Yesterday, the RIAA honored Garth Brooks as the best selling solo artist of all-time. Brooks surpassed Elvis by selling 123 million albums. Of course, they're counting Chris Gaines albums for that number, which is total bullshit. Maybe I'm just a sales chart purist, but I think if you're going to release an album under an alias, the alias should get credit for all the sales.

 

Brooks received the award at a ceremony which took place next to his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He said:

 

I'm very proud for the music, the writers, and the players.

 

Bill Bellamy just called in, and he says he appreciates the shout out.

 

Garth Brooks has earned this award with lengthy career and a lot of highly-respected work. But isn't it a little weird that this guy has sold 123 million albums, and still a lot of people only know him for one song? You could argue that Garth Brooks is the biggest cult act ever. He's in a great situation; a ton of people love him, and the rest don't know much about him, so he doesn't have to deal with these "haters" that are so prevalent nowadays. He's pretty much got it all. Now, the only thing Garth has left to accomplish is winning the coveted award for "Most Popular Last Call Sing-Along." I won't lie, it's gonna be tough to beat out Neil Diamond, but if anyone can do it, it's Garth Brooks.

 

 

Recently out of retirement, Garth Brooks will debut the new video for his hit "More Than a Memory" tonight on GAC's Top 20. Garth had to phone in his interview, but he does talk about coming out of retirement and the release of Ultimate Hits.

 

Garth also announced earlier this week that he'll be screening the last of his upcoming sold out nine-show run in movie theaters throughout the country. He's not exactly Vin Diesel, but I hear there are tons of explosions at his shows.

Well Garth's nine-day run in Kansas City just got a bit better. The last show of the series - set for November 14 - will be broadcast live in more than 300 theaters. Garth, who has thus far been down on digital downloading, said he's excited about this particular technology, not that it's anything new.

Garth Brooks is still a hot ticket these days. Dude sold out nine concerts booked for Kansas City's Sprint Center, which seats 18,000. My math says that amounts to about 162,000 tickets.

This huge welcome back to the performing world comes despite the fact that his last real career push before retiring was as Chris Gaines, about eight years ago. He did release Scarecrow (which went on to sell five million units) just before officially retiring but I say it's his short resume as a comedian that keeps him in the hearts of fans.

I vote that he should just do a stint on SNL to liven things back up a bit. Here's a few clips of Garth on SNL to close out those last fifteen minutes of "work" for you.

 

Garth selling his soul to Satan, as played by Will Ferrell:

 

The recently un-retired Garth Brooks has booked a performance to help unveil the new Sprint Center in Kansas City - where he'll play a November 14 show for employees of Wal-Mart. Garth hasn't said anything about a tour yet, but with shows picking up steam, it's not long before middle-America demands to see their favorite tiled-shirt wearing hero on the road.

Garth Brooks will drop by Radio City Music Hall tonight in New York City to perform at the Dream Concert in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. The concert will help pay for a planned memorial on the National Mall in D.C.

The unstoppable man in country music came back with a vengeance on last week's Billboard country singles chart.

Garth Brooks is about to release a brand new single on August 27, called "More Than a Memory." The song is from The Ultimate Hits, due out on November 6.

As reported by Billboard.com, country mega-star Garth Brooks will not be just focusing on Wal-Mart to sell his upcoming box set release this November.

Ok, so maybe the whole ‘leaving retirement' biz was a mangled truth rather than a complete rumor.

If he does, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll be doing it mainly to revive his Chris Gaines alter-ego.

Garth Brooks plans to sing at a September 18 benefit concert to raise money for a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial.