NOTHING VENTURED ...
Garth’s Gaines was different
As the announcements for Garth Brooks’ Edmonton shows stacked up in December, I noticed a strange, rather stale remora attaching itself repeatedly to the news on social media.
In the comments below the Facebook posts, whenever someone didn’t notice it’d already been done several times, another no-so-fresh Chris Gaines joke or jab would materialize. In the midst of the ongoing Garth wave of concerts, this is happening in person, too.
Some are playful enough — “Is he going to play only Chris Gaines songs?” But many are outright hissy about Brooks’ 1999 musical experiment, a strange — I’d say daring — moment when he took on the alter ego of an Australian-born pop star for an album of fictional “greatest hits” in the form of actual studio songs.
Brooks’ original Gaines concept was tied to a film called The Lamb that never came to be, and he even appeared on Saturday Night Live in character, all in black. The invented Gaines charted on Billboard, this time for real, with two of his songs, including in the Top 5 with Lost in You. And the album sold millions of copies.
Nonetheless, “I got the s--t kicked out of me for that,” Brooks responded in person when I brought it up as an interesting art stunt. He explained he’d originally recorded demos for the film, but when Paramount realized it was his singing, they asked him to fill in the role. Brooks laughs, “I was stupid enough to say, ‘Yeah! I’ll do that!’
“Now, so many years later, and so many bruised ribs later … (but) that was a lot of fun to do. That was a cool project.”
Still, face to face, you get the feeling Brooks maybe wishes people would stop bringing it up. And I can’t imagine he’d necessarily hope for an entire article written about a 17-year-old project when he’s got a new album to promote, either.
Fact is, though, people to this day keep unearthing Gaines with a sneer, so perhaps it’s time to draw a line in the sand when it comes to making the same unoriginal joke over and over again. At least Brooks tried something new.
To be fully fair here, when the album came out, I requested an interview with Gaines. Of course, that didn’t happen. So, in the same spirit of the album, I wrote a timely article where I pretended to interview Gaines, an anthrophobic mess shivering behind the curtains of his room at Hotel Mac, where I had him wishing (of course) he could just be an energetic country music singer. The record label didn’t like that, and if in some small way it contributed to a meme which will seemingly never go away, I’m bummed and a little sorry.
The other thing that needs to be said about the album is that, amid its rather pleasant, beautifully sung soul numbers, yes, the various invented album covers of Gaines’ pretend career crossed the line into ridiculousness.
I’m thinking in particular of the bewildering cover of Fornu-copia, where under pink neon letters Gaines in a bowler hat is perched, sulking over the giant breasts of a prone bikini model. The Shakespearean codpiece tights echoing his checkerboard shirt from the cover of Garth Brooks’ The Chase were a little tough to behold, too. But it’s also hard to imagine he wasn’t taking the p--s a little regarding the fashion choices of some of his contemporaries over in the darker forests of heavy metal.
Gaines — I should say Brooks — even baked the idea the pop singer was a recovering sex addict. On a fake VH1 documentary, Brooks-as-Gaines said, “Sex. That’s the greatest thing about being a musician.”
One of my friends noted Brooks may actually have been a comic genius with some of this weirdness; there are certainly elements of satire floating about the whole thing, including a direct riff of Blink 182’s porno-nurse album cover for Enema of the State.
If people resented the ambiguity, Brooks’ most interesting failings might have been in the art department, for it’s here he seemed to be trying to wear a great number of hats — pardon the pun — in this alter ego, who looked like Trent Reznor but softly crooned like a lullaby-ing soul daddy.
Sometimes we like when artists colour outside the lines and pretend to be someone else in various ways: think of J.K. Rowling’s Robert Galbraith, or David Bowie’s new persona every couple of records (currently immortal space ghost). But sometimes, when we don’t like it — Joaquin Phoenix’s hip-hop thing never quite escaped its own gravity — we can’t seem to let it slide.
Criticism is an important part of art, absolutely, and I’m sure not suggesting you don’t make fun of things you don’t like. But if only for the sake of freshness alone, just remember when you take a shot at Gaines, you’re being a hell of a lot more predictable and less inventive than Brooks was … 17 years ago.
And none of this is to say that Gaines doesn’t have his dedicated fans to this day, myself included. As Trisha Yearwood said to me with a smile last week, the Gaines experiment is “probably my favourite Garth Brooks album ever. I love that record, and I’m glad you do, too.”
Just remember when you take a shot at Gaines, you’re being a hell of a lot more predictable and less inventive than Brooks was … 17 years ago.