What’s With The Renewed Interest in Chris Gaines?

Maybe it has something to do with the 20th anniversary of the release of Garth Brooks’ alter-ego’s only album..?

By kncitom on July 31, 2019

Just as Garth Brooks is in the midst of his stadium tour right now, it seems there’s been a resurgence of interest in Garth’s 1999 alter ego Chris Gaines. Coincidence? Hmmm…. 

For those who don’t know, for a short time, Garth became this weird fictional pop/rock character called Chris Gaines. There was a whole backstory that he was a troubled-but-genius artist from Australia; he had an emaciated, emo look with a shag of soul patch under his lower lip, he even appeared on Saturday Night Live hosting as Garth Brooks but musical-guesting as Chris Gaines. The whole thing was supposedly to set up a movie that never materialized but the truth is, he was probably really doing it because he had a pop music itch he wanted to scratch but felt his country fans wouldn’t accept a pop Garth Brooks. So, he put out one album that was pretty quickly dismissed at the time but now…. there seems to be a renewed interest in it and I’ll give you 2 quick examples:

1) A place in Nashville called the Cobra Bar is having a Chris Gaines Fest on Sept 28th to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album’s release. There’ll be a Chris Gaines look a like contest, a Chris Gaines tribute band a Chris Gaines inspired art sale.

2) Actor Donald Glover’s alter ego music character Childish Gambino last week released a cover of the Chris Gaines song Lost in You. Yep. An musical alter ego covering…a musical alter ego.  This is the world we live in now you guys. Enjoy. But…if you’re capable of complete impartiality, maybe give the Chris Gaines album a listen. If you put everything else aside and take it for what it is…in my opinion, it’s not bad.