History Music / GarthBrooks

* SmallTownBoredom: "Nobody Gets Off in This Town" is about how boring a small unspecified rural town can get:
-->Now let me see if I can set the scene\\
It's a one-dog town and he's old and mean\\
There's one stop light but it's always green\\
Nobody gets off in this town...

* ''Garth Brooks'' (1989)

* ''No Fences'' (1990)

In 2021, he performed "America the Beautiful" at UsefulNotes/JoeBiden's inauguration.

-->>Now let me see if I can set the scene\\

%%* TheCityVsTheCountry: "Alabama Clay" is Garth's biggest example of this trope.

%%** Music/{{Aerosmith}}'s "The Fever". See RearrangeTheSong below.

%%* DistinctDoubleAlbum: ''Double Live'' is all three rolled into one.

%%* TheLadette: The subject of "That Girl Is a Cowboy".

%%** "Every Time That It Rains"

%%* ProtestSong: "We Shall Be Free" is a kinder, gentler type, but not without its controversy.

%%* RockstarSong: "The Old Stuff".

%%* SmallTownBoredom: "No One Gets Off in This Town".

* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Garth has admitted to being a triskaidekaphobic. ''Double Live'' has 13 songs on the first disc; to keep the last one from being number 13, the official track listing skips from 12 to 14, and "track 13" is just three seconds of applause between songs. ''Fun'' similarly skips track 13.
* ThisIsASong: Occurs twice in "Ask Me How I Know", which has the lyrics "Go on and shake your head and tell me that I'm wrong / Say, 'I'm just another fool and this is just another song'." and later on, "And you best put this song on repeat / Maybe then you won't end up like me"

* WhiteFlag: "White Flag" from ''In the Life of Chris Gaines''.

* TheCityVsTheCountry: "Alabama Clay" is Garth's biggest example of this trope.

** Music/{{Aerosmith}}'s "The Fever". See RearrangeTheSong below.

* DistinctDoubleAlbum / LiveAlbum / GreatestHitsAlbum: ''Double Live'' is all three rolled into one.

* TheLadette: The subject of "That Girl Is a Cowboy".

** "Every Time That It Rains"
** "Unanswered Prayers", also. Here the singer thanks God for not answering his prayer to give him his Old Flame, which would've prevented him from having his current wife.

* ProtestSong: "We Shall Be Free" is a kinder, gentler type, but not without its controversy.

* RockstarSong: "The Old Stuff".

* SerialEscalation: In 1991, "The Thunder Rolls" debuted at #19, making it the second-highest debut on the country charts. Fifteen years later, he would tie the record (which was set by Eddie Rabbitt's "Every Which Way but Loose") with the #18 debut of "Good Ride Cowboy." The next two years saw Keith Urban and Kenny Chesney debut singles at #17 and #16, respectively... and ''only one week'' after Kenny's debut, Garth's "More Than a Memory" '''''debuted at #1.'''''
** To put this in perspective: The country music singles charts at the time were tabulated entirely by airplay, not by physical sales or downloads like the all-genre Hot 100 and certain other charts. The nearly 120 stations surveyed by ''Billboard'' each had to play "More Than a Memory" an average of 30 to 35 times ''in one week.'' What's more, Garth was on an independent label at the time.

* ShoutOut: He name-drops singer/rodeo star Chris [=LeDoux=] in "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)". Although Chris was fairly obscure, he and Garth became closely associated, especially after Chris' death in 2005, which led to Garth's tribute song "Good Ride Cowboy".

* SmallTownBoredom: "No One Gets Off in This Town".

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar:
** "It's Midnight Cinderella" is very ''un''subtle with its DoubleEntendre. It also has the line "by the way he's walking, I can [[AssShove guess where your slipper's at]]."
** "Wrapped Up in You" is right there in the title. There was a Dr Pepper campaign based on it.

Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) was, quite simply, ''the'' voice of country music for the better part of TheNineties. In the entirety of the country genre, only the Music/{{Eagles}}, Music/KennyRogers, and Music/ElvisPresley have sold as many albums as Garth Brooks. His ''Ropin' The Wind'' was one of the first albums to be certified Diamond by the RIAA, and was the first country album ever to debut at #1...on the ''Billboard 200'' album chart that tracks ''all'' albums, not just country albums. (For reference, it held the spot between Music/{{Metallica}}'s Black Album and ''[[Music/UseYourIllusion Use Your Illusion II]]'' by Music/GunsNRoses.)

Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962, in Tulsa, Oklahoma) was, quite simply, ''the'' voice of country music for the better part of TheNineties. In the entirety of the country genre, only the Music/{{Eagles}}, Music/KennyRogers, and Music/ElvisPresley have sold as many albums as Garth Brooks. His ''Ropin' The Wind'' was one of the first albums to be certified Diamond by the RIAA, and was the first country album ever to debut at #1...on the ''Billboard 200'' album chart that tracks ''all'' albums, not just country albums. (For reference, it held the spot between Music/{{Metallica}}'s Black Album and ''[[Music/UseYourIllusion Use Your Illusion II]]'' by Music/GunsNRoses.)

* SelfDeprecation: Brooks has often joked about his weight, and once famously said that he thought he looked "like a thumb wearing a cowboy hat".

* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Garth has admitted to being a triskaidekaphobic. ''Double Live'' has 13 songs on the first disc; to keep the last one from being number 13, the official track listing skips from 12 to 14, and "track 13" is just three seconds of applause between songs.
** Judging by the song "8teen" on ''Gunslinger'', the number 18 appears to be Garth's lucky number.

* [[RockstarSong Country Star Song]]: "The Old Stuff".

* GhostStory: "The Beaches of Cheyenne", although WordOfGod is that it wasn't originally intended to be one. In fact, he claims it was supposed to be about a businessman dreaming of being a rodeo rider, but a bit of PronounTrouble changed its direction completely.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: Again, the Chris Gaines album. Even on that, there's an example in the last cut, "My Love Tells Me So", which is from the band that Chris [[BreakupBreakout breaks out]] from. Garth[=/=]Chris is ''not'' the lead singer on the track, though he does perform a spoken-word riff during the song's bridge.

* TerrorAtMakeOutPoint: "The Night Will Only Know" has two married people (as in [[YourCheatingHeart married to other people]]) witnessing a murder during their night of passion in the backseat. The murderer [[KarmaHoudini gets off scot-free]] because the lovers can't reveal what they know about the murder without also revealing their affair, resulting in the victim's death being ruled a suicide.

* YourCheatingHeart: Special mention to "The Night Will Only Know", where a couple each cheating on their spouses are trapped into silence, allowing a murderer to go free.
** Also "The Thunder Rolls," "Papa Loved Mama," and "Only the Night Will Know." Implied in "In Another's Eyes," a duet with Trisha Yearwood, which has some interesting RealitySubtext as Brooks and Yearwood were both married to others when it was recorded, only to later divorce and marry each other.

* LyricalColdOpen: "It's Midnight Cinderella"; "Longneck Bottle"; "Dive Bar"

Going into the 21st century, in the wake of his divorce from his first wife, he entered into semi-retirement in order to spend time with his daughters, intending to return to music full time in 2014 when his youngest turned 18. In 2006, he married fellow country singer Music/TrishaYearwood, who had been his opening act on his tours for years and done multiple duets with him (most notably "In Another's Eyes"), and whom he first began dating in 2000. During this semi-retirement, he would occasionally perform at special occasions and benefit concerts. From 2009 to 2014, he had a Las Vegas residency titled ''Garth at Wynn'', where he would periodically perform a couple of shows every few months at the Encore Theatre.

Although he wasn't the best singer of country songs, he may well have been the best showman country music ever had. With a half-dozen nationally televised concerts, including memorable ones in Texas Stadium (which installed two bridges to support his antics; the "Garth Bars" remained until the stadium was demolished), Central Park in New York, and Croke Park in Ireland.

Going into the 21st century, in the wake of his divorce from his first wife, he entered into semi-retirement in order to spend time with his daughters, intending to return to music full time in 2014 when his youngest turned 18. In 2006, he married fellow country singer Music/TrishaYearwood. During this semi-retirement, he would occasionally perform at special occasions and benefit concerts. From 2009 to 2014, he had a Las Vegas residency titled ''Garth at Wynn'', where he would periodically perform a couple of shows every few months at the Encore Theatre.

Brooks came out of retirement again in late 2013 for a concert in Las Vegas. The concert was included as part of a box set that also comprised four discs' worth of cover songs. He then announced a full comeback in 2014, with a studio album for Creator/RCARecords, ''Man Against Machine'', and a full tour with Yearwood as the opening act. The first single released from the album was "People Loving People". The album, Man Against Machine, was released in November 2014 and was certified Platinum in less than two months. In September 2016, he got his own channel on Sirius XM radio, which he kicked off with his first-ever concert at Nashville's historic Ryman Auditorium. Later that year came his next original album, ''Gunslinger'', from which "Ask Me How I Know" would eventually become his 20th Number 1 single on the country charts.

* AudienceParticipationSong: A big part of his success. Very present on ''Double Live''; the crowd sings along on nearly everything. Most notably on the version of "Friends in Low Places"; coming out of the second chorus, he vamps on the A chord while the audience cheers, then yells, "[[BigWhat WHAT?!?]]" before lampshading the presence of the song's "third verse" (which he's only ever done in concerts, and which at that point had no official recording). He then lampshades ''this'' trope by saying "I think the friends in low places should sing the third verse", which they do.

Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) was, quite simply, ''the'' voice of country music for the better part of TheNineties, born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In the entirety of the country genre, only the Music/{{Eagles}}, Music/KennyRogers, and Music/ElvisPresley have sold as many albums as Garth Brooks. His ''Ropin' The Wind'' was one of the first albums to be certified Diamond by the RIAA, and was the first country album ever to debut at #1...on the ''Billboard 200'' album chart that tracks ''all'' albums, not just country albums. (For reference, it held the spot between Music/{{Metallica}}'s Black Album and ''[[Music/UseYourIllusion Use Your Illusion II]]'' by Music/GunsNRoses.)

* OneMarioLimit: Zig-zagged. A singer whose real name was Douglas Jackson Brooks changed his name to Doug Stone to avoid confusion with Garth. ''[[Music/BrooksAndDunn Brooks]]'' [[Music/BrooksAndDunn & Dunn]], on the other hand...
** On the third hand, Garth is the more prominent name, and the only one that measures up is [[Film/WaynesWorld Mr. Algar]], who was created before Garth's rise to fame. And perhaps [[Series/GarthMarenghisDarkplace Mr. Merenghi]] in England. And perhaps a prominent former English footballer and football presenter whose name is just one letter away...

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: His first album was less focused and ("The Dance" notwithstanding) generally less rock- and pop-influenced. "Not Counting You" in particular sounds like it could've been cut by nearly anyone[[note]]Though it is one of only two songs in Garth's repertoire which he wrote by himself[[/note]].

Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) was, quite simply, ''the'' voice of country music for the better part of TheNineties. In the entirety of the country genre, only the Music/{{Eagles}}, Music/KennyRogers, and Music/ElvisPresley have sold as many albums as Garth Brooks. His ''Ropin' The Wind'' was one of the first albums to be certified Diamond by the RIAA, and was the first country album ever to debut at #1...on the ''Billboard 200'' album chart that tracks ''all'' albums, not just country albums. (For reference, it held the spot between Music/{{Metallica}}'s Black Album and ''[[Music/UseYourIllusion Use Your Illusion II]]'' by Music/GunsNRoses.)

* TheCoverChangesTheGender: Garth wrote "What He's Doing Now" for Crystal Gayle in 1990. He then recorded it himself as "What She's Doing Now" a few years later.
* TheCoverChangesTheMeaning: "Friends in Low Places." A fellow country singer and newcomer named Music/MarkChesnutt was the first to record this Dewayne Blackwell-Earl Bud Lee-penned song, and was intended to be about a man who wallows in despair on the night of his ex-girlfriend's wedding. Chesnutt's version – which actually hit the market a month ''after'' Brooks' ''No Fences'' album was released – is faithful to the original intent. Brooks (who actually recorded the demo in 1989) decided to make it a raucous kiss-off song where the guy goes out and parties and tells his ex, in essence, "screw you!" To say Brooks succeeded would be an understatement.

* CoverVersion: His version of Music/{{KISS}}' "Hard Luck Woman" on the ''Kiss My Ass'' album was performed with the band members themselves.

* GhostStory: "The Beaches of Cheyenne", although WordOfGod is that it wasn't originally intended to be one. In fact, he claims it was supposed to be about a businessman dreaming of being a rodeo rider, but a bit of PronounTrouble changed its direction completely

* LampshadedDoubleEntendre: From "Two Of A Kind, Workin' On A Full House": "We really fit together if you know what I'm talking about".

* ''Triple Live'' (2018)[[note]]initially released as download-only; physically released in 2019 as part of the ''Legacy'' box set[[/note]]
* ''Legacy'' (2019)[[note]]a box set, consisting of vinyl and CD versions of ''No Fences'', ''The Chase'', ''In Pieces'', ''Fresh Horses'', and ''Triple Live'', with each CD including a bonus track that had previously been available only in a collector's edition[[/note]]

* ''Fun'' (2019)

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: His first album was less focused and ("The Dance" notwithstanding) generally less rock- and pop-influenced. "Not Counting You" in particular sounds like it could've been cut by nearly anyone[[note]]Though it is one of only two songs in Garth's repertoire which he wrote by himself[[note]].