Garth Brooks' Ropin' the Wind is first country album to debut at #1

First posted 2/22/2008; updated 12/3/2020.

Ropin’ the Wind Garth Brooks

Released: September 2, 1991 Peak: 118 US, 133 CW, 41 UK, 22 CN, 21 AU Sales (in millions): 14.8 US, -- UK, 19.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: country

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Against the Grain (3/21/92, 66 CW) Rodeo (8/12/91, 3 CW) What She’s Doing Now (12/6/91, 1 CW) Burning Bridges Papa Loved Mama (2/1/92, 3 CW) Shameless (10/19/91, 1 CW, 71 UK) Cold Shoulder We Bury the Hatchet In Lonesome Dove The River (4/27/92, 1 CW) Total Running Time: 39:21

Rating: 3.986 out of 5.00 (average of 16 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “It makes sense that this was the first country album to debut atop the pop charts, for Garth Brooks was as omnivorous a commercial force as music will ever see. With an advertising degree from Oklahoma State in his pocket, he invaded Nashville in the mid-80s with unparalleled instincts for how to walk the line between corn pone and pop.” TL “Music Row was suspicious – (particularly of his liberalism) but his tastes and influences were truly catholic – which explains how he careens so easily from the honky-tonk of Merle Haggard to the tenderness of James Taylor in a single verse.” TL “With Ropin’ the Wind, Garth Brooks begins to make his ‘70s rock influences more explicit. Naturally, that is most notable in his reworking of Billy Joel's Shameless, which he transforms from a rock power ballad into contemporary country. But that influence is also evident on ambitious epics like The River and even the honky tonk ravers of Papa Loved Mama and Rodeo.” STE “Some might say that those rock influences are what make Brooks a crossover success, but he wouldn't be nearly as successful if he didn't have a tangible country foundation to his music – even when he comes close to standard arena rock bombast, there are gritty steel guitars or vocal inflections that prove he is trying to expand country's vocabulary, not trying to exploit it.” STE “That Ropin’ is only his second-best selling album…probably sticks in Garth's craw, but it is his best, and ‘The River’ and We Bury the Hatchet (‘but leave the handle stickin' out’) endure as monuments to the cleverness of his songwriting and the intensity of his genre-busting ambition.” TL Notes: On the Limited Series box set, the song “Which One of Them” was added to Ropin’ the Wind.

Resources and Related Links: Garth Brooks’ DMDB Encyclopedia entry STE Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide TL Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light (11/13/06). Time Magazine’s “All-TIME 100 Albums” WK Wikipedia

Billy Joel’s Storm Front released

First posted 5/9/2011; updated 9/22/2020.

Storm Front Billy Joel

Released: October 17, 1989 Peak: 11 US, 5 UK, 4 CN, 12 AU Sales (in millions): 4.0 US, 0.3 UK, 8.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: pop/rock singer-songwriter

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. That’s Not Her Style (12/2/89, 18 AR, 77 US, 97 UK) We Didn’t Start the Fire (9/27/89, 1 US, 5 AC, 6 AR, 7 UK, 2 CN, 2 AU, platinum single) The Downeaster ‘Alexa’ (4/14/90, 57 US, 18 AC, 33 AR, 76 UK, 25 CN) I Go to Extremes (1/13/90, 6 US, 4 AC, 10 AR, 70 UK, 3 CN, 48 AU) Shameless (1/4/92, 40 AC) Storm Front Leningrad (53 UK) State of Grace When in Rome And So It Goes (10/20/90, 37 US, 5 AC, 30 CN) Total Running Time: 44:34

Rating: 3.293 out of 5.00 (average of 12 ratings) Awards:

About the Album: For 1989’s Storm Front, Joel was looking for a new sound. He jettisoned most of his longtime band and producer Phil Ramone. He hired Mick Jones, “the Foreigner fat cat, not the Clash founder,” DB in pursuit of “big-rock pomp and power chords” DB in the vein of “Foreigner’s big AOR sound.” AMG “Joel packed all the strongest numbers into the first half of Storm Front.” AMG The album opened with “That’s Not Her Style, a weirdly defensive song about his model wife, Christie Brinkley.” AMG It then transitioned to “the boomer-centric history lesson We Didn’t Start the Fire” DB, Joel’s third and final Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper. Next up is his ode “to the fisherman's plight” AMG with The Downeaster ‘Alexa’, which is followed by I Go to Extremes, which gave Joel another top-10 hit. Then we get “the power ballad Shameless, which Garth Brooks later made a standard.” AMG The second half, however, isn’t quite as strong. It “perks up only mildly with Leningrad and And So It Goes.” AMG “It’s upbeat, varied, melodic, and effective, but when it’s compared to…such high-water marks as The Stranger or Glass Houses…it pales musically and lyrically. The five singles…were catchy enough on the radio to propel the album to multi-platinum status, but in retrospect, Storm Front sounds like the beginning of the end.” AMG

Resources and Related Links: Billy Joel’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine DB David Browne (6/07). Blender magazine. Pages 114-5.