Rock rather overbearing, softer-rock Melting Pot a bit sappy. These all focus on songs everybody knows and nobody hates. But Country Classics, oddly enough, comes off less obvious and reverent. It moves quickest, too, partly because so many selections - from George Jones' early boogie-woogie to Jerry Reed's bayou funk - have R&B in them...
- www.rollingstone.com
2014-01-04
★★★★★
"Country Conquers Rock," proclaimed the cover of the moolah-minded Forbes in March 1992. At the time, that statement didn't seem as absurd as it may now. The year before, the SoundScan system of electronically tallying record sales had kicked in, accurately reflecting for the first time what type of records people actually bought (as opposed to the old system, which was based on record-company hype and imprecise figures)...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
By its very nature, country music is formulaic ? which, actually, isone of the best things about it. On any given album, you expect asong about raising hell, another about a back-street love affair, oneabout family nostalgia. You know the exact moment when the pedalsteel guitar or fiddle solo will enter or when the singer's voicewill dip into a weathered ache...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
Who's that hiding behind Garth Brooks' beard on the cover ofBeyond the Season? Is it Billy Joel, the likely inspirationfor Brooks' kitschy lounge-act mutilation of "Go Tell It on theMountain"? Is it George Strait, who might have come up with Brooks'jazz-swing version of "White Christmas" ? Or is it Buck Owens, whosedistinctive phrasing and vocal inflections Brooks copies down to thelast nuance on "Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy"...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
On his second album, No Fences, country's hottest new "hat act" continues to display a wide streak of individuality. Garth Brooks offers the same mix asany other traditional country performer ? ballads, honky-tonk, and the occasional kick-'em-up rhythm tune ? but he usually finds off-the-wall ingredients to put in it, such as "The Thunder Rolls," a cheatin' song cast in a Gothic mold...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
Uh-oh-sounds like ol' Garth is starting to believe his hype.Brooks commences his third album, Ropin' the Wind, with the vainglorious "Against the Grain": "Folks call mea maverick I ain't no hypocrite/What you see is what you get..." "Get"is pronounced "git" to rhyme with "hypocrite," and what we git is acarefully crafted but disturbingly self-satisfied record from themost popular performer in current country music...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
Garth Brooks may sport a cowboy hat, but to call him a countrytraditionalist nowadays is as misleading as merely labeling BillClinton the governor of Arkansas. With The Chase, his fifthalbum (counting an almost simultaneously released Christmas record),the 30-year-old Brooks not only widens the narrow boundaries ofcountry music subject matter but challenges country's conservativevalues, catapulting the often reactionary and lyrically antiquatedgenre square into the confrontational '90s...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
On his first trip to Nashville, in 1985, Garth Brooks, then ayear out of Oklahoma State University, wangled an appointmentwith an ASCAP executive who welcomed the greenhorn by tellinghim how tough it was for even established songwriters to survivein the country-music capital. In the middle of this realitycheck, just such a songwriter turned up and apologized to theexec for his inability to pay off a $500 loan. "Jeez," said an astonished Brooks, "I make that back home...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
★★★★★
On Fresh Horses (Capitol), Garth Brooks' first studio album intwo years, the superstar veers between traditional country and'70s pop-rock like a sailor tossed from starboard to stern.Sometimes he even does it in the same song. He recastsAerosmith's "The Fever" with the Western lyric of a rodeo rider.The song, an example of what Brooks calls "garage country," isspurred to breakneck speed by hard-churning electric guitars andwhat sounds like a barn-dance fiddle on acid...
- ew.com
2010-08-27
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