Decker

I always admired Garth for putting out that song. It took guts back then (and still would today) to put out a country single that even hints at gay rights. I think he was the only one at the time with enough clout to get a song like that played on country radio.
Of course, I would have admired him more if the song wasn't such a blatant rip-off of Kenny Loggins' "Conviction Of The Heart". I believe there was a lawsuit over it, but I don't recall the final outcome.

DaveWadding

For my money, the worst song that Zac Brown Band ever wrote.

Travis McClain

That would be the one!

Yeah, I got that. I was responding to them in the abstract. That wasn't very clear, though.

God, that song makes me roll my eyes. I'm okay with it until that shoehorned verse about the military. At that point, the song is nothing more than a country trope bingo card. It's still better than "That's My Kind of Night", though.

Why So Blu?

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Decker

Some more info about the release from the L.A. Times. Reminded me of something that always irritated me about Garth (the only thing really) : His singular obsession with having the All Time album sales record. That's the reason he keeps putting out his previously released material in dirt-cheap box sets at Wal Mart - he's desperately chasing the Beatles.

Garth Brooks eight-disc box 'Blame It All On My Roots' due Nov. 28


By Randy Lewis
This post has been updated. Please see details below.
November 13, 2013, 10:50 a.m.

Just as Tina Turner always boasted that she never does anything nice and easy, Garth Brooks never does anything small. So in capping his residency in Las Vegas, the biggest-selling country performer of all time has assembled a new eight-disc box set inspired by his relatively intimate one-man shows in the 1,500-seat Wynn Encore Theater.

“Blame It All On My Roots” will be released Nov. 28 as a Wal-Mart exclusive, featuring four CDs with all new recordings of Brooks’ favorite songs of other artists, two CDs with 33 of his own hits, a DVD containing music videos for all those hits and a second DVD capturing one of his Wynn live performances.

In addition to vintage country material Brooks touched on throughout his run at the Wynn, the set will survey classic rock, R&B and soul music that influenced him while growing up in Oklahoma. Treating the performances almost like a living-room concert, Brooks would regularly include his favorite songs by other artists to share with the audiences how his music developed.

For this box set he went into the recording studio and made new versions of 44 covers that are spread across four of the album’s CDs. The other two include 33 songs from his “The Ultimate Hits” compilation, plus one bonus track, “Leave A Light On.”

The set is priced at $24.96 and will be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club stores and at walmart.com starting Thanksgiving Day. The following day, Brooks will play a final show at the Wynn that will be telecast live on CBS-TV.

Sales will count toward Brooks’ overall sales as measured by the Recording Industry Assn. of America. Each box set sold will count as eight copies sold under RIAA rules, so if the set sells 1 million copies, his overall RIAA total will increase by 8 million.

Brooks ranks third on the RIAA’s list of all-time bestselling album artists, behind the Beatles, with 177 million albums sold in the U.S., and Elvis Presley, with 134.5 million. Brooks’ total according to the latest certification figures at RIAA.com stands at 128 million.

The Beatles figure to be pumping up their total as well with the release this week of the two-CD set “On Air — Live at the BBC, Volume 2,” as well as a newly issued remastered version of the 1994 set “Live at the BBC,” also a two-disc set giving the Beatles double-figure increases for each sale.

The race is on.

[For the record, 6:35 p.m. PST Nov. 13: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that because Garth Brooks' new album is exclusive to a single retailer, it will not be eligible to chart on the Billboard 200 Album chart.]

Travis McClain

It does lead to a sense of pettiness, I'll agree. However, in this case I actually think there's a certain argument that can be made for including The Ultimate Hits. An entire generation of listeners - and music buyers - has come along during Garth's "retirement" who really do only know him as that guy that their older siblings, or parents listened to. Using the CBS TV special to re-introduce himself to audiences is shrewd, and by including the compilation of his hits and music videos, Blame It All on My Roots becomes an all-in-one Garth Brooks starter kit.

No doubt, it's there to boost sales figures of both The Ultimate Hits and his overall discography totals. But I really do think it's also there to ensure that anyone who may be tempted to go for the box set after watching the TV special finds themselves having already bought into Garth beyond just the newly recorded covers. In its way, it almost seems like a concession on Garth's part that people (gasp!) share music with one another. He seems to be counting on that, actually, hoping that when mom and dad are playing their Garth music, that their Taylor Swift-listening kids perk up and ask, "So what's this guy all about, anyway?" Instead of talk about the old CDs that mom and dad used to have, there are all the radio hits waiting to be played.

I gotta say: $24.95 for the four new CDs and the concert DVD would have been worth it to me as is. I see the inclusion of The Ultimate Hits (which I already own) as a non-issue.

clemente

I think its a case of putting a different lens on the same thing - Elvis and the Beatles surely didn't sell all their records during their recording careers - they've had countless re-releases and re-masterings and greatest hits and collections since their heydays. Garth's "pettiness" seems to stem from bundling a lot of albums into one low packaged price - which could be viewed as evil - but he's also providing tons of new content within it. It's not the worst sin in the music industry.

Travis McClain

Good point. Even early in his career, a lot of Elvis's LPs were merely compilations of his singles. Though in fairness, in his day, RIAA certification for Gold represented a million, not the half-million it was lowered to by the time Garth Brooks came along. Of course, that only comes into play when comparing numbers of each album shipped and not the cumulative value.

VHS?

KISS ... err Gene Simmons, does this on a regular basis.

Decker

Here's the first article I've found with a complete track listing from the set:

Highlights from 'Blame It All on My Roots' include remakes of Gladys Knight and Buck Owens.


Garth Brooks' new box set features includes plenty of hits — most of them originally sung by other people. Of the eight discs in Blame It All on My Roots, which went on sale at Walmart on Thursday, four consist of covers — the country superstar's first new studio recordings in six years.

Called Country Classics, Classic Rock, Blue-Eyed Soul and Melting Pot, the discs show the confluence of country, pop, folk and rock that went into shaping the musical style of a man who has sold more albums than anyone besides The Beatles and Elvis Presley. Those discs contain 44 remakes spanning from 1952 (Hank Williams' Jambalaya) to 1988 (Keith Whitley's Don't Close Your Eyes). Few Brooks fans will be shocked that he pays tribute to James Taylor, Jim Croce and George Strait, or that his favorites include Billy Joel and Bob Dylan, whose catalogs have provided him material in the past. Perhaps more surprising are the only two singers who have two hits among Brooks' covers: Gladys Knight (I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Midnight Train to Georgia) and Paul Rodgers (All Right Now, Bad Company).

Brooks has been singing several of these songs during his four-year solo residency at the Wynn Las Vegas, and his final show there airs Friday (CBS, 9 p.m. ET/PT). While these remakes may not replace Brooks' hits Friends in Low Places, The Thunder Rolls and If Tomorrow Never Comes in his fans' hearts, we've listened to the new discs and come up with our favorites.

Fishin' in the Dark. If there's any track among the 44 covers on Blame It All on My Roots that amounts to more than scraping the rust off and signals a direction new material might take, it's probably this remake of a 1987 No. 1 country hit for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Thematically, it fits with what current stars like Luke Bryan and Jake Owen are singing, while musically, it's a logical extension of early Brooks hits such as Callin' Baton Rouge and Two of a Kind, Workin' on a Full House.
Don't Close Your Eyes. Keith Whitley hit No. 1 with this ballad in 1988, just as Brooks' career as a recording artist was starting to ramp up. Listening to Brooks' version, it's easy to imagine the song sequenced into his 1990 debut album with the likes of The Dance and If Tomorrow Never Comes.
Midnight Train to Georgia. Georgia writer Jim Weatherly also wrote several country hits, so this song is right in Brooks' sweet spot. The arrangement is heavily influenced by Gladys Knight & the Pips' 1973 hit, but Brooks takes more liberty with his vocals. Even better, Brooks brings a new context to the song as he turns it into a love triangle, singing, "She'd rather live in his world than live without him in mine."
Black Water. This is exactly the sort of highly stylized, overly familiar song that shouldn't have worked for Brooks, especially since his version takes nearly every one of its sonic cues from the Doobie Brothers' 1974 original. But the strengths of Brooks' style so perfectly match the song's best qualities that the marriage of the two works perfectly.
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere. Returning to the Dylan repertoire makes sense for Brooks, since he took To Make You Feel My Love to No. 1 on the country charts in 1998. It's less intuitive that he'd go to this particular song, a single for the Byrds in 1968, three years before Dylan released his original. Pedal-steel guitarist Paul Franklin is as much the star of this honky-tonk shuffle as Brooks is, and it features the smooth country-rock harmonies that show up throughout these covers.
After the Fire Is Gone. Brooks and wife Trisha Yearwood step into the shoes of Conway Twitty and Loretta for a remake of their 1971 Grammy winner, with impressive results.
Unwound. George Strait, who launched his career in 1981 with this Dean Dillon/Frank Dycus single, is Brooks' most obvious, immediate predecessor. Is it any wonder the song suits Brooks perfectly as well?
Act Naturally. Brooks probably has a soft spot for this 1963 Buck Owens chart-topper because one of its writers, Johnny Russell, would be the person who first introduced him on the Grand Ole Opry stage. But it's not hard to hear what an impact Owens' singing had on Brooks' own style, especially as he scoops into the vowel sounds.
Ain't No Sunshine. Bill Withers' 1971 hit allows Brooks to wallow in obsessive, introspective gloom — in other words, country singer nirvana.
Shout. Sure, this rave-up, originally a hit for the Isley Brothers in 1959, would be even better live — like on the 2014 tour many people assume Brooks is planning. But this rollicking studio version's a blast, too, especially when Brooks shifts into halftime gospel mode.

Here's the track listing for the Blame It All on My Roots covers discs:

Country Classics

Great Balls of Fire
After the Fire Is Gone (with Trisha Yearwood)
Act Naturally
Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down
Amos Moses
Fishin' in the Dark
Unwound
Good Ole Boys Like Me
White Lightning
Don't Close Your Eyes
Jambalaya

Melting Pot

Black Water
Mrs. Robinson
Maggie May
Who'll Stop the Rain
Wild World
Doctor My Eyes
The Weight
Amie
Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight

Classic Rock

Against the Wind
Superstition
Sweet Home Alabama
Life in the Fast Lane
Somebody to Love
Bad Company
Midnight Rider
All Right Now
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me
Addicted to Love
Goodnight Saigon

Blue Eyed Soul

I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Midnight Train to Georgia
Hold On, I'm Coming
Ain't No Sunshine
Drift Away
Stand by Me
Shout
I Never Loved Someone the Way I Love You
Sitting on the Dock of the Bay
Lean on Me
What'd I Say
_______________________________

I picked up the album today at Wal Mart but haven't listened to it yet. Watched a little of the special, but it was exactly like the show I went to in 2010, so I decided I could wait and watch it later off the DVR.

Travis McClain

I watched the CBS special last night and loved it. I also bought the box set already and began listening to it. I've made my way through the first three discs. There are some standouts (I was surprisingly wowed by his take on Stevie Wonder's "Superstition"), but there are also some songs where he sounds like he's playing them instead of interpreting them as he would on an album proper. What I mean by that is that his vocals don't feel as fully invested in the lyrics, exploring the full breadth of the song and its nuances.

A key example of this is his take on Simon & Garfunkle's "Mrs. Robinson". It starts out very promising, but during the verse about Joe DiMaggio - which was always a mournful lamentation of hero abandonment - Garth sounds like a keyed up karaoke singer. Still, there haven't been any outright disappointments through the first three discs and I've gotten a kick out of a lot of it.

The one aggravating area is that the sequencing in the booklet is wholly different from the sequencing of the discs. Even the order of the discs is different from how they're laid out inside the box! It took me forty minutes or so to import the new discs into my iTunes library because I'm one of those people who actually bother with the Composer field, and for that information, I had to consult the booklet (this information is not printed anywhere on the disc inserts).

Not only did I have to thumb through the booklet for each and every song until I found it, but there are no remarks whatsoever about "Amie"...but there are remarks - though no credits - for "American Pie", which is not an included song. This is one of the covers I was really hoping he would have included, as it became a staple of the World Tour II set list (most prominently played in Central Park with Don McLean). I have a sinking feeling that a single disc compilation from this box set is forthcoming with "bonus tracks" including "American Pie".

Sgtsnake

Blah. Boring "special". He did more talking than singing. Only did a small snippet of several songs. Even brought Trisha out for a few.

stvn1974

I would like to hear his cover of The Band's The Weight.

Brooklyn

I picked this up yesterday on a whim (I really enjoyed his cover of Hard Luck Woman) when I saw Walmart had lowered the price to $14.96 for Black Friday. After listening to the 4 discs containing 44 covers of songs that influenced him, I have to say that all but maybe one or two tracks are completely devoid of energy. It's as if he's just going through the motions. Technically efficient, but soulless for lack of a better word.

darkdaze73

Say what? My mom has been bugging me on ideas of what she could get me for xmas, so I told her she could pick this up for me. I saw these while I was out Thurs night but had no idea that they were that cheap.

There were no signs indicating the price and the pallet for of these looked hardly touched. That may have been because A) they were located on the far, far side of the store in the grocery section(not far from the dvd/BD's) and/or B) no one knew how much they were since there was no sign.

I may have to send someone over the WM today and see if they still have them at that price.

Sgtsnake

my walmart had them at 24.96 last night

stvn1974

My Wal-Mart still had an entire pallet out that was full of these things. I am sure they will be marking them down pretty fast. My local store still has about 30-40 copies of the AC/DC Black Ice exclusive from a few years back.

Decker

Everyone's Wal Mart has them for that price. Lots and lots of them. I agree, we'll likely see a mark down in the future. The tin box set of live DVDs he released exclusively at WalMart dropped to like $5 in a year or two. But I couldn't wait then and I can't wait now either.

Edit : Checking the forum archives, the Garth DVD set was released in Oct 2006 for $19.96. It dropped to $15 before Black Friday of that year and by February 2007 it dropped again to $9.72. Some folks found it for $5 that same month and I'm pretty sure I saw it for $5 at some point in time myself. Moral of story : Keep that receipt!

DRG

Have to agree with this. So many of the covers are played so straightforward it felt a bit pointless. Admittedly he does a pretty good job of cloning the songs, but why not just listen to the originals? It's sort of like buying one of those recordings from The Voice on iTunes where the singer does the song exactly like the original.

I'll give him credit... he's certainly very respectful to the source material and there really aren't any eye rollers on here. But this comes at the cost of invention, and I wish he had taken a few more risks and put more of a personal stamp on these covers.

Decker

Bumping this thread because Garth is coming back to Vegas in a big way : As one of the first artists to play in the new Las Vegas Arena (think Staples Center on the Strip, opening April, 2016), he put together quite the run -- he'll play four shows in three nights over the Fourth of July weekend (7PM on the 2nd, 7 & 10 on the 3rd and 5pm on the 4th to get out in time for Fireworks). Then he added two more shows the weekend before. After five years of acoustic solo shows at the Wynn, he promises something special and more dynamic with these shows.
What's really cool though is he arranged it so that every seat is $85 including service charges. In a town where any headliner's floor seats go for upwards of $200, I got two floor seats for $170 total. He's leaving a LOT of money on the table here and you have to respect him for it. I figured all the great cheap seats would just go immediately up on Stub Hub, but checking the email, you need your CC to enter the show, so the secondary market is non-existent I guess.

Anyway, if anyone's going to be in Vegas around the Fourth and is a Garth fan : www.garthvegas.com

Spiderbite

Let me guess...you get a 12 CD boxset with every ticket so he can count more CDs sold on his total.

Decker

Screw you Beatles!!!

Yeah, it's not like him being the Best Selling Solo Artist of All-Time is the fist thing you see when you click on that web link or anything...

Decker

Remember how I said that Garth is perpetually chasing the Beatles' sales records and keeps repackaging his previous works in dirt-cheap multi-disc sets to rack up the total sales numbers? Well guess who just put out a single disc of new material, but only released it in a TEN DISC box set with nine CDs of previously-released material for the low, low price of $29.99?



I still love me some Garth. Saw him in Vegas around the 4th of July and he was amazing live. But this shit's getting old.

bigjim25

The new CD is coming by itself also. Target just got it 2 weeks earlier than other retailers. Walmart has it by itself or packaged with Garth/Trisha Christmas CD for $13.88. Not a bad set.
I got the set for the new version of Friends In Low Places plus the live tracks with Billy Joel and Don McLean. They're gonna have the set for $25 Black Friday.

Decker

Okay Jim. Live Billy Joel track and $25 on Black Friday has me sold. Thanks for that info.