YMMV / Garth Brooks

• Award Snub:
  • Two Grammys, total. By comparison, Taylor Swift won four in 2010 alone.
  • Brooks believes that he was on the other side of this trope at one point, too, and that one of his awards came at the expense of more deserving musicians. In 1996, he famously refused to accept the American Music Award for Artist of the Year, stating in a backstage interview that he believed it should've gone to Hootie & the Blowfish instead.
  • On a similar note, he also tried to turn down induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2012, stating that Keith Whitley, Ricky Skaggs, and Randy Travis all deserved to be inducted before him.
• Awesome Music:
  • "The Thunder Rolls" is possibly the definitive "awesome" country song.
  • "Friends in Low Places" is the ultimate country drinking song.
  • "Two Piña Coladas" is the penultimate country drinking song.
• Covered Up: Lots of examples:
  • "The Dance" was originally recorded by its writer, Tony Arata.
  • "Friends in Low Places" was recorded by Mark Chesnutt around the same time as Garth's version (though Garth did do the demo, the last one he'd ever have to make). Chesnutt's version was relegated to a B-side, though.
  • "What She's Doing Now", although written by Garth, was originally cut by Crystal Gayle as "What He's Doing Now".
  • "Two of a Kind, Workin' on a Full House" is another song which was previously a single for one of its writers; Dennis Robbins in this case.
  • "Shameless" and "To Make You Feel My Love" were both semi-hits for Billy Joel first. The latter its itself a Bob Dylan cover.
  • "Callin' Baton Rouge" was first recorded by The Oak Ridge Boys in 1978 and then a minor hit for New Grass Revival. Garth managed to zig-zag this trope by having New Grass Revival play on his version.
  • Two of his duets with Trisha were originally recorded by other artists: "Squeeze Me In" by its writer, Delbert McClinton (Lee Roy Parnell also cut it before Garth got to it), and "Love Will Always Win" by Faith Hill.
  • Subverted with his cover of Aerosmith's "Fever", which he rewrote extensively to make it a song about a rodeo rider. Oh yeah, and the fact that his version of the song barely charted.
  • "The Thunder Rolls" was originally recorded by Tanya Tucker (although written by Garth); her version included a third verse that was not part of Garth's original final draft. It was added by Pat Alger at the insistence of Tanya's producer. Tanya then decided to leave it off of her album, and the added third verse was then cut out of Garth's studio release. Garth does sing the third verse live, though.
  • "Mom" was originally recorded by Bonnie Tyler.
• Funny Moments: Once stepped in last-minute at a benefit for Chris Stapleton. This happened:^note Yes, Trisha was awesome.
  Garth: I'm not gonna be a dumbass to try and sing a Chris Stapleton tune.
  Audience: [laughter]
  Garth: [points to his wife] She is.
  Audience: [much louder laughter]
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Garth is immensely popular in Ireland, to the point he sold out the country's biggest stadium, Croke Park for five nights in 2022!
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The video for "Standing Outside the Fire."
  • "Unanswered Prayers" which has the narrator thanking God for ignoring his requests to let him marry his high school sweetheart, because if he had he never would have met his current wife.
  • In 1996 he hosted an autograph session at the Fan Fair in Nashville, insisting he would keep signing for as long as fans showed up. It lasted for 23 hours.
  • This performance of "Love Will Always Win" with his wife Trisha Yearwood, complete with a Hollywood Kiss at the ending. The way they look at each other speaks volumes.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • A good example in "The Dance". That piano solo after his final lyrics (reprising the intro) can still give you goosebumps.
  • No matter where he is, as soon as he plays the first 4 notes of Friends In Low Places, the reaction from the audience can be measured on the Richter Scale.
  • Debuting at #1 on the country charts with "More Than a Memory".
  • The mere existence of the song "We Shall Be Free", especially the line "When we're free to love anyone we choose", being pushed as the first single off The Chase in 1992. Adding to the awesome is how hard Brooks fought to promote the song and its calls for greater tolerance, down to holding his national anthem performance hostage at the Super Bowl and threatening to pull out if it didn't get airplay.^note Even then, the resistance was such that it was his first single that didn't crack the Top 10 on the Billboard Country chart.
  • Finally getting his 20th #1 with "Ask Me How I Know" (and in the process giving singer-songwriter Mitch Rossell a major spotlight).
  • Performing "Amazing Grace" at Joe Biden's inauguration.^note Even better, it was (much, much) later revealed that he did it on three days' notice after another performer pulled out.
• Seasonal Rot: Critical consensus is that the quality of his output took a nosedive from Fresh Horses onward.
• Tear Jerker: There's a reason "The Dance" gets played at a lot of memorial services.
• Values Dissonance: "That Summer" has not aged well, in the wake of more social awareness about sexual assault. It's often pointed out that if the genders were switched, and the song was about an older man and a teenage girl, it probably wouldn't have been released.
  • And yet, "She's Tired of Boys" on Man Against Machine is about a young woman wanting an older man. The difference being that she seeks him out.
    • The difference is more that the girl in "She's Tired of Boys" is explicitly not underage, with a lyric about her being "full of college and pride." She's younger than the narrator, but not as young as "That Summer" continually insinuates the singer was when this happened—with lyrics like "teenage kid so far from home," "on the air there was a hunger even a boy can recognize," and the fact he told her was a virgin. None of those lyrics would go over well today, and wouldn't have when the song was released if the genders were swapped.
• Values Resonance:
  • "We Shall Be Free," to the point where present-day political demonstrations sometimes feature signs quoting its lyrics. In the U.S., the line "When we're free to love anyone we choose" has taken on new significance since the Obergefell Supreme Court decision upholding same-sex marriage, but keep in mind too that when the album The Chase was released, fewer than half of Americans (according to Gallup) supported interracial relationships.
  • "Love Will Always Win" has similar resonance for the LGBT+ community as well. Not incidentally, despite the generally conservative nature of country music as a whole, Brooks has openly supported gay marriage for decades, in part due to his half-sister and bandmate being a lesbian herself.

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