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Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Friends in Low Places, Part 1
01:16:44
Today your Hit Parade marches to the week ending October 27th, 1990, when “Friends in Low Places” by Garth Brooks was in its fourth week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles and Tracks
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You're listening ad free on Amazon Music.
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Hey there Hit Parade listeners. As we recently announced, we are thrilled to be bringing our full length episodes back to non Slate plus listeners. Starting this fall, Non plus listeners will hear our episodes in two parts. What you're about to hear is part one of this episode. Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. It's just $35 for the first year and it supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go to slate.com hit parade plus you'll get to hear every Hit Parade episode in full the day it arrives. Plus Hit Parade the Bridge, our bonus episodes with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia. Once again to join, that's slate.com hitparadeplus thanks and now please enjoy part one of this hit Parade episode.
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This Ain't Coming from the Prophet welcome.
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To Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfi, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song number one series on today's Today's Show a couple of weeks after a divisive 2020 U.S. election, I thought I might play you a little something from the American culture wars of a generation ago. 28 years ago this week in November 1992, this gospel flavored country song titled We Shall Be Free was in the top 20 on Billboard's Hot Country Singles and Tracks chart. It was the lead single from the number one album in the country, and this song aimed to capture the mood of the times. The singer of this country song pledges allegiance to some very progressive issues. He espouses tolerance for both freedom of religion and gay equality. He decries racism, hunger and homelessness. He even gestures in the direction of condemning economic inequality. In 1992 and I know what some of you are thinking, this was a hit on country radio. Well, so this song was actually an underperformer for its singer and main songwriter. We Shall Be Free peaked at number 12 on the hot country chart in October 1992. That was low for this artist. The only time a lead single from one of his original studio albums fell short of the country top 10. Of course, the only way a song like We Shall Be Free could be any kind of country hit in 1992 was if it came from an absolute megastar, someone country radio had to play. In other words, the only man in country music who could get away with it was Garth Brooks. Brooks did not have trouble topping the charts in the 1990s. He was the best selling musician of that decade. Not just country music's bestseller, the bestseller period in any genre with total album sales in that decade of nearly 100 million, topping such 90s titans as Mariah Carey, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Tupac. Two decades later, Garth is up to 157 million in certifications, second only in America to the Beatles. And all this despite the fact that his hit songs, including literally all 18 of his 90s country chart toppers, didn't appear on Billboard's Hot 100 pop chart at all. This might sound like a conspiracy or evidence of urban blue state America thumbing its nose at red state America's favorite son, an Oklahoma native whose biggest hits were about honky tonks, cowboys and rodeos.
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Well, it ain't no woman flesh and blood it's that damned old road eagle well it's buzzing blood it's a dust.
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I mean, talk about two Americas. Brooks was the music megastar top 40 pop fans barely even knew. And yet on the charts, the truth was much more nuanced. Garth Brooks wasn't on the Hot 100 because Brooks wanted it that way. He was a savvy Billboard observer who understood how the charts worked and played the game to win. Moreover, Brooks came up in a Nashville that remembered the last time country music had tried to flirt with the pop charts. And how country pop then became a bull riding denim and rhinestones fad, even a punchline.
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Looking for nothing, all the wrong places, working for not.
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Garth Brooks would not let that happen to him. He was determined to dominate the hit parade while, as the country saying goes, dancin with the one that brung him. Brooks wanted to prove country music could have the flash and arena packing spectacle of rock.
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He's got a fever.
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Fever and the blockbuster sales of mainstream pop. While remaining unapologetically country. He fused a prior generation of adult contemporary balladry and even certain hard rock elements into songs that still had steel guitars, fiddles and the kind of yearning, high lonesome vocals that were a Nashville trademark.
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When it comes to loving you.
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The story of country music's explosion in the 90s was about a lot of things even beyond Garth Brooks. Some of it was about fads, Some was about country songs that could just as easily be pop songs.
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I swear by the moon and the stars in the sky.
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And some of it was about the country sound hybridizing with other genres and spreading around the world. But a good deal of country's newfound success had to do with with better information in the music business and better Billboard charts. The same forces that finally helped elevate hip hop. Would do all that and more for country music. And no one benefited more than the guy in the cowboy hat from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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The Thunder Rose and the Lightning Strike.
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Today on Hit Parade, we will trace the winding path that brought country music to the top of the charts, including the pop album chart, and made household names on a first name basis out of folks like Garth, Wynonna, Billy Ray, and even Shania. These megastars went multi platinum by applying pop professionalism to music that still had that twang. And the best navigator of this town and country approach was the guy who broke big while singing about his roots and his boots. And that's where your hit parade marches today. The week ended, ending October 27, 1990, when friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks was in its fourth week at number one on Billboard's hot country singles and tracks. It was the same week his album no Fences instantly went gold and platinum, affirming that he was country music's biggest star. Soon enough, Garth Brooks would become more than any rock star, rapper or pop diva, the archetypal artist of the Soundscan era. So swap your champagne for a whiskey with a beer chaser and join us as we go ropin the wind at our hit Parade rodeo. Hmm, is this one of my typical hit parade head fakes? Why am I playing this disco classic by the Bee Gees? Didn't I just say this was a country episode? Well, what are you picturing as I play this? Whom are you picturing? John Travolta. Right. Maybe strutting down 86th street in Brooklyn, New York in 1977 with a paint can in his hand. Travolta. Yes, John Travolta plays an unlikely but vital role in the story of country music's dance with the pop charts. The blockbuster movie that this Bee Gees song appeared in, Saturday Night Fever, is a kind of preamble to that country crossover moment. And we have to take a detour through the history of country crossover before we get back to Garth brooks and his 90s chart commanding country conquest. To be sure, country crossover dated back well before the 70s. Ever since so called hillbilly music was defined as a category in the 1920s, country performers, radio programmers and fans have pridefully policed the border of what is and isn't ain't country. But it was always complicated by the 1950s rock and roll, especially early rockabilly recorded by the likes of Elvis Presley, had country baked into it from the.
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Jump.
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On the Hot 100. In the late 50s and 60s, there were pop chart toppers by such country stars as Conway Twitty, Brenda Lee and Jimmy Dean. Big Bad John, Big John, Bobby Goldsboro, Jeannie C. Reilly, and even with a number two pop hit called A Boy Named Sue, Johnny Cash, Life ain't easy.
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For a boy named Sue.
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By the 70s, the border between polished Nashville country records and straight up pop was starting to blur. Songs like Lynn Anderson's number one country, number three pop smash Rose Garden in 1971 sounded like they weren't fully wedded to either format.
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I never promised you a rose garden.
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Along with the sunshine, easy listening singer songwriters like John Denver muddied the waters further. Denver was more pop sometimes, more country other times, and at his peak, he commanded both charts.
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Hey, it's good to be back home again.
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This led to controversy when in 1975, the country music Association's Entertainer of the Year award was presented to John Denver live on tv. The CMA prize was presented by the prior year's winner, Charlie Rich, who in a drunken, instantly infamous incident, opened the envelope, took out a lighter, and when he saw Denver's name, lit the slip of paper on fire.
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The winner, My friend, Mr. John Denver.
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This act of drunken Protestants against the perceived popification of country was, well, a bit rich coming from Charlie Rich, because he too was a hot 100 topping pop crossover star in the 70s.
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Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world?
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And Charlie Rich was in good company. Also working both sides of the street in the 70s were veteran guitarist turned country pop mega star Glen Campbell. And the moderately twangy singer songwriter BJ Thomas.
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Hey, another somebody done somebody wrong song.
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All of these were number one hits on both the Hot 100 and Hot country singles. The wall between pop and country was porous enough in the mid-70s that when British Australian singer Olivia Newton John broke in America, it was on the country chart first. In fact, in an awards show upset nearly as controversial as John Denver's CMA win. Newton John won the Grammy for best Female country vocal in 1974 over Tammy Wynette.
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If you love me, let me know. If you don't, then let me know.
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Which brings us back to the end of the seventies and John Travolta. Not only because Travolta, right after Saturday Night Fever, co starred with Olivia Newton John in the fifties nostalgia movie musical Grease. By the way, that film's soundtrack gave Newton John one final top 20 country hit. The old school slow dance hopelessly devoted to you before she went fully pop. John Travolta, on the other hand, went in the opposite direction. After Greece and Saturday Night Fever, he moved toward country. Not on record, but on the screen. And in the process, he was going to do for country what he did for disco. With Saturday Night Fever, bring it fully into the mainstream. Travolta dropped his Brooklyn accent for a southern accent and became Bud Davis in Urban Cowboy.
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I just want to tell you something. I'm hard headed and I'm prideful and I won't apologize clear back to when I hit you the first time. I love you, sissy.
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Released in the summer of 1980 and co starring Deborah Winger, Urban Cowboy was labeled the country Saturday Night Fever by more than one movie critic. The comparison was apt. And not just because both films starred Travolta. They were stories about blue collar strivers yearning to move to the big city who spent their nights peacocking at a buzzy nightclub. In the case of Urban Cowboy, that club was an actual real life sprawling honky tonk on the outskirts of Houston called Gillies, co owned by country hitmaker Mickey Gilly. The club was known not only for its country line dancing, but even more iconically, its mechanical bull Rid.
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She rides better than you do. That was a good ride, Bud. Now ride it.
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I don't want to ride it again. Ride it.
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Leave her alone, Bud. Back off, Jesse. Ride it.
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Here's why all of this matters. The mechanical bulls, the line dancing, the kitschy boots and Stetson hats. Urban Cowboy was more than a movie. It was a cultural happening. The film was only a moderate box office hit, taking in 47 million in 1980, about half of what Saturday Night Fever had grossed. But the musical impact of Urban Cowboy on country crossover is hard to overstate. Country music historians often mark the shift from the 70s into the 80s as the urban cowboy phenomenon. Honky tonks with mechanical bulls sprouted up in cities across America with designer jeans and cowboy boots as their dress code. As for the music, the urban cowboy soundtrack was itself a smash, reaching the top three on the pop album chart, going platinum and spawning a half dozen top 40 hits, from Johnny Lee's number five pop hit Lookin for Love to Mickey Gilley's twangy cover of Ben E. King's classic Stand by me, a number 22 Popiat. But what was more remarkable was the knock on effect Urban Cowboy had on country acts who had nothing to do with the movie. That's how you knew the phenomenon had legs. Eddie Rabbit, a songwriter who penned Kentucky Reign for Elvis Presley before becoming a recording star himself, scored a string of country number ones in the late 70s. But he'd only cracked the pop top 40 a couple of times before Urban Cowboy. After Urban Cowboy, Rabbit became a pop star too. He hit number five on the Hot 100 with Driving My Life Away. And then a few months after that, Eddie Rabbit topped the Hot 100 with I Love A Rainy Night. When Rabbit went to number one in February 1981, he was trading places with another pop chart topper by a country well, star is too mild a word for this American I. Dolly Parton had scored more than a dozen country number ones through the end of the 70s, but on the pop chart, most of her hits stalled below the top 10. Dolly picked the right moment to star in a movie and record her catchiest ever song as its title track. 9 to 5 probably would have been a hit without Urban Cowboy, but in early 1981, the urbane country song fit right in on pop radio and went all the way to the top of the Hot 100. And speaking of Urbain, you have gone.
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And made me such a fool.
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Kenny Rubber Rogers was a mostly country hitmaker who in the 70s only occasionally crossed to the pop charts. For example, his 1979 classic The Gambler topped the country chart, but only reached number 16 on the Hot 100. But in 1980, Kenny became America's biggest solo male singer. His Lionel Richie penned ballad lady topped both charts in the closing weeks of 1980, and his greatest hits LP topped the pop album chart and went platinum. It would eventually be certified for 12 million in sales. The songs crossing from country to pop in the wake of Urban Cowboy were in many cases more pop than country. Lady was essentially an R and B ballad. Indeed, it even made an appearance on Billboard's soul chart. And even the hits with a more obvious Southern accent, Like the Oak Ridge Boys cover of Dallas Fraser's Elvira had a kitschy pop sensibility. Elvira reached number five on the Hot 100 in the summer of 1981, sharing space in the top 10 with the even perkier Queen of Hearts by Juice Newton, an eventual number two pop hit. Basically, country pop was riding a wave and serving a function for radio programmers, these were palatable middle of the road hits. In the era of the disco backlash, many of these singles functioned as straight up adult contemporary pop. Whether it was Kenny Rogers number three ballad, I don't need you. Ronnie Millsap's borderline yacht rock no Getting Over Me, a number five pop hit.
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Sweet Darling, there ain't no getting Over Me.
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Or the iconic Willie Nelson with his biggest ever pop hit, the definitive Grammy winning cover of the country pop standard Always on My Mind. It was a number five hit for Nelson in 1982. From 1980-82, it seemed any country act able to record a crossover track and play down the twang could score a pop hit. Even country royalty Rosanne Cash, daughter of Johnny Cash, scored her only top 40 pop hit with the percolating 1981 single 7, year 8. But the country pop wave started to peter out by 1990. 1983. That was the year a couple of smash duets brought the urban cowboy era to a close. Eddie Rabbit's final pop crossover hit, you and I, a duet with country veteran Crystal gale, reached number seven on the Hot 100 in February of 80. And then, of course, there was Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's blockbuster version of a song I discussed in our Bee Gees episode of Hit Parade, the immortal Islands in the Stream. Written by Barry Robin and Morris Gibb, it topped the pop and country charts in the fall of 83.
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Islands in the street, that is what we are no one in between.
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Islands in the Stream may have seemed like country crossover at its apex, but it turned out to be a last hurrah. By 1984, pop struck back and the sound of Top 40 radio was much new, wavier, funkier and more synthetic, dominated by the likes of Duran Duran. And Bruce Springsteen, who fused heartland rock with mass appeal. Pop. Top 40 radio didn't really need country stars anymore. The rockers had the sound of Middle American authenticity covered. Whether it was John Mellencamp with hits like Pink Houses.
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Ain't that America, Something.
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To See Baby, or Lionel Richie. His Stuck on youn was a country ballad in R B clothing. It reached number three on the Hot 100, number eight on the R B chart, and even hit number 24 on the country chart. Meanwhile, actual country music recorded by country artists for country radio suddenly found itself unable to touch the upper reaches of the pop charts. Alabama, for example, one of the biggest bands of their era, went from consistently hitting the pop top 20 on both the album chart and the Hot 100 in the early 80s with LPs like the quadruple platinum Mountain Music. To missing the top 40 with their albums and missing the Hot 100 with their singles. Not unlike the severe disco backlash of 1980, when the music didn't really go away, but was no longer topping the charts. Country music by 84 and 85 entered a long wilderness period. It was as if pop listeners had overdosed on Nashville product and sent the entire genre packing. Mind you, for its core fans, country was as popular as ever and still minting new stars. But now country existed in its own world.
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Mama He's Crazy Crazy Over Me the.
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Judds, the mother daughter duo of Naomi and Wynonna Judd, broke in 19801984 with the country chart topper Mama, He's Crazy, their first of eight consecutive country number ones. In that world, the Judds were megastars. In the pop world, no Judds album could crack the top 50. The same went for the newly minted soon to be legendary George Strait.
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For worship.
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This song does Fort Worth ever cross your mind? Was Straight's sixth country number one out of a staggering 44 country number ones across his career, an all time chart record. But not only did Strait's 80s hits come nowhere near the Hot 100, his albums from the era, all of them eventually platinum, peaked below the top 80 on the album chart. George Strait's brand of country came to be called new traditionalism, a mid-80s term coined specifically to differentiate it from the now disdained country pop sound of the early 80s circa Urban Cowboy. Wounded by their rejection by the pop mainstream, country artists went back to the music's roots with such artists as country, bluegrass, multi instrumentalist Ricky Skaggs, Fellow bluegrass trained player Keith Whitley, And Bakersfield sound revivalist Dwight Yocum, whose biggest hit paired him with country legend Buck Owens.
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Trying to Find me something Better.
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Here.
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On the Streets, Baker's Field or what.
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About Oklahoman Reba McIntyre? A singer who'd been hitting the country charts since the late 70s. She gradually refined her sound to a blend of country, pop, balladry and more traditional elements and scored some of her biggest hits, cultivating a loyal audience akin to George Straits.
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For a while is the last one to know, the first one to cry and the last to let go.
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But the megastar of new traditionalism was the sturdy voiced singer Randy Travis, who came the closest of any late 80s country star to crossing fully into the mainstream. At a time when country hit makers albums were lucky to go gold, Travis generated a string of multi platinum albums. His biggest hit, the gentle Two Step Forever and Ever Amen, even scored some in airplay on heartland pop stations and video channel VH1.
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Forever and ever Amen as long as old men sit and talk about the.
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Weather New traditionalism flourished in the late 80s because there just wasn't much upside in trying to blend country with straight ahead pop. When Nashville band Restless Heart crossed over to the Hot 100 in 1987 with their stately ballad I'll Still Be Loving you, it was the only record of its kind to make pop radio at the time. The industry in Nashville was stunned that Restless Heart crossed over at all. Even then, I'll Still Be Loving you peaked on the Hot 100 at a modest number. 33. A half decade of new traditionalism eventually culminated in the 1989 success of the genial, toothsome Texan Clint Black, widely perceived as the great mass market hope of country going into the 90s. Clint Black's 1989 album Killin Time went double platinum, rare for a country LP at the time by anyone other than Randy Travis, and it generated a stunning four number one country hits out of the box. Remarkable for a newcomer, Clint Black was country to the core, but he deftly bridged the divide between the traditionalists and a new generation of of arena friendly country. But while Clint Black was tearing up the country charts in 1989 and 90, riding alongside him with considerably less attention at first was another newcomer, an Oklahoman in denim and a wide brimmed hat with a plaintive but sparkling sound, a yelping high, lonesome voice and melody to spare. This newcomer's very first hit, Much Too Young to Feel this Damn Old, was just breaking into the country top 10 in the summer of 19. And this singer, more than Clint Black, was the true harbinger of country in the 90s. He would make the divide between country, pop and new traditionalism moot. And he was just getting started. Growing up in Yukon, Oklahoma, Garth Brooks by his own admission, listened more to rock than country music. In particular, he was inspired by the soft rock proffered by singer songwriters like James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg, the leader of the Bandits. It was only after young Garth heard George Strait circa 1981 that Brooks became convinced he should pursue country music. By the time Brooks broke into the top 10 on the contest country chart in 1989 with much too Young to Feel this Damn Old, Brooks had already spent several prior years in Nashville looking for his break. It came in 1987 after he played played the legendary Music City venue the Bluebird Cafe. Several songwriters Brooks met at the Bluebird would wind up supplying him with songs, a vital connection in a town as fueled by songwriting as Nashville. These writers included Kent Blazy, who teamed with Brooks to co write his first number one hit, if Tomorrow Never Comes.
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And if My time.
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This fusion of soft rock a la Dan Fogelberg and plaintive country a la George Strait was a potent sound for Brooks. He came up through Nashville during the New Traditionalists era, but Brooks was no purist and the songs on his self titled debut album Garth Brooks were infused with his mass appeal sensibilities. Pop was baked in, but it wasn't courting top 40 listeners like the stuff from a decade earlier.
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The Dance We Shared.
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Garth's traditional but accessible approach was most apparent on the Garth Brooks album's last single, single and biggest hit, a song that you could easily picture Fogelberg singing. Penned by fellow Bluebird alumnus Tony Arata, the Dance became Brooks signature ballad. The Dance spent three weeks at number one on the Hot Country Singles chart in the summer of 1990. A three week run on top of the country chart was impressive for a brand new artist. The prior year 1989, no country single had spent more than two weeks at number one. Brooks moved quickly to follow up his successful debut. He had a second album in the can when the summer of 1990 was barely over and he let it off with what turned out to be his most iconic song. Friends in Low Places is a barn busting hard drinking Sing Along Honky Tonk Anthem A rowdy but witty song about a man who's letting a beer chase his blues away and only pretending to apologize for being declassified. Critic Chuck Klosterman later wrote, quote, singing along with Friends in Low Places was like drunkenly laughing at a rich person and knowing that you were right. Garth told stories about blue collar people who felt good about what their bad life symbolized.
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I guess I Was Wrong, I Just Don't Belong.
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Released less than a month after the Dance peaked on Hot Country Singles, Friends in Low Places stormed up the chart reaching number one in October 1990. It stayed there for four weeks. In the middle of its run up the chart, Brooks released his sophomore album no Fences which shot to number one on the Country Country Albums chart in just three weeks, knocking out Clint Black's blockbuster Killin Time. Brooks now had both the top country single and album in America for the first time. No Fences remains Garth Brooks all time best selling album certified for sales of 18 million in the US alone. It was the album on which Brooks perfected his blend of tradition minded pedal steel and fiddle country crossed with 70s esque soft rock melodies. Brooks, his band and co songwriters were able to translate the sound of say old James Taylor Records.
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Lives on the.
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Ring into wistful bromides about small town life like the number one country hit Unanswered Prayers.
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Just the other night at a hometown football game, My Wife and I Ran.
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Brooks also channeled the sound and spirit of vintage Eagles or Aerosmith on the albums Rock and Flag reflected opener the Thunder Rolls, a cinematic story song about a marriage gone wrong. But something was still amiss with Brooks's Billboard chart performance and all country hitmakers. Country albums were starting to sell about as well as they had in the urban cowboy era. But on the Billboard album chart, country albums couldn't get a break. They would peak well below the top 10, whereas pop and rock albums of similar or even lesser stature were charting much higher. Here's an example. The Same week Garth Brooks's no Fences debuted on the album chart in September 1990, so did the latest album by metal band Queens Reich. I'm Not Picking on Queens Reich. Their Empire album was legitimately huge and deserved to go platinum. And it did. By the spring of 1991, Queens Reich's album was certified for a million in sales and it was sitting in the top 10 on the pop albums chart. But Garth's no fences again, an album with the same number of weeks on the chart, was triple platinum. And yet to date, no Fences had never gone higher than number 15. And while Queens Reich was in the top 10, Brooks by April had dropped back into the mid-30s. This despite the fact that Brooks was racking up his third number one country hit from the album Two of a Kind, Working on a Full House.
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Yeah, we're Two of a Kind Working.
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On a Full House was the flagship Billboard album chart. We call it the pop album chart, but really it's an all genre chart. Was it biased against country music? It certainly seemed like it, but that was all about to change. In past episodes of Hit Parade, I have talked about the chart revolution brought about in 1991 by the launch of SoundScan, the barcode scanning retail technology that accurately tallied music sales in record stores for Billboard. When I talk about why SoundScan was so important to the evolution and accuracy of the Billboard charts, I often talk about rap. Albums like Public Enemies It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back were hard done by the old chart system, which relied on the vagaries of retailer sales reports and underrepresented the huge sales of hip hop. PE's album went platinum, but but it couldn't crack the Billboard album chart's top 40 or NWA's Straight Outta Compton, which went double platinum but couldn't break into the top 30.
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Straight outta Compton.
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It's a crazy brother named Ice Cube.
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I'm the stupid dope gang with an.
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Attitude Arguably, country artists had it just as bad as the rappers on the charts. Country albums were would go gold, platinum, even multi platinum, and go nowhere near the top of the charts. The music industry, which was heavily skewed toward America's coasts, had for years overstated the sales of rock and pop and understated the popularity of country and rap. Soundscan, which launched on the Billboard 200 album chart in May of 1991, eliminated that bias against rap and country for good. And no single artist benefited more from this chart revolution than Garth Brooks. The very first week soundscan came online, Garth's no Fences album hurtled into the top 10, reaching a new peak of number four. It would later reach number three. Charts are feedback loops. They tell the music industry what kinds of music are popular so they can make them more popular. It's widely perceived that the advent of truly accurate counting allowed the industry to perceive just how popular country and Garth Brooks were for the first time and promote him accordingly. While the Thunder Rolls hit number one on the hot country singles chart, fueled by a controversial music video in which Brooks played an abusive husband in a fake beard, glasses and a wig, the no Fences album spent the rest of the summer in and around the top 10 as it was certified quadruple and then quintuple platinum. Heading into the fall of 1991, Brooks was preparing to release a third album that would affirm whether his chart success was a Soundscan fueled fluke. But the music industry was paying more attention to the imminent release of an album by a rock band that was expected to dominate the fall season. Actually two albums. Hard rock band Guns N Roses had made fans wait more than four years for a proper full length follow up to their multi platinum smash, Appetite for destruction. In 1991, the band announced that the follow up was finally ready and it would be two CDs, not one. Issued as a pair of separate albums on the same day. Use youe Illusion 1 and Use youe Illusion 2. Media coverage for the Gn' R dual album Release in mid September 1991 reached fever pitch. Music stores announced midnight sales for the two Use youe Electronics Illusion CDs, and the discs were widely expected to debut on top of the Billboard album chart. But while all this hype was mounting, the media hadn't taken much notice that an album released the week before Guns N Roses had already debuted on top. Ropin The Wind, Garth Brooks's third album, arrived atop the Billboard 200 in its first week, it was not only the first country album ever to debut at number one, it was also the first country title to top Billboard's flagship album chart at all since Kenny Rogers Greatest hits more than 10 years earlier. Rope in the Wind's lead single, Rodeo, was already in the Hot Country Singles Top five on its way to number three. On the album chart. While Guns N Roses did indeed debut at number one the following week with Use youe Illusion 2, their Illusion 1 debuted in the runner up slot. Guns only held the top of the album chart for two weeks before Brooks's Rope in the Wind went right back to number one and stayed there for most of the fall. It appeared that Brooks was not only galvanizing country's loyal listeners, but bringing along new fans. Perhaps his latest hit song, written by a guy who lived far from Nashville, had something to do with that.
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You know now I'm not a man who's ever been insecure about the world I've been living in. I don't break easy.
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Shameless reached the top of Hot country singles in November 1991. I talked about about Shameless in Hit Parade earlier this year in our episode about this hit maker. Billy Joel wrote and first recorded shameless for his 1989 album Stormfront. It was a deep cut, never released as a single by Joel, but Garth Brooks heard its potential and the country friendliness of the song. He'd been playing it live for months and saw it go over with his crowd, so he convinced his producer Alan Reynolds to let him record it for Rope in the Wind.
- [54:02]
A
I'm Shameless when it comes to love.
- [54:07]
B
And it was a standout on the album right away, and not just with country listeners. In the fall of 1991, more than a dozen pop stations began spinning Garth's Shameless alongside the likes of Bryan Adams, Boyz II Men and Paul Abdul. Like Run DMC's cover of Aerosmith's Walk this Way in 1986, albeit on a smaller scale, Garth's cover of Billy Joel was a genre cross crossover, making fans out of listeners more accustomed to rock and pop. Funnily enough, Garth's label wasn't actively promoting Shameless to Top 40 radio, and the crossover didn't interest them all that much. Brooks's team was very wary of moving beyond the country audience 10 years after the boom and bust of the urban cowboy fad. Speaking to Billboard on Brooks's behalf about the pop radio attention, his co manager and publisher said, if it happens, it happens. It's not something we're trying to generate. Let him cross to us this time.
- [55:29]
A
Have this much control over me.
- [55:33]
B
In any case, Team Garth didn't need to court pop fans. Rope in the Wind was a monster. It instantly certified Quadruple Platinum just two months after release. From the fall of 1991 through the spring of 1992, it spent 18 weeks on top of the all genre Billboard 200 album track chart and at country radio. The album generated five hits, including the number three, Papa Loved Mama and the number ones the river and what She's Doing Now. Groping the Wind was a very eventually certified for sales of 14 million copies, which by the way, was as much as those two Guns n Roses albums sold combined. Billboard would rank Rope in the Wind as the top seller among both country albums and pop albums for all of 1992. By 1992, it was clear that Garth Brooks had opened the floodgates for country artists on the charts. More to the point, The SoundScan fueled Billboard 200 now accurately reflecting just how popular country albums were with or without a big pop audience. The younger half of country duo the Judds, recording on under only her first name like Madonna or Cher, launched a solo career in 1992 and saw instant success. Winona's debut album reached number four on the Billboard 200 and was triple platinum within a year. And she wasn't the only country newcomer dominating the charts.
- [57:37]
A
I just don't think he'd understand.
- [57:40]
B
By some measures, Billy Ray Cyrus was an even bigger crossover success in 1992 than Garth Brooks. Unlike Garth, Billy Ray actually did court pop fans with his line dancing earworm Achy Breaky Heart. It not only topped the hot country singles chart, it sold well enough to reach number four on the Hot 100 pop chart. Achy Breaky Heart was such a phenomenon that it sent Cyrus's album Some Gave all to number one on the Billboard 200, where it spent 17 consecutive weeks on top and eventually went nine times platinum. Billy Ray's success even spawned an urban cowboy style line dance fad, complete with specific steps. And it was followed by other line dance friendly hits like Boot Scoot and Boogie by Brooks and Dunn. In a sense, Garth Brooks had made all of this conceivable, let alone possible by 1992, and that was when he decided to use his clout to make a statement. As I said, at the top of our show, the number 12 country hit we Shall Be Free was Brooks in full on social protest mode, and it was his first major single to receive pushback. Country stations were leery about playing the pro equality anti racist and anti homophobia song at the very, very least out of a desire not to take sides in a presidential election year. This explains why the never hotter Brooks missed the top 10 with this single in the fall of 92. Still, Brooks was using his imperial chart status and, if you will, political capital to make a statement on the scale of protest music. We Shall Be Free is know the times, they are a change or a change is gonna come. It's considerably better than Accidental Racist. However, regardless of the song's merits, it was a sign Garth Brooks could, to a point, now do whatever he wanted. We Shall Be Free was the lead single to Brooks's fourth album, the Chase, and the only thing that had changed by 1992 was that Brooks was now expected to debut ATOP the Billboard 200 album chart. And of course he did. The Chase sailed in at number one just as its second single, the more conventional country ballad Somewhere Other Than the Night, was on its way way to number one.
- [60:39]
A
Somewhere other than the night she needs to hear I love you Somewhere other Than the Night.
- [60:49]
B
In fact, the Chase sold so well in its first two months that it prevented REM's new album Automatic for the People, their follow up to the 1991 smash out of Time, from reaching number one on the album chart. REM's eventual quadruple platinum Automatic had to settle for a number two peak. A couple of weeks after that, Brooks's the Chase stopped Madonna's hotly anticipated album Erotica from topping the chart. It too peaked at number two. This became the pattern for Garth Brooks. Every fall he would release a new album, and it would not only debut at number one, but outperform a more hotly anticipated pop or rock album. In late 1993, Brooks debuted on top with In Pieces, his fifth studio album and third chart topper. It generated five top 10 country hits, including the number one Rave Ups Ain't Going Down Till the Sun Comes up and American Honky Tonk Bar Association.
- [62:11]
A
It's called the American Honky Tonk Bar Association. It represents a hard hat gun around.
- [62:21]
B
By staying at number one for more than a month, In Pieces held back the 1993 album by Pop and be uber star Mariah Carey. Her CD Music Box had to wait until Christmas to top the chart. Speaking of Cross Christmas, Brooks got ahead of Carrie there too. Future Queen of Christmas, Mariah wouldn't record her storied holiday album until 1994. Brooks issued his Christmas disc Beyond the Season two years earlier.
- [63:04]
A
Now the mistletoe is hung and the tree is all A blow and Garth's.
- [63:11]
B
Christmas album peaked higher on the Billboard 200, reaching number two. Carrie's Merry Christmas topped out at number three. Every move Brooks made was a savvy feeding of his fan base and a clever move to dominate the charts. An avid Billboard reader and industry observer, Garth had opinions on all aspects of the business. For example, as quaint as this now sounds, in 1993, one of the hot topics in the music business was over used CDs. At a time when the compact disc was 5 to $7 more expensive than the LP or cassette, retailers found consumers happy to sell back their old discs to stores and shop for other used discs at cut rate prices. The record industry hated used CDs because they made no money off of them. And so it turned out, did Garth Brooks. When a coalition of record labels announced a plan to eliminate cooperative advertising with retailers who sold used CDs, Brooks doubled down. A few months before his In Pieces album came out, he announced he wouldn't sell it on CD at any retailer that dealt in used product. Brooks framed it as a fight for musicians, songwriters and producers. The media portrayed it as greed. Artists didn't normally take sides in such arcane industry issues. In essence, Garth's move was like Metallica taking on Napster or Taylor Swift taking on Spotify years before those fights happened. The fact that Brooks even had an opinion on used CDs was remarkable. Anyway. Even with certain retailers left out of the launch of in pieces, Brooks's nineteen 1993 album did great business. It opened to the best numbers of Brooks career to date. As with We Shall Be Free, Garth could get away with stances other acts would just as soon avoid. Incidentally, used CDs also didn't help Brooks's position on the charts or his platinum certifications. And this, even beyond the loss of royalties, might have been his ultimate motivation. Brooks was a fierce competitor and he didn't want to compete in arenas where he didn't stand a chance of winning. That included the Hot 100 singles chart.
- [66:07]
A
No one told you life was gonna be this way.
- [66:12]
B
As I chronicle three years ago in our great war against the single edition of Hit Parade, the biggest story on the charts in the 90s was the music business's quiet campaign to kill off retail singles and try to force sales of full length CDs for all of the Hot 100's history through the mid-90s, Billboard required a retail single release for a hit to appear on the chart. So enormous 90s radio hits that weren't issued as singles like the rembrandts, theme from TV's Friends or no Doubts, Don't Speak, These hits were invisible on the Hot 100, even when they were the most played songs at radio. Still, even acts like no Doubt or the Rembrandts did issue singles occasionally. But for Garth Brooks, not releasing retail singles was even more strategic. For one thing, the hot country chart didn't require a retail release. In fact, that chart's full title was Hot Country Singles and Tracks, indicating that many of its hits were tracks available only on albums. Brooks could dominate this chart and still sell truckloads of albums by not issuing singles. But there was another factor. Issuing singles would have made Garth's songs eligible to appear on the Hot 100, except then those tracks would have to compete with big pop hits. And as country songs, Garth's singles would be at a disadvantage. Why allow his hits to peak on the Hot 100 somewhere below the number one spot, the top 10, or even the top 40? In multiple interviews, Brooks took particular pride at the fact that he was achieving all his sales records while sticking close to country fans, not courting pop listeners, and inviting the pop fans to come over to his side of the radio dial. He remembered what happened when country stars went hard after pop listeners in the early 80s and how that that story ended. By 1993 and 94, country music was thriving, with multiple acts going multi platinum, and pop listeners were beside the point. For example, Alan Jackson's Chattahoochee, a wistful reminiscence about summer spent on a river near Jackson's Georgia hometown, was the number one country song of 1993. And Jackson actually did issue it as a retail single, which went gold. But on the Hot 100, Chattahoochee peaked just below the top 40. Given its limited airplay beyond country stations, that was confirmation that Garth Brooks was wise to avoid that pop competition. Still, Alan Jackson couldn't have been unhappy. His album A Lot About Livin and A Little Bout Love went Triple Platinum in 1993 and kept on selling. Two years later, Jackson's album was sextuple platinum. Other acts that had stuck it out through country's late 80s sales slump, like Reba McEntire, Saw their albums hitting new chart and sales peaks. McEntire's 1994 album Read My Mind reached number two on the Billboard 200 and went triple platinum the week McEntire peaked at number two. Sitting right above her was a new country singer, Daddy, Please.
- [70:46]
A
Don't Take the.
- [70:47]
B
Girl, Tim McGraw, whose debut album, Not a Moment Too soon, spent a fortnight at number one on the chart and went quadruple platinum within a year. And McGraw wasn't the only relative newcomer topping the chart that year.
- [71:06]
A
Like the shadow that's flat on your side.
- [71:12]
B
John Michael Montgomery, a singer on only his second album, reached number one on the Billboard 200 with his Kickin It up album featuring 1994's biggest country hit, I swear. If you're a pop fan who remembers the 90s and this song sounds oddly fun familiar to you, that's because it also topped the Hot 100. But not in John Michael Montgomery's version. The boy band All For One recorded the same song and took I Swear to the top of the Hot 100. This only reinforced that country and pop were parallel platinum worlds. A country song could be a pop song and vice versa. But unlike the urban cowboy era, each was succeeding in its own arena. Audience crossover by the same recording wasn't strictly necessary. As for Garth Brooks, he closed 1994 with a victory Lap, his first greatest hits collection. For years, Brooks had resisted pleas for a compilation from fans and his label, Capitol Nashville, fearing it might cannibalize sales of his studio albums, which were still selling like All Get Out. Cleverly, Brooks agreed to to put out a collection under the no frills title the Hits, on the condition that it would be a limited edition release. The CD was even printed with the phrase Limited time only on the COVID Garth's gambit worked. Arriving just days before Christmas 1994, the hits sold in the millions and topped the Billboard 200 for eight weeks in early 1995. Yet again, it outsold the most highly anticipated rock album of the holiday season, Pearl Jam's third album by Talenter. There was one other well hyped rock album in 1994 that Garth Brooks's the Hits handily outsold that Christmas, a Beatles compilation called Live at the BBC. This wasn't too surprising, even if Brooks was outselling the biggest rock group of all time. Live at the BBC was an unusual collection of vintage performances from from the Fab Four's early days. It contained very few of their hits, and it was packed with bits of light comedy and short interviews. For any other band, a collection of curios like this one might have sold only to the devoted because it was the Beatles, it went quadruple platinum. Still, Garth's the Hits charted higher and sold better than live at the BBC. Perhaps outselling the Beatles during the holiday season of 1994 made Garth Brooks feel fairly invincible, because the next year he tried something similar and it didn't work out too well.
- [74:55]
A
And I will sail my vessel till the river runs dry.
- [75:03]
B
When we come back, how Garth Brooks finally met his match on the album chart and in the all time record books. Non Slate plus listeners will hear the rest of this episode in two weeks. For now, I hope you've been enjoying this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanfy. That's me. My producer for this episode is Benjamin Frisch, and we also had help from Rosemary Belson. Special thanks to music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine for invaluable research support on this episode. June Thomas is the Senior Managing Professor Producer and Gabriel Roth the Editorial Director of Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. We'll see you for part two in a couple of weeks. Until then, keep on Marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanfi.
- [76:32]
A
Yes, I will sail my vessel till the river runs dry Like a bird upon the wind these waters are my sail.