This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
I have to confess, I have been dying to get my hands on this album for weeks.
No, I’m not a closet Garth Brooks fan. I didn’t buy seven copies of his last live album just to get all the different covers. In fact, like more and more people these days, I’m kinda disgusted by Garth’s endless, greedy financial manipulation of his blindly faithful audience and his vain obsession with possessing every sales and chart-position record ever conceived — even if it means cooking the books. (Example: He pre-sold his last CD at WalMart for weeks before its release, then claimed all the pre-orders as first-day sales so he could beat a record held by Pearl Jam.)
Simply put, I see Brooks as one of the biggest megalomaniacs in the music biz right now (which, need I say, is no small feat). So the reason I have been rubbing my hands in glee and giggling like a schoolgirl for weeks is that there’s nothing more fun for a critic than watching a pompous ass — particulaly the prima donna of Ropin’ The Wind — finally buy enough rope to hang himself. Because that’s precisely what Brooks has done with his laughable, ludicrous and just plain lame album In The Life Of Chris Gaines, his misguided and ill-fated quest to cross over from country to the pop market.
For most artists, it would be simple: Write some pop songs, release them and hope for the best. But not Garth. No, he has to do things in a big way. Why? Because Garth does not know the meaning of words like understatement and restraint. So everything Garth does has to be the biggest and most ambitious and most over-the-top thing anyone ever imagined — and what Garth wants, Garth gets. So to go with his new sound, he’s created a new persona: Pop singer Chris Gaines. And he hasn’t stopped there. The disc — a faux greatest-hits set — includes Gaines’ bio (He is Australian, his parents were Olympic swimmers, etc.) and Spinal Tap-worthy cover art from his albums. To complete the illusion, Brooks has even grown a silly soul patch and donned a pretty-boy glam wig. It would be funny — the first time I saw his video, I thought it was Ben Stiller doing a parody — if it wasn’t all so pathetic.
The saddest thing of all is that the music is just as calculated. In The Life has a clutch of teen soul-pop ballads, some vaguely funky grooves, a couple of Tom Petty-like roots-rockers, a Shawn Mullins-style folk-rap, some XTCish orch-pop and even some R&B-based guitar rock — in other words, pretty much every possible pop permutation. You can practically see the marketing plan now; release them all as singles and one is bound to be a hit. (There are also a couple of country songs, which you can bet will be rushed-released to Brooks’ traditional fan base if this disc tanks in the pop world.)
Ultimately, all this premeditation is the biggest problem here. Clearly for Brooks, it isn’t just about making music anymore. It’s about chart positions, sales figures, awards, achievements and accolades. So once again, he’s trying to stuff the ballot box. And as usual, it’ll probably work. His indiscriminate fans will shell out for this silly ego-massage. If by some chance they don’t, no matter — the record company will just invent some bullshit award like Best One-Day Sales Of A Pop Album By A Fictional Singer From A Solo Male Country Artist Wearing A Wig to appease him.
Thankfully, no matter how many thums he tries to force onto the scales, I’m pretty sure Garth’s all of pop dreams won’t come true. For instance, he says the album is also the soundtrack for a yet-to-be-made film called The Lamb. I’m willing to bet that you expect to see that in theatres about the same time as another long-awaited music movie — KISS’s The Elder.
