The Critical Assertions of Chris Gaines

The alternate title for this weeks episode was “Explaining It Over and Over and Over and Over and Over Again” as it is the underlying theme to the subject at hand. Hosts Michael Eades and Ashley Spurgeon take a look into the critical responses to the Garth Brooks fictional persona, Chris Gaines. His smoldering rock and roll character that put together an album of, mostly, R&B songs that was then pitched to Adult Contemporary radio had an unsurprisingly confused reception. Herein, we catalog much of the press that covered In The Life of Chris Gaines and find that much of it is simply trying to make heads or tails of what the project is, not so much how good or bad it is.

Spoiler alert, Chris Gaines was not well received – this much the world agrees upon – but there’s additional context and history that should be taken into account. We take time to sort through the baffling misusage of genres throughout the Gaines project, the impossible mountain the Capitol PR team had to climb to win over Snarky Legacy Rock Critics and how Brooks might have been three steps ahead, not two steps behind.