Garth Brooks Album: “Chase”

I think I first heard Garth Brooks perform "Learnin' to Live Again" on Letterman. Bought the CD just on that one track-- it was a strong song that stuck with me. It's the only country album I own (if you don't count "country-lite" folks like Bonnie Raitt), and I'm a big fan. Buy it simply to expand your horizons just a bit.

Garth Brooks has another solid album here. However, I think he took a slight step back from his earlier records on The Chase. He started venturing more in the pop direction on some of his songs, though the songs themselves are well-done. Garth's hit "We Shall Be Free", with its funky, gospel-tinged arrangement, created controversy with its anti-homophobic stance, but I don't think it should have. The message is actually very simple; it's about brotherhood and living in harmony. "Face To Face", like "The Dance" a song by Garth's buddy Tony Arata, is another controversial song. One of the verses on "Face To Face" deals with acquaintance rape. "Dixie Chicken", an old Little Feat song, is a bluesy romp. These songs are heavily pop-oriented--Garth, after all, counts the rock icons Journey, Billy Joel, Queen, and Kiss among his musical influences in addition to his country heroes, George Jones and George Strait. The songs on the record are well-done, though, and Garth included enough ballads and "straight" country tunes on The Chase to make it a high-quality album. The ballads "Somewhere Other Than The Night", "Learning To Live Again", and "That Summer" are all well-written, well-performed songs and were big hits for Garth as well. The traditional-sounding "Night Rider's Lament", the country swing song "Mr. Right", the reflective song "Every Now And Then", and Garth's version of the classic Patsy Cline song "Walkin' After Midnight" round out the record(of which I have the cassette version). Garth's commercial success started getting the better of him on The Chase because he retreated a bit from the "straight" country he started out singing. However, The Chase is still a very good effort. It gets a four-star rating from me.

This album certainly isn't one of Brook's best, but as with all of his albums it manages to throw up some excellent moments. Released in 1992, it saw Brooks deviating further still from tradtional country, with the overall sound of the album being a lot more slick and pop-orientated than his previous efforts.

The highlights of this album include the opening 'We Shall Be Free', a gospel-tinged anthemn calling for world peace containing some memorable and moving lyrics. 'Somewhere Other Than The Night' is another of Garth's emotional power ballads. 'Every Now And Then' is one of the lesser known tracks but is still on a par with any other song on this album, another moving ballad reminincsing of a former lover.

Bought this CD for only one song. I'm not a diehard CW fan but I do like a lot of the music. We Shall Be Free touched me on many levels - especially since 9/11. First time I heard it was on a TV commercial. I found its title using Shazam and Googled it from there. Amazon - you rock!

If you were to take all Garth Brooks' CDs and pick out the one that is the most unlike the others, this would have to be it. Out of all the Garth CDs, I think this one is my least favorite. Not because it's bad and not because it's not 'country' enough, just because I don't like it as must as the others.

But, it's worth buying just to have some of the songs on it. *Face to face* is an amazing song that a lot of people can really relate to. *Every now and then* is a great piece, and *Somewhere other than the night* is my personal favorite on the disc.

For the true Garth Brooks fan, you will want this CD no matter what. As it is written on the case "Every artist seems to have an album that reflects 'the person' rather than 'the artist.' The Chase is that album for Garth Brooks."