He hosted Saturday Night Live as himself, with Chris as the musical guest. Garth pulled out all the stops to push this new identity. The CD collected Chris’ greatest hits from all over his career, culled from fictional albums with titles like Fornucopia. Then he turned in his cowboy hat for a bus-driver wig, grew a soul patch, and turned himself into a codpiece-wearing rocker. Strange as it might seem now, in 1999, Garth was the most invincible star on the planet. What does it mean that Gaga, whose career looked dead in the water after too many glitzy makeovers, is suddenly more massive than ever, by turning into Garth’s failed rock-star fantasy? How did the world get to the point where the biggest hit around is Lady Gaga in the Life of Chris Gaines? Before his album bombed, Garth announced he was turning it into a movie, The Lamb-except that’s the role Gaga is about to win an Oscar for playing. I’ve seen the movie three times (and ugly-cried every time, don’t me) and I’m fascinated by the Garth/ A Star Is Born connection. The Chris Gaines fiasco has always been a great wild loony-star story, but I keep thinking of it when I hear “Shallow,” which is every 20 minutes or so. “Shallow” even sounds like the Chris Gaines “hit” single, “Lost In You.” In other words, Bradley Cooper’s Jackson Maine is exactly the character Garth was trying to invent. Suddenly he wanted us to see him as a dark, tortured, messianic figure crooning soft-rock ballads that sounded like Kenny Loggins crashing Michael Hutchence’s funeral with an audition tape. Garth was the biggest-selling artist at the all-time peak of the music biz, except he blew the whole thing by making a concept album as a fictional rock star, Garth Brooks in the Life of Chris Gaines. That’s perhaps the weirdest aspect of Lady Gaga’s A Star Is Born phenomenon - how uncannily close it all feels to country stud Garth Brooks’ makeover as Chris Gaines, one of history’s craziest superstar disasters.
It took a while, but Chris Gaines has turned out to be one of the most influential artists of 2018, by being the least influential artist of 1999.
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