Halloween Special #1: It's Dress Up Time

Truth to be told: I don't really celebrate Halloween. It's not in my cultural background, we never did it when I grew up, and I'm not going to start now as a middle-aged adult just because this 'holiday' has seemingly reached every corner of the globe in the last decades. But hey, it gives me a good excuse to post something about musicians "getting in costume" and impersonating someone else. Literally. 

Another shameful (?) admission: For a long time, I was a Garth Brooks fan. When I was a teenager, the media really tried to push Brooks for European audiences, through a variety of "documentaries" which essentially were barely veiled infomercials. But it worked! The stadium rock antics, zipline entrances, relatively interesting music videos and increasingly bombastic music. Having already inherited a love for country music, or more precisely classic country rock from my dad from a young age, Garth Brooks was not only a way to differentiate "my" country music from his (though you can see on these very pages that his type of country music came back with a vengeance), it also kept me with at least three toes in the mainstream, though Brooks wasn't a mainstream artist in my neck of the woods at the time. All of this was enough to see him in concert (despite, at the time, barely knowing his song book) and then, step by step, aquire his records.

Looking back at Brooks' discography now, it's much easier to see what a crass, almost cynical exercise it was. The fact that Brooks has a university degree in marketing seems to have seeped into every one of his steps once established as a major artist. The strict limit to ten tracks per album - no more, no less - , the almost mathematical construction of said albums with the required amount of ballads, stadium anthems and country humor songs, and - worst of all - the way Brooks imbued these songs with one of his many voices: There was wistful Garth, stadium Garth and the absolute worse, "humorous" hayseed Garth and his insufferable "I'm just a country boy, y'all" shtick.

Having said that, a bunch of the songs do hold up. One can't say that Brooks didn't know what he was doing. Robert Christgau said it about the Eagles, but it's also true for the Brookster: Brilliant stuff, but false.  

Some cheesecake for those who mentally dropped out when the words "Garth" and "Brooks" were mentioned

Which brings us to the album of the day, which is false stuff, but not brilliant. It's pretty good, though. It's also not Garth Brooks. He is notoriously dedicated to protecting his music and its physical representation by all means necessary. You might not remember it, but Brooks' record company actually sued the inventors of the Mp3 technology because people could possibly steal Brooks' music with it. He has his minions scrub the internet and especially places like Youtube clean of his songs. And until very recently, there was no way to stream his music, until he signed a deal with Amazon. He still isn't on Spotify, though. Which means that people hungry to hear the hits from the good ol' days on there have to find alternatives. 

And one such alternative is Mr. Brandon Garth. A dead ringer for Brooks' voice, he has now recorded three albums of Brooks covers under the very unimaginative title The Best of Brooks. Dude! Really? Garth Sings Garth was, like, right there, man! Thankfully, here at One Buck Records, we have rectified that oversight, as this is the title for the attached 15 song sampler which presents the best of The Best Of Brooks Vol. 1-3 of Brandon Garth dressing up as Garth Brooks. It's a pretty good costume, too. The arrangements sound almost exactly like the originals, as does Garth' voice, but only almost, with just enough whiffs of difference and variation. Instrumentation is tasteful and well-done, which means that while this is karaoke, it is high level karaoke (Some of the "In the Style of Garth Brooks" samplers for the CD rack of your local trucker rest stop are essentially a studio musician and his keyboard, truly horrendous stuff). 

This compilation also focuses on his lesser known hit songs, rather than the true heavy hitters, because those really can't quite shake the karaoke stink, since Brooks (Garth, not Brandon!) is so associated with them. These aren't deep cuts exactly, obviously, otherwise Garth (Brandon, not Brooks!) wouldn't have recorded them, but they are slighly less known maybe than "The Thunder Rolls" or "Friends In Low Places". And that aforementioned "putting on voices"-thing that bugs some of Garth' (Brooks, not Brandon) work? He tries, but Garth (Brandon, not Brooks) doesn't quite get to the garish "here's this voice, so you know how to feel"-level of some of the other Garth's stuff. So, yeah, in some strange ways, these copies are maybe more enjoyable than the originals. They are definitely worth a spin, dear reader, so get into a different kind of Halloween spirit with Garth singing Garth...