The Big Flop - Garth Brooks vs. Chris Gaines with Sarah Tiana & Dusty Slay | 5

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

At the height of his career, country music megastar Garth Brooks took a big swing by transforming himself into an alt-rock singer named Chris Gaines, complete with eye liner, tight pants, and a soul patch. Gaines was supposed to be Brooks' ticket to Hollywood, with a greatest hits album and major motion picture to follow... the only problem was, everyone hated him. On this episode of The Big Flop, comedians Sarah Tiana (44) and Dusty Slay (We're Having a Good Time) join Misha to unfurl the saga of Chris Gaines, Garth Brooks' emo alter ego. It's not a phase, Mom! Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's 1999, and country music megastar Garth Brooks is hosting Saturday Night Live. Garth is on stage with Tracy Morgan, who starts trash talking the evening's musical guest, Chris Gaines. Tracy doesn't hold back. He calls Chris Gaines a lame-ass trick. He says he's soft. He says he's chicken. He says he's fat. He goes after his sexual orientation. Yeah, I'm homophobic, but we'll put that aside for a second. Garth Brooks is alarmed.

And he asks Tracy, Dude, have you heard him sing? I don't need to hear him sing to know I don't like it. I just think he's bizarre. The musical guest is a very different vibe from Brooks. He's got raven black emo hair, a soul patch. He's wearing a black pleather getup like he's just stepped out of the Matrix.

Here's the thing, though. Garth Brooks is Chris Gaines. He's a rock star persona created by Garth Brooks, a moody, tragic alter ego. And even though Tracy Morgan was just playing a bit, a lot of fans felt the same way he did. They really, really hated Chris Gaines. We are on a sinking ship. From Wondery and Atwill Media, this is The Big Flop,

where we chronicle the greatest pop culture flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and lover of all things unhinged, at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And today, we're diving into the most divisive musical alter ego of all time, the Garth Brooks experiment that is Chris Gaines. Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy.

Okay, maybe that's a stretch. But if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's stone-cold icon George Michael From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet Join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom From the outside, it looks like he has it all But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil George is trapped in a lie of his own making,

with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Here to help me dissect the flop that is Chris Gaines is comedian Dusty Slay. I appreciate you guys having me. And writer and comedian Sarah Tiana, whose latest special, 44, can be watched on YouTube. Yay! Welcome to the show.

Thank you. So I know that you're both from the South, and Dusty, I know that you have a bit that you've done of Garth Brooks music and wheat fields. Oh, yeah. Can you tell us about it? You know, I try to do a lot of country music jokes. And one was about the song That Summer. Oh, yeah. It's about this young teenage boy that goes to work for this lonely widowed woman out in a wheat field.

You know, I always like to say, I mean, that song had me wanting to work in a wheat field, you know, because I'm like, I'm working at Jim Bob's Chicken Fingers. I ain't getting no action. All the action's out in them wheat fields, you know? Hands of leather. Yeah, that's a line in there that I found a bit creepy. He says, then I watched her hands of leather

turn to velvet in a touch. And then I felt her hands of leather turn to velvet in a touch. And then I felt her hands of leather turn to velvet in a touch. And I'm like, I don't know that I want a velvet hand. Leather seems more realistic to a skin feel. He's got lines like, rarely held another when I haven't seen her face. And I don't know if that's good or bad.

I mean, that could be traumatic. It could be. Yeah, she'd be canceled today. Yeah. So, Sarah, over to you. What's your relationship to country music and, I guess, like Garth Brooks specifically? I mean, to this day, I still only listen to country music from the 80s and 90s and sports talk radio. So when people start talking about, I guess, like contemporary music, I have no idea what they're talking about. I mean, I probably know eight Beatles songs, but I probably know almost every Garth Brooks song.

Well, before we settle up and talk about Chris Gaines, we need to talk about Brooks himself. The first thing you need to know is that in the 90s, Garth was country music. He was one of the best-selling artists of the decade, and he's still huge. He currently has more certified diamond albums than The Beatles, or anyone for that matter. Yeah. He has a real blue-collar background. He grew up in Yukon, just outside Oklahoma City, and worked nights as a bouncer at a local bar playing music gigs on the side before hitting it big. We love a come-up story. So he also established this signature look, a big old cowboy hat, long-sleeve western shirt, usually a clean shave, and always a tight shot on his album covers. I kind of miss long sleeves on country singers.

Like, he made that a look, that checkerboard long sleeve Wrangler shirt, because now I feel like so many country singers have like tight fitting shirts to show off their muscles and they're like rolled up. But give me Garth Brooks in a long sleeve buttoned up shirt all the way to the top. Yep. The country music outfit has really lost its way. I mean, that's for sure. You don't see a lot of Joe Diffies out there these days.

It's all very, very good-looking people. That's true. We need some unattractive country singers out here. People afraid to show off the skin on their arms, you know? Yeah. So in 1999, Garth is bigger than ever, performing and touring all over the U.S. of A, but there's one place he hasn't been yet, the big screen. So he'd been looking for a movie role for a while, but he allegedly had passed on

Saving Private Ryan and Twister because he was afraid of being upstaged by Tom Hanks or the Twister. he was afraid of being upstaged by Tom Hanks or the Twister. True Oklahoma boy. An Oklahoma boy definitely knows a lot about, like, tornadoes. And he's like, no, no, no, they're more popular than Garth Brooks in Oklahoma. Well, here's people, don't worry, because they have a plan to get him on this big screen. Okay. plan to get him on this big screen. So Garth and his production company developed the idea for a movie called The Lamb and even get Paramount Pictures on board. So in The Lamb, Garth will

play the character of Chris Gaines, a world-famous rock star who suddenly died. A determined fan then tries to piece together his life and mysterious death. But Brooks won't just play the character in the movie. He's going to become Chris Gaines offscreen as well through appearing on things like SNL and other media in character. So here's Brooks at a press conference in 1999 unveiling the project where he and his team take over 30 minutes to explain Chris Gaines to the journalists. And again, it's trying to come through the front door, trying not to fool anybody.

This is Garth Brooks playing a character, and Chris Gaines is his name. And hopefully, eventually, as this thing does take off, if it does, we're hoping that the Garth Brooks name then does kind of fall to the side. Chris Gaines does stand on his own feet. And hopefully, like Pat said, people will hopefully come to the side. Chris Gaines does stand on his own feet. And hopefully, like Pat said, people will hopefully come to this movie as Chris Gaines fans and know a lot of stuff about him to see what happens to him and what he fights for. He's kind of like he's been described as the brave heart of music. So what does the brave heart of music mean?

Well, nowadays. Well, he did die. Yeah, nowadays. I mean, I feel like he definitely had an army behind him. It sounds like Garth Brooks wanted to be Chris Gaines. Yeah. And he wasn't trying to promote a movie. He was going to use the movie to become Chris Gaines. Yeah, like not to get too far ahead, but this story gets unhinged very quickly. I mean, to be clear, I don't think that this idea was inherently flawed because he's not the first country singer to do this.

As early as the 1950s, Hank Williams recorded a gospel album under the pseudonym Luke the Drifter. Oh, yeah. And Emmylou Harris in 1985 came out with the tale of a fictional singer titled The Ballad of Sally Rose. I mean, Charlie Pryde lived his whole life having to pretend to be someone else. So I think it's worth it for someone, you know, to have to do it the other way. But Garth Brooks does have something that they don't. A degree in advertising from Oklahoma State University. That classic double threat of advertising and singing.

What? Yeah, so he knows firsthand how important it is to create buzz. And that's why Garth and VH1 team up for a behind-the-music episode all about Chris Gaines. Oh, yeah. And he has all of the makings of a real behind the music with the same narrator, interviews, the quote unquote found footage, except it's all about a fake musician. Let me play you a clip from the show.

His world tours were renowned for their outrageous antics. I remember going over to Chris's house. He was packing and he was packing a chainsaw on his back. So back to chainsaw. What are our thoughts on that? Wait, is that a a chainsaw in his bag. So back to chainsaw. What are our thoughts on that one? Wait, is that a literal chainsaw or is that a metaphor for something else? I mean, isn't the whole thing a metaphor? Maybe he was carving ice sculptures.

I mean, who knows? Well, Billy Joel is even in this thing talking about his fake thoughts about Chris Gaines. Chris was having a lot of success at that particular time. He had a big album. He really wasn't enjoying it that much. I don't imagine Billy Joel being friends with someone that takes out a chainsaw at a party. You know, unless that chainsaw was held by 18 models with long blonde hair, I don't see Billy Joel being interested. Yeah. I mean, if Chris Gaines were successful, Billy Joel would write a song

in the tone of Chris Gaines and make money off that. Well, Garth Brooks actually sat for interviews as Chris Gaines. Have a listen. If my dad was alive today, I think he would walk up to me and he would look at me in the eye. He would tell me that he's proud of me. He would tell me that he still doesn't trust the business. And he'd tell me to get a haircut. He doesn't trust the business with good reason. His son's playing a character.

It's the moody music for me in the back. But it does sound kind of sweet, maybe. I don't know. Also, it kind of just rings of daddy issues. A lot of daddy issues. I can vouch for the haircut comment. Well, this whole thing sets up this Chris Gaines cinematic universe and tells his story, which is bonkers.

This story is wild. So here's some of his backstory. Chris Gaines was born in Australia in 1967, but moved to LA with his Olympic swimmer mother and swim coach father when he was five. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No Olympic swimmers moved to LA. That's already a problem. So instead of following in his parents' watery footsteps, he falls in love with music. And his parents, especially his toxic and distant father, disapprove of his passion. And his parents, especially his toxic and distant father, disapprove of his passion.

So he drops out of high school and starts a band called Crush with his best friend named Tommy Levitz. So Crush has some success, but then Levitz, who is also apparently a pilot, dies in a plane crash. Sure, sure, sure. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. The band breaks up and Gaines makes a chart-topping solo album go chris from crush to crushing it so here's where it gets crazy so after this his dad dies of cancer his manager steals his money his home is destroyed in a fire set by arsonists he's also horribly disfigured in a car crash. Don't worry, Brooks plays Gaines post-reconstructive surgery. On top of all of this, he's addicted to sex. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, let me play you a clip montage that we've made.

Yet even though Maria was the love of Chris's life, he couldn't resist temptation. He enjoyed the company of scores of other young beauties. And as the years passed, his sexual appetite reached epic proportions. I do remember one time when he wanted my sister and me to go to bed with him together. I've gone to his hotel room on occasion and there have been more, you know, women there than I would count on one hand. I just like women. And I love communicating with them, however that may be. Now I understand why he's friends with Billy Joel. Well, you know, Hank Williams Jr. fell off a mountain and had to have reconstructive surgery and also has a song called I Like to Have Women I've Never Had.

Oh. So he's just drawing from all these other country people. There's a lot of plot points. Yes. As someone who writes movies for a living, this is a lot of plot. You know, you usually have a B story. You don't have a C, D, E, and F story.

I like that that guy says, more women than I could count on one hand. So six. Don't get carried away, okay? There's not 10 or 11. There's six or seven here. This sounds like an average party. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. My question is, why did they focus so much on the sex addiction? I think it begs the question, is Garth Brooks just trolling us? Or is this like totally sincere? If you really want to play someone who is the antithesis of you, you just go completely off the rails, right? You just go like, well, I'm not addicted to sex, but this guy is, you know, and I get to play a character. Like, I'm a country music artist,

so he's like a death metal guy. It seems like we're just trying to go completely opposite to really shock people. And then instead of shocking people, you just confuse people. Well, all of this, the VH1 special, the press conference,

the album, all of it exists to get us hyped for the Chris Gaines movie, The Lamb, which is like not even written yet. Ha ha ha ha ha. Okay, we've introduced Gaines the character to the world. Next, it's time for his greatest hits album.

So the record label and production team behind this movie are counting on Garth fans to become Chris fans. Now, just so we can do a little Garth Gaines comparison, are there any Garth Brooks songs that you sing at karaoke all the time? There's a song I like, a little lesser known called In Lonesome Dove. It's off the Rope in the Wind album. I have vivid memories of seventh grade being in this cool kid's house, this guy Van Spence in Calhoun, Georgia. And they were playing Friends in Low Places and I had never heard it before. And they knew all the words. And I was like, if I'm going to be cool, I better learn every single word to this song.

Okay, well, Sarah, we have a little clip of Friends in Low Places. So if you know all the words, feel free to sing along. Friends in low places where the whiskey grounds and beer chases my blues away. And I'll be okay. So now let's listen to a Chris Gaines song, Lost in You, for comparison. There's no more waiting, holding out for love. The falsetto. That song slaps.

I don't care. Like, that song is awesome. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest. I don't care. Like, that song is awesome. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest. I don't mind that song. I love it. It was giving me, like, the Enrique Iglesias vibes, right? Yeah, for sure. Yes.

It's such a good song. It just, the way it was released and how it was executed in the story doesn't make sense. But if that song comes out, and it's Chris Gaines, and we have no idea that it's Garth Brooks, and nobody says anything about it, they just let it sit on the charts for a month. And then they come out and go, surprise, it's Garth Brooks and he's doing it for this new movie. Everyone's intrigued. They could have said it's the Chris Gaines solo album. And you go, well, what band was he from?

And they'll go, the band Garth Brooks. Turns out that was the band's name, like Leonard Skinner. It wasn't his name. That guy's name's not Hootie. That's Darius Rucker, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the whole idea is that these are the greatest hits of Chris Gaines. So these are not Garth Brooks songs, by the way. Garth spent a year and a half picking them out, but he did not write them.

This brings us to a little game that I want to play. I want you to guess whether the album title I'm giving you is a quote unquote real Chris Gaines album, a real Garth Brooks album, or a completely fake and one we just made up. Okay. So the first one is In Pieces. That's a real Garth Brooks album or completely fake and one we just made up. Okay. So the first one is In Pieces. That's a real Garth Brooks album. Yeah, that's a real Garth Brooks album. I knew you'd get that one.

All right. Second one, Straight Jacket. I'm going Chris Gaines. I'm going Chris Gaines. Ding, ding, ding. That one is Chris Gaines. All right. Pulling Rope.

Oh gosh. I think that's made up. I'm going to go made up too, because I want to say it's a Garth Brooks album. We can't get anything past you. Yes, that one's totally fake. How about Fornicopia? Chris Gaines. Fornicopia?

Sounds like Chris Gaines if he's addicted to sex. That is definitely Chris Gaines. And last one, Apostle. I'm going Garth Brooks. I'm going Chris Gaines. Chris Gaines. And last one, Apostle. I'm going Garth Brooks. I'm going Chris Gaines. Chris Gaines. He has all of these albums that don't exist in real life. But remember, it's not just about the music.

It's the whole look. So we need to talk about the album cover. I'm going to show you a picture of it where you can see a close-up of Chris Gaines' brooding, soul-patched face. Have a look. Oh, yeah. I think it looks like a Nine Inch Nails cover, right? Isn't that Trent Reznor? It does look like Trent Reznor a little bit.

He's got wispy hair covering his eyes that's long and straight. He has a soul patch. He has a very chiseled, slim face. He's wearing makeup and eyeliner. This is his audition for The Crow. Yeah. So things get so much better when you open up the jewel case. There's a picture of him dressed in what can only be described as Harlequin chic. Let me show you. Oh, God. Is that his actual body or did they, because it's super muscular, first of all, and slim, which was never his vibe. Turns out he was very, very committed to this role. So he did lose a lot

of weight, like so much weight. Can you describe what he's wearing for the listeners? He's wearing tights. One leg is a black tight and one leg is a white tight. I think that's his real leg. He doesn't get a lot of sun. He's a jeans guy. And it's muscular. He has a great quad muscle. He has the line because he's been doing lunges. He got ripped for this. Does this strike you as the Braveheart of music? Brave, maybe.

I would think it's more the Boy George of movies. The Boy George of movies. The image is screaming that Chris Gaines is about as far from the blue-collar, big-belt-buckle, cowboy-hat-wearing Brooks as you can get. So you've got the most fleshed-out alter ego of all time with a massive multi-million-dollar marketing campaign drumming up interest for the still-unmade movie The Lamb and hot new album of old greatest hits. So fans will come running, right? No.

Not exactly. So now prior to this point, the average record sales for a Garth Brooks album is around 11 million. That seems good. Wow. That's pretty impressive. The Chris Gaines album sells a little over 2 million copies. That's still enough to hit number two on the Billboard 200 chart.

In case you're wondering, the number one spot was Human Clay by Creed. Wow. That's Garth Brooks fans going, let's check out this Chris Gaines fella. So they might have been on board to check it out, but the media outlets were not impressed. The New York Times called the album, quote, forgettable. And that's basically the nicest thing that anyone has to say. Rolling Stone writes, while his attempted soulful baritone is no fun to hear, it's the falsetto that gets you clawing at the car window for oxygen.

I think that's unfair. I thought the falsetto was good. Entertainment Weekly writes, perhaps he should have ditched Chris Gaines in favor of a more appropriate trendy rock moniker, Wimp Biscuit. Wow. I do love a good pun. I don't know how Wimp Biscuit is really that much worse than Limp Biscuit, to be honest. Yeah. Do you think that the reviews and responses were accurate or too harsh? and responses were accurate or too harsh?

I mean, if this were just like a guy putting out an album and really trying hard, I think it would be too harsh. But you did too much here. And I think doing too much gets you a lot of criticism. But my biggest criticism is not even with the music. It's with the order of importance that they put on things. You know, like if you write the movie and shoot it, and then while you're editing, you put out this song, you start releasing little clips of Garth Brooks in this movie.

I think people are way more intrigued. And also, I think 1999 Garth Brooks fans were maybe a little less open to change. But such a drastic change. It's not a little bit of a change. When Bob Dylan went electric, right? It's like, that's a little bit of a change. People still booed it, but in the end accepted it. I mean, this is too much. Yeah, I don't think people can forget Garth Brooks when they're hearing sex addicted, all this trauma. It's also country fans. Like, we don't like change that much, you know, and, you know, hearing people like do outside the box things. I mean, even when Taylor Swift went to pop, it was like, okay, hello, forgetting about us. I mean, this is also the community that got offended when Reba wore a red dress. Yeah, get with it, Reba. Yeah, you know,

I mean, get with it. I think country fans would have been way more on board had it not been so extreme. Or if he said, the trauma I experienced that summer working in a wheat field made me create this alternate personality of Chris Gaines that I now go into when I feel in fear. I did it for my mental health. Did it for my mental health, everybody. So it wasn't just the media that was panning this album. Garth Brooks fans, they aren't exactly feeling the soul patch either. So while some diehard fans gave Gaines a pass

for trying something new, like a fan who reviewed the album at amazon.com writing, it must be difficult for someone as popular as Garth Brooks to break out of his style and create something so artistically different. So that's nice. But many other fans were upset and wrote that they felt betrayed.

An anonymous reviewer on Amazon.com during that time writes, he is disregarding and setting back all his fans that put him in the top spot of country music. I feel a sense of betrayal. I think people take a lot of ownership of who they build up and put their money into. So I think that makes sense to me. For sure.

Money is power if I've invested in you as a fan. I think that's too much. I think you're putting too much weight on Garth Brooks, in my opinion. It's just like, hey, you've given him money for the music he gave you, right? You didn't make an investment for Garth Brooks to make music. Well, I think this next review really kind of hits the point of why so many of his fans were upset. So another reviewer writes, all of us who loved, adored, and modeled him every day of our lives have been deceived. He has let us down. That's completely unfair. As an artist,

you don't want to do the same thing all the time. You want to talk about things that are important to you, things that are on your mind, get things off your chest. And I'm sure he just kind of tapped into this part of his life where he had probably written songs or wanted to do songs and he was encouraged not to do them because they were too poppy or they were too different and they wouldn't make the country music people happy. Well, what if Larry the Cable Guy suddenly was like, I'm Nelson the businessman? I mean, he is a good businessman. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. So initial sales of Gain's album are so low that two months after its release, the parent company of Capitol Records requests that retailers lower the price as much as possible. They even gave an incentive of a $3 rebate for every album they managed to sell.

But nothing worked. In fact, the marketing campaign seemed like such a failure that the production of the movie fizzled and it never gets made. Oh, gosh. So the lamb went to the slaughter. Feels like you gave up too quick, right? Like, what if now you release the movie, you got all these albums sitting out there, people like the movie, they go, you know what, let's give this Chris Gaines character a try. A lot of times the album comes out with the movie. There's a reason they released the Lady Gaga music video with the movie Maverick once we start seeing the trailers.

They just did everything in the wrong order. I think now, if they tried to make that movie now and they released it now, I bet that album goes platinum. You should write Lamb. Yeah. You should write Lamb. Yeah, you should write Lamb. Okay, this is how I wanted to tell you guys that I have already started writing it. Okay, so there's no movie, people hate the music, and find the persona off-putting.

Chris Gaines is officially over. And unfortunately, the failure expands into actual real-life Garth Brooks' career. So two months after the Chris Gaines album release, Garth Brooks releases a Christmas album, Garth Brooks and the Magic of Christmas. Here's the album cover. Well, there's like dark clouds behind him and a moon and he's holding a clear bowling ball a snow globe slash crystal ball he's either shaking it up to see the snow or he's telling us our future i mean he's got his cowboy hat back on he's got your long sleeves on sarah but you know if he only had used that crystal ball to anticipate his own problems yes it just feels

like he's offering his typical audience that like i'm'm back. I'm still Christian. I'm still a cowboy. I'm making these Christmas songs. He's like, I'm still a Christian, but put a little magic in there. Maybe because it's 1999, maybe they just assumed the world was going to end with Y2K. So we might as well just put everything we can out there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Put everything we can out there.

Yeah. Another funny thing about this album is that Walmart tries to harness the feeling of betrayal Brooks fans feel by writing in an online advertisement. If you're a Garth fan who felt betrayed by Chris Gaines, the magic of Christmas will have you dancing around the tree singing, come home, Garth, all is forgiven. Wow. It's a Christmas miracle. Well, alas, this Christmas album only sells around a million copies. To be fair, that's still a lot of sales. It's just not the typical Garth Brooks kinds of sales. Garth says in more than one interview that people misunderstood the project. Here he is on Larry King. Would you revisit the Chris Gaines concept? Maybe another album?

Yeah, when my ribs heal up from the last one, I got the kicked out of me for doing that. I mean, if you're going to take a big swing, you know, you might get hit by a pitch. Yeah, you're still on Larry King. Yeah. You're still selling a million Christmas albums. Yeah. It's like, come on. You're all right. You're fine. Well, about a year after the whole Chris Gaines thing, in October of 2000, Garth announces

he's retiring from the music industry to focus on his family. And then just two weeks later, he files for divorce from his first wife, Sandy. A little too much focus. Uh-huh. Lots of people write about the whole Chris Gaines thing as a publicity stunt gone wrong, but Brooks often referred to it as an experiment, which I think is more accurate. So we're going to nerd out for a second so I can tell you about an academic paper by Heather McLaughlin. She is an ethnomusicologist, and she actually researched why it was that so

many people found the Chris Gaines experiment so off-putting. So we called her up and asked her a few questions about this, and here she is. I would say the Chris Gaines episode is just an amplification of the kind of criticism that Garth Brooks faced before and after, which is that he is not a true country music artist, that he's in it for the money. And so this criticism gets to a larger shared conviction among many Americans that the worst thing an artist, especially a musical artist, can do is to, quote, sell out. So what do we think about this criticism of him like being a phony

country music artist? I don't feel like there's anything in Garth Brooks past to make me like, I feel like you're born and raised in Oklahoma. You're working at a bar, you drive to Nashville, try to make it you quit, you go back, then you come back to Nashville, try again. I mean, all of that kind of resonates with me, you know? I mean, I agree way more than like, you know, as much as I love Taylor Swift, you know, she grew up really wealthy, you know, and her family was able to move her to Nashville so that she could start pursuing her dream. Like when she went to pop, I was like, that's that might be good.

I don't know how much country music fans would just be like down with that. I do think there's to this thing with country music where it's like almost anybody can come into country and like be accepted. But it's like, don't leave us now that you're here. Don't leave us. Yeah. So maybe when they say sellout, they mean like to go to pop or another brand. Yes. You know, because like it's not like going to pop or another brand, you know, because like, it's not like going to pop is going to make you more money. I mean, he was already selling 11 million albums at a time

and selling out stadiums and arenas. Like more people come to country because they're hoping to make more money. Yeah. Because people still buy tickets and albums and country music. They don't even do that with pop anymore. Well, here at The Big Flop, we try to be positive people. So let's talk about some silver linings from the Chris Gaines experiment. Even though we haven't seen Chris Gaines since 1999, his spirit does live on through some diehard Gaines heads. As recently as 2019, fans organized a Gaines Fest event honoring the 20th anniversary of the album's release. And over 400 people responded to the Facebook event, which said it would include a Chris Gaines lookalike contest, a Chris Gaines tribute band, and Chris Gaines-inspired art. Wow.

Fans speculated that Gaines was the child of Brooks' failing marriage. His second wife, Trisha Yearwood, says it's actually her favorite Brooks album. He has since been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He also sang Amazing Grace at the presidential inauguration of Joe Biden. Was there no big Garth Brooks albums after Chris Gaines? So Brooks has released a handful more albums after the Christmas album, and some of them did fairly well, but they all seem to just keep decreasing in sales. Although there is one listed called Fun with a release date of 2020, but we couldn't find any recorded sales for it.

Tough year to release an album called Fun. But none of that compares to his average of 11 million previously. There is good news for all of those Gainesophiles. Contrary to what Brooks has said in the past about not wanting to touch this project again, it seems he's changed his tune. In June of 2023, he told Billboard Country Live, quote, I want to do it simply for people who love the Gaines Project. And selfishly, I love the Chris Gaines record, so I want to do it for me. It challenged me as a vocalist, end quote. We actually reached out to his reps to see if he would want to elaborate more on the Chris Gaines Project, but they said that he was, quote, far from ready to talk about it, end quote. So we may have to wait a little

while. Well, you know, like the old saying, if it ruins your career, double down. Well, I mean, can you think of any silver linings for the existence of Mr. Gaines? I think it's always important to try something that you want to try. You can't worry about failure. That's how you learn and that's how you become better is with failure. Yes. Now, my last question, given everything you know about this now, would you consider it a baby flop, a big flop or a mega flop? Okay.

I say mega flop like Garth Brooks prior to Chris Gaines. We all sing those songs, but there is no songs like Garth Brooks prior to Chris Gaines, we all sing those songs. But there is no songs like that in these other albums. So I think it hurt Garth Brooks so much that we were like, you know, it's just not good. I mean, I think super mega flop and not because he didn't release albums, but because he never got back to 11 million or even close. Yeah, I agree with Dusty. back to 11 million or even close. Yeah, I agree with Dusty. I think if you know anything about Garth Brooks, you know that he is a very emotional person. You know, he tears up, he cries a lot.

Even on stage, he gets very into the energy of the crowd and the feelings and the emotions. And when people hold up signs of songs they want him to sing, you know, he famously does that at his concerts. So if you know that he is that emotional of a person, it makes sense to me how hurt he would be that something he loved and wanted everyone else to love was not loved. That makes me emotional. loved. That makes me emotional. Well, thank you to our lovely guests, Sarah Tiana and Dusty Slay, and thanks to you for listening

to The Big Flop. Next week, we will tell the tale of a movie that had every reason to be the cat's meow, but then should have been thrown out with the litter box. Yes, we're talking about the unforgettable flop that is the 2019 movie adaptation of Cats.

Like if I'm watching the dancing and I'm noticing the feet aren't touching the ground, there's something wrong with the movie. If you like The Big Flop, you can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and At Will Media, hosted by me, Misha Brown, produced and edited by Levi Sharp, written by Marina Tempelsman, engineered by Zach Rapone.

Our executive producers are Rosie Guerin, Will Malnati, and Samantha Story for At Will Media, developed by Christina Friel. Legal support provided by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korzenik, Summers, Raymond. Producers for Wondery are Matt Beagle and Grant Rutter. Senior producer is Lizzie Bassett. Senior story editor is Phyllis Fletcher. Managing producer is Ricky Wiebe and executive producers are Morgan Jones and Marshall Louis for Wondery.

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