Skip to main content

Unanswered Prayers

Dear Garth Brooks,
There was a time when you were one of the biggest entertainers in the world. Not just in country music, but you were an icon. Your name was up there on the pop charts with Yanni, Michael Jackson, Nirvana, and Celine Dion. It was all because you had that incredible run of chart-topping albums and singles starting back in 1989.

As a weekly reader of the Billboard charts when I was a teenager, I was very aware of this throughout the 1990s. And I was also aware of your music even though my ears were more attuned to Nirvana, Metallica, and Green Day. Whether it was a Boy Scout trip or a family trip, I heard "Friends in Low Places," "The Dance," "The Thunder Rolls," and "Rodeo" many, many times. I even played along on one Boy Scout trip and sang along with "Friends in Low Places." Most other times I scowled, moaned, and ultimately, put up with hearing your music on endless roads.

I never hated you, but your music was overplayed. That's not your fault. I blame the record label, the radio stations, and CMT. My sister couldn't get enough of your music. Nor could the rest of the country.

Alas, this is all a memory because your career seems to be a footnote in modern day.

Signing that exclusive deal with Walmart made you a lot of money, but that deal has ultimately turned into an extremely limited and divisive issue for consumers. Walmarts I've been to in the past couple of years have a row (yes, one row) devoted to CDs, and I rarely see your CDs or box sets. (And, as of this writing, your CDs are out of stock on Walmart.com.) Your music is not available in any digital music store. Even worse, your music isn't even officially on YouTube (though that great cover of "Hard Luck Woman" with KISS is still around). And it's not available on Spotify either.

What gives, Garth? Do you want to really go the route of Chris Gaines and disappear? You've had a great run of shows in Las Vegas, but your audience was so much bigger than one town. You've seen your daughters grow up. You've had a great married life with Trisha.

But come on, I want you to be relevant to the generation that's growing up quickly these days. You know, the ones you have mastered computers by age five, send texts and never make phone calls, and like Red Dirt Country. I'm more than happy to introduce my nieces (hell, even my own children to give them a bit of a musical history lesson) to your music someday. You just need to make your material more widely available.

If we've learned anything from the Internet age, people like a lot of choices instead of one choice. So, come back into that spotlight, Garth. There's still some space for you.

Best,

-Eric

Comments

Anthony Hopper said…
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on one's view), the music industry seems to favor especially high turnover in artists. They are a hit one day and an also-ran the next.

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Hello, Control

I'm still a big fan of iTunes . I haven't tried Napster , Urge or eMusic as I've been perfectly happy with Apple's program ever since I downloaded it two years ago. However, an annoying new feature has come up with its latest version, 7.0. Whenever you pull up your music library, a sidebar taking up 3/4ths of the screen appears plugging the iTunes Music Store. Why is this an annoyance? Well, first and foremost, since you can't close the sidebar, you can't escape it. I believe a music library is a private collection, a spot away from the music store. So what's the need for constant advertisements and plugs? To provide a better visual, let me describe what I see whenever I pull up a song in my iTunes library. When I listen to "This is a Fire Door Never Leave Open" by the Weakerthans, I see a graphic for Left and Leaving , the album that it comes from (and available in the iTunes Music Store), along with a list of the Weakerthans' other albums,

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J