First off, I like Garth Brooks. He is the reason I started listening to country (again) back in the '90s. This was his first really huge album and this is what propelled him into the stratosphere. This album still has a lasting positive effect on country music. The production value on this album is killer, and that was so inmportant in its day since most labels could care less about production back in the day, churning out lazy, tinny sounding 30 minute albums by even the big name acts. This album also introduced country to more serious subject matter like the video for the song Thunder Rolls (woman kills husband in self-defense). This album was also instrumental in re-introducing younger country fans to the 'western swing' aspect of country/western music, an underappreciated genre at this time.

But for all the positives, this album raised expectations at the suit level and taught labels that they could bottle whatever Brooks was doing and steer country music towards bigger than life characters and pretty boys rather than solid talent. As Waylan Jennings had said in an interview in the mid '90s, "Guys like me & Willy would never get a contract now-a-days. Everything's geared toward looks and dance beats. Everybody's got where a black hat."

After Garth Brooks came along and broke every attendance and sales record in C/W music, small beans acts like Clint Black, George Strait, and Reba McEntire were barely tolerated. No wonder McEntire opts to act in sitcoms. And in this youth crazed atmosphere, older acts, and their music, have all but vanished from touring or radio play.

No genre in music craps on its older audiences, its senior performers, and its lineage, worse than C/W in the last ten years. Not even pop is that indifferent. Acts like Johnny Cash had to eschew regular country avenues just to get a recording contract. Loretta Lynn makes a bold album with a rock star yet country radio won't play her stuff. But they can play that Hip Hop-a-long sh!t, like 'Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy' 30 or 40 times a day. How embarrissing and disrespectful.

And to think it might not be like this if No Fences had just sold a modest 5 digit figure like every other country act of its day.