Songoftheday 12/5/21 - There's no more waiting holding out for love, you are my Godsend that I have been forever dreaming of...
"Lost In You" / "It Don't Matter To The Sun" - Garth Brooks as Chris Gaines
from the album The Life Of Chris Gaines (1999)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 6
Today's song comes from one of the all-time biggest stars in American music, Garth Brooks, who grew up in Oklahoma, where he started a country music career in local venues before moving to Nashville and getting signed by Capitol Records. Brooks released his self-titled debut album in 1989, with the lead single "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)", which climbed into the top ten on the country charts in the U.S. (#8) and Canada (#9). That was followed by the fatalistic ballad "If Tomorrow Never Comes", which went all the way to #1 for a week on Billboard magazine's Country Singles chart, then "Not Counting You", which did the same in Canada while stopping in the runner-up spot in America. Lastly, another epic ballad about death, "The Dance", spent three weeks at #1 in the U.S., and would eventually become a top-40 hit in the UK at #36 in 1995. The Garth Brooks album would rise to #2 on Billboard's Country Albums chart, and eventually get to #13 on the Billboard 200 all-genre sales tally, going on to sell over ten million copies.
In 1990, Brooks released his sophomore effort, No Fences, which truly was his big breakout record, selling 18 million records and in time spending a pair of weeks at #3 on the Billboard 200. All four of its singles went to #1 on the Country Singles charts in the U.S. and Canada: the comically raucous "Friends In Low Places", the spiritual lesson of "Unanswered Prayers", the funny family-style shuffle of "Two Of A Kind, Workin' On A Full House", and what may be his darkest, most ambitious piece, "The Thunder Rolls". At the 1991 Grammy Awards, "Friends In Low Places" was nominated for Best Male Country Vocal Performance, losing out to Vince Gill for his "When I Call Your Name". A year later, Garth's third record, Ropin' The Wind, set a milestone by being the first country music album to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200, going on to sell over 14 million copies. Five of its ten tracks made the Country Singles top ten, with three of them - an earnest cover of Billy Joel's "Shameless", the heartbreak ballad "What She's Doing Now", and the gentle parable "The River" - reaching #1. Brooks won his first Grammy in 1992 with the whole Ropin' The Wind record for Best Male Country Vocal, while "The Thunder Rolls" was up for Best Music Video, which went to R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" that year. "Shameless" also became Garth's first minor hit in England at #71.
With all this momentum, it was quite admirable for Brooks in 1992 to lead off his fourth album, The Chase, with the "Love is Love" anthem "We Shall Be Free", which was quickly adopted by the LGBTQ community (which Garth's sister and sometime band member Betsy Smittle was a part of). Something completely never discussed in Nashville finally found a place on the radio, and while there was some neanderthal resistance that made it be Garth's first single to miss the Country Singles top ten at #12, it was quite a feat than truly only a huge star like Garth could have successfully pulled off at the time, and hearing "when we're free to love anyone we choose" gave thousands of gay and lesbian youth hope. Nevertheless, The Chase also debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, and sold a respectable seven million. At the same time, Garth released a holiday album, Beyond The Season, which spent a week at #2. Also, two songs from The Chase, the adult romance ballad "Somewhere Other Than The Night" and the cougar story of "That Summer" both topped Billboard's Country radio list. The album was nominated for the same award Ropin' The Wind won, this time losing out to Vince Gill again for his "I Still Believe In You".
Garth returned in 1993 with In Pieces, which again topped the Billboard 200 and spun off five top ten country radio hits including two #1's in the frenetic "Ain't Goin' Down Til The Sun Comes Up" and the hokey "American Honky-Tonk Bar Association". Also, the double-sided single of "The Red Strokes" and "Ain't Goin' Down" was his biggest British hit at #13, while followup "Standing Outside The Fire" also made the British top-40 at #28. "Ain't Goin Down..." also was nominated for the Male Country Vocal Grammy, which Dwight Yoakam took home for "Ain't That Lonely Yet". During this time, Brooks' contributed a cover of "Hard Luck Woman" to a tribute album for the hard rock band KISS, and nearly made the top-40 of the pop airplay chart in 1994 at #45, while getting to #67 on the country radio list and #28 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format chart.
After a long world-wide tour and a greatest Hits set, Brooks' next studio album, Fresh Horses, arrived in 1995, and while it just missed the top of the main album chart at #2, it still spun off six successful singles with two #1's in "She's Every Woman" and "The Beaches Of Cheyenne". That was followed by Sevens, which did spend five weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 in 1997, sold over 10 million copies, and scored two #1 country radio hits with the trad-swing of "Longneck Bottle" and the beachy "Two Pina Coladas". ("She's Every Woman" also was a minor hit in the UK at #55). Sevens was up for the Grammy for Best Country Album, which went to the Dixie Chicks for their unstoppable Fly album. Always topping himself, Brooks released Double Live a year later, a two-disc concert collection that also topped the Billboard 200 for five weeks and ended up 21x platinum (each set counts as two for that). From that album, "It's Your Song" became Garth's first placing under his name on the Hot 100 at #62. Besides that, he appeared on the multi-artist "charity" record "Voices That Care" that just missed the pop top ten at #11 in the spring of 1991.
Now excepting that one-off charity hit, it was rather bewildering that Garth Brooks was by that time the biggest-selling artist of any genre in the music world at that time, but yet neither radio or the "pop" charts reflected a trace of that. Of course, not releasing anything in the way of cassette singles, which got a lot of country artists on the charts in the 90's, didn't help, but still, this guy sold bank. In 1998, Garth signaled a slight left turn by covering Bob Dylan's rock ballad "To Make You Feel My Love" for the Hope Floats movie, which topped the country radio chart for a week and was his first top ten success on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart at #8. He also guested on soon-to-be-second wife Trisha Yearwood's single "In Another's Eyes", which spent two weeks at #2 on the Country Singles chart, and won Garth his second (and so far last) Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration (it was also nominated for Best Country Song, but that went to Bob Carlisle for his treacly "Butterfly Kisses". Garth would eventually grab four more nominations for Country Collab, three with Yearwood and one with George Jones.
Perhaps the lack of mainstream radio recognition was an inspiration for Brooks to his most out there move yet. In 1999, the singer announced that he was making a movie about a fictional rock singer named Chris Gaines, in which he would star. The Lamb, as it was to be called, had him somehow as an Australian moody dark mop-haired guy (hey, wait, the proto-Keith Urban). Instead of waiting to film and release a film, though, Brooks went ahead and put out an entire album under the guise of Chris Gaines Greatest Hits (offiically as The Life Of Chris Gaines). He dressed himself in all black with a pitchblack wig that was supposed to make him look "goth" but the music that accompanied this did not correspond to it. In fact, it was more soft rock that country was naturally embracing anyway, if not for that persona. The lead single though, did cause a stir, in its surprise nature and availability as a CD single. "Lost In You" was written by Gordon Kennedy, Tommy Sims, and Wayne Kirkpatrick, the same team that wrote Eric Clapton's tepid "message" song "Change The World", and boy, does it sound close to it. But instead of Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds producing, it's Don Was (of Was (Not Was)), which it surprising for how soft and sterile it is. I mean, Garth is trying his best to sell it, using a falsetto that doesn't seem out of place, but it's a simple background love song in the end, and one that doesn't really give the "emo Aussie rocker" vibe Brooks meant for his character. Still, the fans (like me) bought it up, and in essence gave the superstar his sole top-40 crossover "pop" hit of his career (well, so far)...
The "B-Side" of the CD single was another song written by the same trio of Kennedy, Fitzpatrick, and Sims. "It Don't Matter To The Sun" was promoted to country radio, and did a bit better, climbing to #24 on Billboard's Country Singles list, which yes is also a big flop compared to his history, while it "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 at #113. Another cut from the album, "That's The Way I Remember It", got some airplay on Adult Contemporary radio, landing a t#26 on that chart.
It's very telling that Garth not only didn't go ahead with the Lamb movie, but he's basically erased this album from his work, letting it go out of print, and having none of the songs, including his biggest pop success "Lost In You" appear on any compilation. And in the age of streaming, even when Garth was one of the last big holdouts that still doesn't allow his music on Spotify or iTunes, and even blocks his stuff on YouTube, but on Amazon, the sole provider to sell his music on mp3, doesn't offer this album at all. That's shows was a complete misstep it was in Garth (and his record company's) minds, though I don't thing is was that much a disaster.
Well it didn't take too long for Garth to rebound, releasing a second holiday album, Garth Brooks and the Magic Of Christmas, just two months after the Chris Gaines project. While it went to #7 on the Billboard 200, it still sold over a million copies, not bad for a Christmas set, and it placed six of its tracks on Billboard's Country Airplay chart.
It would be a long two years for Brooks to re-emerge with another studio album, when Scarecrow came out in 2001. In the meantime, they ended up going back to the Sevens album for one more single, "Do What You Gotta Do", which went to #13 on the Country Radio chart and #69 on the Hot 100, which would normally be disappointing but after the Gaines affair was a respectable comeback. A contribution to the Dennis Quaid movie Frequency, "When You Come Back To Me Again", stopped at #21 on the Country singles chart and popped on to the Adult Contemporary radio list at #29 (his last time there so far). Also, a slighty remixed version of "Wild Horses", an album cut from his second album No Fences, returned Garth to the Country top ten at #7, while climbing to #50 on the Hot 100.
This slight momentum did carry over to the Scarecrow album, with lead single "Wrapped Up In You" rising to #5 on the Country Singles chart, and nearly making the Hot 100 top-40 at #46. The album spent a week at #1 on the Billboard 200, selling over five million copies. However, at the time, Brooks went on television saying that he was considering retiring from the music business. During the whole rest of the decade, the only things that were promoted were various tracks from his 2005 box set The Limited Series (a Walmart only release) that had three of his albums plus a bonus The Lost Sessions disc. I wasn't fond of this exclusive deal business, and apparently, neither was Billboard, who at the time normally kept those from the Billboard 200, and The Limited Series (not the same as the different box set from 1998 of the same name that did top the chart). And from that "Good Ride Cowboy" reached #3 on the pop chart, and #59 on the Hot 100, but you couldn't buy it anywhere but the big blue retail monster. Also, Brooks ended his stint on Capitol Record, and began to release music under his own label Pearl distributed by RCA (but in the case of the Limited Series 2/Lost Sessions, only at Walmart). In 2007, Brooks, in control of all his music now, released the double-disc The Ultimate Hits, thankfully not an exclusive, which went to #3 on the Billboard 200 and sold ten times platinum (5 million of the double set). It also had new track, one of which, "More Than A Memory", became Garth's first #1 hit in nine years in 2007, while getting to #53 on the Hot 100.
At the end of the decade in 2009, Garth suspended his "retirement" to start performing in Las Vegas at the Wynn hotel, in a wide-reaching concert set that covered a lot of his influences. From the residency, another box set emerged, the Walmart only (ugh) Blame It All On My Roots, a huge six-CD/one DVD collection which Billboard ended up changing their rules to allow exclusives on the list, and in doing so scored Brooks another #1 placing on the Billboard 200 in 2013. The following year, the singer came back with his first regular studio release in nine years, Man Against Machine, which climbed to #4 on the Billboard 200 and sold over a million copies. However by then radio wasn't so keen, probably aging him out of the market, with lead single "People Loving People" stalling down at #19 on the Country Singles chart, while "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #104.
After another exclusive box set, this time for Target stores on the ten-disc Ultimate Collection, which went to #6 on the Billboard 200 in 2017, as well as a third holiday disc, Christmas Together with Yearwood, which made it to #7 on that tally, Brooks released yet another studio album Gunslinger. From the set the second single "Ask Me How I Know" landed Garth his most recent #1 Country Singles hit for a week in 2017, while making it to #71 on the crossover Hot 100.
Garth released another concert set, Triple Live in 2019, which went to #113 on the Billboard 200 but still went four times platinum (based on the multiple discs). But his most recent released became yet another big mess. Back in 2018, Brooks announced his upcoming fourteenth studio album Fun. A first single, "All Day Long", was released, and it climbed to the frustrating #11 position that year. Over the next two year, various "singles" were released, with "Dive Bar" with Blake Shelton doing the best at #6 on the Country Singles chart and #78 on the Hot 100. A remake of Lady Gaga's "Shallow" with Trisha Yearwood even made the country list. But people like me who had pre-ordered the Fun set were left holding the bag as release date kept getting pushed back until it finally arrived with a whimper in the fall of 2020, not even reaching the top-40 on the Billboard 200 at #42. The fifth release from the set, "That's What Cowboys Do", stopped at #29 this past October.
(4/10)
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Since there's no live clips of Garth singing "Lost In You", here's David "Childish Gambino" Glover doing a respectable cover of the song...
Up tomorrow: The diva disses an ex all the way to the top.
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