Garth Brooks, according to the Recording Industry Association Of America, has sold more albums in America than any other individual garth brooks. The Oklahoma native, who has recorded the only two country albums to sell more than 10 million copies, trails only the Beatles in terms of sales. Brooks has publicly announced that he wants to be the first artist to sell 100 million albums, and with sales racked up at over 80 million and counting, it looks like he just might meet his goal. Some impressive stats, just to put his career in perspective: his album No Fences is tied with Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill as the best-selling album of the '90s (16 million) and is the biggest-selling country album of all time; his Ropin' The Wind album is the second-biggest all-time country seller, at 13 million; his last studio LP, Sevens, had the highest first-week sales for 1997 (with 890,000 sold) and the second-highest first-week sales of all time; and his six-CD boxed set, Limited Series, held on to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Top 200, becoming the first box to do so since Bruce Springsteen's 1975-1985. And with his new two-disc concert release, Double Live, it looks like Garth is getting closer and closer to that 100-million mark.

Born Troyal Garth Brooks on February 7, 1962, Brooks attended Oklahoma State University on a javelin scholarship, but received his degree in advertising with a minor in marketing--studies which he has put to good use in his career. He signed to Capitol Records six months after moving to Nashville in 1987 (his mother, Colleen Carroll, had recorded there briefly during the '50s). His self-titled debut sold well in 1989, but his second album, No Fences, combined traditional country themes, blew them up to arena-rock-sized proportions, and broke almost every country sales record. The album's first single, "Friends In Low Places," was a massive hit, and won the Country Music Assn.'s Single Of The Year. Brooks won the CMA's Horizon Award in 1990 and its Entertainer Of The Year award for the following two years. Brooks's next album, Ropin' The Wind, became the first country album to debut atop Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart. Sales slipped somewhat after that, though they were still phenomenal by any previous standard. Brooks broke concert records, appeared on TV specials, renegotiated his record contract and generally ruled country music: When he grew dissatisfied with the head of his record label, the executive was replaced.

Brooks sets extremely high standards, so when 1995's Fresh Horses failed to meet his expectations, the singer's frustration occasionally spilled over into the public arena. He's still the biggest touring act in country and his albums are guaranteed to go multi-platinum, though singers like Shania Twain now outsell him, at least in the short run. How he handles being part of the pack instead of its leader may have a great impact on his legacy.

Judging by Brooks's 1999 activities, he's handling it in an interesting way indeed. For this was the year when Brooks put on a black wig and a pile of makeup and unveiled the character of Chris Gaines, a fictional pseudo-goth-looking pop star who had supposedly racked up great success in the '80s, then suffered a disfiguring accident and re-emerged in the spotlight drastically altered by plastic surgery. In...The Life Of Chris Gaines, purported to be a Gaines greatest-hits collection, stripped away nearly all the remaining country elements from Brooks's music in favor of more or less convincing R&B and light rock stylings. Odder still was Brooks's subsequent appearance on Saturday Night Live, in which he was the host and Chris Gaines was the musical guest. It turned out all this seeming schizophrenia was a preview of sorts for The Lamb, an upcoming film in which Brooks will play the role of Gaines. Yup, that marketing degree sure has been a good investment.

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