Garth Brooks 1989 Album
Alexandrie Gallup
Garth Brooks is the debut studio album of American country music artist Garth Brooks, released on April 12, 1989, through Capitol Nashville. It was both a critical and chart success, peaking at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 2 on the Top Country Albums chart. The album has been certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments over ten million copies.
This album was released in April 1989, in the States. Definitely scared to death. I thought the album was very very innocent. And I gotta be truthful with you, every time I hear those songs off the radio or off the album itself, or even when we play them live. I really get that same kind of scared feeling, that I had, way back in 1988, and 1989. Whether you get the album or not, or whether you have the album or not. Thanks, for just, the interest. That first album is always a big one for any artist and I, without trying to sound egotistical, I'm very proud of my first one.[4]
This album contains Brooks' earliest hits, for instance his first ever single, "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)", which peaked at No. 8 on the Country Billboard Charts in 1989. It put the name of an independent cowboy singer, Chris LeDoux, into the mainstream due to the lyric "A worn out tape of Chris LeDoux" Two other strong starts include his first No. 1, "If Tomorrow Never Comes" and the Academy of Country Music's 1990 Song of the Year and Video of the Year, "The Dance" (another No. 1). It also features his first hit he wrote entirely in "Not Counting You", another top 10 success.
Punk rock cover artists Me First and the Gimme Gimmes released a version of "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)" as the first track on their October 2006 album Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Love Their Country.
Garth Brooks peaked at No. 13 on the US Billboard 200, and peaked at No. 2 on the Top Country Albums. In November 2006, it was certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of over ten million copies in the United States. To date, the album has shipped ten million copies in the US.
Garth was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and grew up in Yukon, Oklahoma, the son of Troyal Raymond Brooks, Jr., an oil company draftsman. His mom was a country singer in the 50's that appeared on the Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri. Garth grew up listening to some country but it was mostly rock music that filled his childhood days. He participated in weekly family talent shows where he learned to play guitar and banjo. In 1987, Brooks and his wife Sandy, moved to Nashville, and Brooks began making contacts in the music industry.
His first album came out in 1989. I was working as DJ at a nightclub, Guitars & Cadillacs in Kansas City. The one thing I remember about Garth was his sincerity. He was down to earth and made you feel like you'd know him forever.
There were two particular things I remember about the concert. Towards the end of the show he sent his band off stage and he sat on a stool with his guitar and started playing and singing Don McLean's "American Pie". The stage was dark except for the one spotlight on him, and everyone was singing along.
The second remembrance was after the show out by his tour bus. I remembered being introduced to Garth and we talked for a few minutes. After our conversation his tour manager wanted him to meet a few other people. Garth turned to me, and called me by name, saying he need to talk to some others but it was nice visiting with me. I was blown away that he had remembered me, by name, as there were so many others he had visited with that evening. It made a big impression with me, one I will never forget.
Now tickets for that particular show was $5.00. Of course back in the late 80's, ticket prices for a lot of your country concerts were around that five to ten dollar range. Such artists as Mark Chesnutt, Brooks and Dunn, Travis Tritt, The Kentucky Headhunters and Clint Black were just getting started in the business. It was more common in those days for new artists to play a concert schedule that included country nightclubs across the country.
They both had traditional, unremarkable first albums, then shifted gears. Brooks added touches of modern arena rock to his songs. There had been mild overlaps between rock and country since the former began (see also: Johnny Cash), but Brooks tapped into the high-gloss production and sounds of '80s smooth rock. It was huge. His second album, No Fences, spent 23 weeks at No. 1. His third album, Ropin' the Wind, was the first ever to enter both the pop and country Billboard charts at No. 1. Brooks proved that country's appeal could extend beyond its traditional audience, as his music videos became mainstays on VH1.
Brooks is known for humility, genuine or not. In interviews, he often sounds self-deprecatory, which makes him seem more approachable. "I'm just a guy who eats too much, is lazy, and loves to play music," Brooks told the Daily Beast. He is constantly trying to convince everyone that he is just a regular guy, regardless of the millions of albums he has sold and the amount of work that goes into playing 17-song sets night after night.
"I'm realistic about the fact that millions of people don't have time in their day to maintain a complex profile of who I am," Swift told Esquire in October. "They're busy with their work and their kids and their husband, or their boyfriend and their friends. They only have time to come up with about two or three adjectives to describe people in the public eye. And that's okay."
The image Swift has created, much like the one Brooks created in the early '90s, is meant to suggest normalcy and approachability, even though they are millionaire celebrities. But they painstakingly craft and preserve their images of being regular folks who just happened to become megastars. And fans love them for it.
Red, Swift's fourth album, sold 1.2 million copies in its first week. That was the biggest opening for an album in a decade. Speak Now, her third release, also sold 1 million copies in its first week. 1989 is expected to sell 800,000 copies, but Swift has the hype behind her to possibly open with 1 million in sales. This is in a year when albums sales are down by 14 percent and no one has sold 800,000 albums in a week since Beyonc's self-titled surprise release in 2013. For Swift, hitting a million sales so quickly has become a habit, which is amazing because only 18 albums have ever sold that many copies in their first week.
But Swift has been undergoing a Chris Gaines transition of her own. She has learned to dance (somewhat) and only pulls out the guitar for a few songs. She calls 1989 her first official pop album, but Swift's transition has been more subtle, and she didn't create an alter ego to do it. She made a slow, careful transition that made her evolution seem inevitable. For instance, her last release, Red, especially on songs like "22" and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," sounds like a pop album. Hell, it is a pop album. But Taylor didn't brand it that way, and so she was still welcomed into the country-music fold.
Thirty-five years ago today (April 12, 1989), neither Garth Brooks nor anyone else could have anticipated how much the music world was about to change. It was on that date that the singer released his self-titled debut album, marking the beginning of one of the most successful country music careers of all time.
"[I was] definitely scared to death," he acknowledges. "I thought the album was very, very innocent. And I gotta be truthful with you, every time I hear those songs off the radio or off the album itself, or even when we play them live, I really get that same kind of scared feeling that I had way back in 1988 and 1989."
The fourth and final single from Garth Brooks was "The Dance," which stayed at the top of the charts for three weeks and became one of the biggest singles of Brooks' career. The tune's accompanying video includes appearances by several people who perished while living the proverbial dream, including Martin Luther King Jr., Keith Whitley and the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
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