Chris Gaines: A Victim of the Game or Ahead of His Time?

American Country music artist, and seven-time CMA Entertainer of the Year Award Winner, Garth Brooks is back and stronger than ever. After a brief, fourteen-year retirement, Brooks climbed, bled and bruised his way back to the top of the Country Music world,  proving that he is more than just a memory. 

Brooks recently received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, performed several sold-out Stadium tours, and on June 27th will perform a concert at over 300 drive-in theatre’s across North America. To this day, Garth Brooks remains the number one selling musical artist in the United States and second worldwide, coming in just behind the Beatles, selling 170 million records worldwide. So, you’re probably wondering,  what made this country music superstar take a step back from the spotlight? If you asked many a Garth fan they would answer that question with only one name . . . Chris Gaines. Yes, the infamous Chris Gaines, one of the most controversial events in music history. To understand more, let’s rewind, shall we? 

Picture it (thank you to Sophia Petrillo for the greatest storytelling set up) . . . the year was 1999. Y2K sent the world into a full-blown apocalypse meltdown, M.Night Shyamalan gave us the big screen twist of the decade in The Sixth Sense, and the Chicago Bulls struggled to adjust to life without Michael Jordan. 1999 was already a wild year, and in hindsight set the stage for when the country music world was rattled, bewildered, and downright perplexed at the announcement of Garth Brooks in….The Life of Chris Gaines.  Let’s unpack Chris Gaines.

Gaines was an Australian rock artist equipped with long stringy bangs, goatee, and a 90’s grunge vibe. As realistic as Chris Gaines seemed, he was in fact NOT REAL! Chris Gaines was merely a character played by Garth Brooks, an alter-ego some called it. A VH1 mockumentary, Behind the Music of Chris Gaines, highlighted a fifteen-year non-existent career and was so detailed with fake family members, real journalists, and musicians that many were blind by the unlikely resemblance and vocal parallel to that of Brooks and believed Gaines to be a real artist. The release of this album was supposed to be a pre-soundtrack release to Brooks’ upcoming film called The Lamb, a mystery/thriller in which Gaines was the lead character, and scripted by Die Hard screenwriter Jeb Stuart. This of course never saw the light of day as sales were dismal compared to his previous Garth Brooks albums. While Brooks did not create the character, nor did he write the music, although it was his vocals, he received all of the backlashes.  

Why at the height of his career could Garth Brooks throw in the honest cowboy high octane act for a subdued Australian 90’s grunge rocker, who was apparently a sex addict? (SCANDAL!)  Brooks seemed to take Gaines so seriously that people were unsure of whether or not it was a joke. Brooks began to disassociate with Garth -- almost as if he had two personalities -- speaking in the third person, saying that Chris and Garth were seamlessly one. Was this a call for help from Garth, a mental break in the artist’s life or was he simply trying to move out of what the Nashville scene wanted him to be? Could this be what led to the ultimate downfall of legend Garth Brooks? Shortly after the whole event, Garth Brooks divorced his wife as rumours he was cheating filled the tabloids rocking country music and turning Brooks into the leading character of his hit song The Thunder Rolls. The following year Garth Brooks announced his retirement from country music. 

I would like to offer an unpopular opinion. I would like to argue that perhaps the downfall of Garth Brooks was not a fictitious character that allowed Brooks as an artist to express another side of himself, but the country music fans themselves who didn’t want to see their favourite country music artist as anything other than a wholesome country boy. Diehard country fans, if not the entire Country Music industry itself, is very unforgiving. They don’t want change, they want the old familiar. We saw this with the recent criticism toward Lil Nas X’s, Old Town Road. For those fans who got what Chris Gaines was, got it.

As a diehard Garth Brooks fan myself, as well as a comedian, and actor, I have such respect for his choice to put himself out there artistically and show another side, to use his talents to express what was going on inside whether that was Garth Brooks or Chris Gaines or another personality that we have yet to meet. Maybe this was Brooks’s way to take a break from the spotlight, giving him the ability to slow down and focus on himself as Garth and not as Garth Brooks running around a stage in a stadium entertaining thousands of people every night. Either way, Chris Gaines was an intricate character who produced incredible music, Brooks has always been about the music no matter what genre he is a part of. His music without a doubt will always be a masterclass in songwriting and musicianship. Brooks’ Gaines seemed a way for Brooks to challenge himself and continue his succession. And as an artist, I respect that. 

I would like to close out this article with this question -- if Chris Gaines was to arrive back on the scene today, twenty years after his original appearance, would he be more accepted? Was he a victim of the country music game? Donald Glover’s Childish Gambino in 2018 took the Saturday Night Live stage both as host (Donald Glover) and musical guest (Childish Gambino) the second to do so, the first -- Garth Brooks and rocker Chris Gaines. Was Chris Gaines’ reign the weirdest thing to ever happen in music history or was it actually a bold and brilliant piece of emotional creativity? I’ll let you decide. 

Childish Gambino performs a special Like A Version cover of Chris Gaines 'Lost In You'.