1989 Nominees: Garth Brooks, Roxette, Babyface & MC Hammer

Garth Brooks

Garth Brooks is a pivotal figure in the history of country music, no matter how much some country purists would like to deny it. With his commercially savvy fusion of post-Merle Haggard country, honky tonk, post-folk-rock sensitive singer/songwriter sensibilities, and '70s arena rock dramatics, Brooks brought country music to a new audience in the '90s -- namely, a mass audience. Before Brooks, it was inconceivable for a country artist to go multi-platinum. He shattered that barrier in 1991, when his second album, No Fences, began its chart domination, and its follow-up, Ropin' the Wind, became the first country album to debut at the top of the pop charts; No Fences would eventually sell a record-shattering 13 million copies. After Garth, country music had successfully carved a permanent place for itself on the pop charts. In the process, it lost a lot of the traditionalism that had always been its hallmark, but that is precisely why Brooks is important.

Garth Brooks is the son of Troyal and Colleen Carroll Brooks. Colleen was a country singer herself, recording a handful of records for Capitol in the mid-'50s that never experienced any chart success. As a child, Garth was interested in music and frequently sang at family gatherings, but he concentrated on athletics. He received a partial athletic scholarship at Oklahoma State University as a javelin tosser, but he wound up dropping the sport during his collegiate career. While he was at college, Brooks began singing in local Oklahoma clubs, often with lead guitarist Ty England.

After he graduated with an advertising degree in December of 1984, Garth Brooks decided to try to forge out a career as a country singer. In 1985 he traveled to Nashville with hopes of being discovered by a record label. Just 23 hours after arriving in Nashville, he returned to Oklahoma, frustrated with the industry, his prospects, and his naïve dreams. Brooks continued to perform in Oklahoma clubs, and in 1986, he married his college girlfriend, Sandy Mahl.

The couple moved to Nashville in 1987, this time with a better idea of how the music industry operated. Brooks began making connections with various songwriters and producers, and he sang on a lot of songwriter's demo tapes. Although he had made several connections within the industry and had a powerful management team, every label in town was refusing to sign him. In 1988, six weeks after Capitol Records passed on his demo, one of the label's executives sawBrooks sing at a local club. Impressed with the performance, the executive convinced the label to sign Garth.

Brooks recorded his first album with producer Allen Reynolds at the end of 1988; the self-titled debut appeared early in 1989. The album was an instant success, with its first single, "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)," climbing into the country Top Ten. Garth's debut was a success, crossing over into the pop album charts, but it was overshadowed by the blockbuster appeal of Clint Black, as well other similar new male vocalists like Travis Tritt and Alan Jackson. Within a year, Brooks would tower above them all with his surprise, widespread success.

Garth Brooks had three other hit singles -- the number one "If Tomorrow Never Comes," the number two "Not Counting You," and the number one "The Dance" -- but it was his second album, No Fences, that established him as a superstar. No Fences was released in the fall of 1990, preceded by the massive hit single "Friends in Low Places." No Fences spent 23 weeks at the top of the country charts and sold 700,000 copies within the first ten days of its release. Throughout 1990 and 1991, Brooks had a string of number one country hits from the album, including "Unanswered Prayers," "Two of a Kind, Workin' on a Full House," and "The Thunder Rolls." By 1993, No Fences would sell over ten million copies.

Not only did his record sales break all the accepted country conventions, but so did Garth Brooks' concerts. By the end of 1990, he was selling out stadiums within minutes and was putting on stadium-sized shows, patterned after '70s rock extravaganzas. Brooks used a cordless, headset microphone so he could run around his large stage. He had an elaborate light show, explosions, and even a harness so he could swing out above the crowd and sing to them. It was the first time any country artist had incorporated such rock & roll techniques into stage shows.

Ropin' the Wind, Brooks' third album, was released in September of 1991 and became the first country record to debut at the top of the pop charts. Ropin' the Wind matched the success of No Fences, selling over ten million copies within its first two years of release and spawning the number one hit singles "Shameless," "What She's Doing Now," and "The River."


By the end of 1991, Brooks had become a genuine popular music phenomenon -- even his 1992 Christmas album, Beyond the Season, went multi-platinum -- and there were no signs of his momentum slowing down. Naturally, a backlash began to develop in the fall of 1992, beginning with the release of "We Shall Be Free," the first single from his fourth album. Featuring a strong gospel underpinning, the single stalled at number 12 and many radio stations refused to play it. It was indicative of the eclectic nature of his forthcoming album, The Chase, which pushed the boundaries of contemporary country. The Chase debuted at number one upon its October 1992 release and by the end of the year, it sold over five million copies. Nevertheless, that number was half the size of the figures for his two previous albums and there was speculation in the media that Brooks' career had already peaked.



Sensing that he was in danger of losing his core audience, Brooks returned to straight country with 1993's In Pieces. The album was critically acclaimed and sold several million copies, though it was clear that Brooks would not reach the stratospheric commercial heights of No Fences and Ropin' the Wind again. Even so, he remained one of the most successful artists in popular music, one of the few guaranteed to sell millions of records with each new album, as well as sell out concerts around the world.


The Hits, which was only available for a year, was released in the fall of 1994 and would eventually sell over eight million albums. Brooks released Fresh Horses, his first album of new material in two years, in November of 1995; within six months of its release, it had sold over three million copies. Despite its promising start, Fresh Horses plateaued quickly, topping out at quadruple platinum -- a healthy number for any artist, but a little disappointing considering Brooks' superstar status. Brooks decided to push his seventh album, appropriately titled Sevens, very hard to confirm his superstar status. Originally, it was scheduled to be released in August of 1997, when he would promote it with a huge concert in Central Park. Plans went awry when Capitol Records experienced a huge management shakeup, leaving many of his contacts at the label out in the cold. Upset at the new management, Brooks held back the release of Sevens until he received commitment for a major marketing push for the album. He went ahead and performed the Central Park concert, which received major coverage in the media. On the strength of the concert, Capitol acquiesced to Brooks' demands, andSevens was released in November of 1997. Sevens catapulted to number one upon its release and quickly went multi-platinum over the holiday season.




The following spring, Brooks pulled his first six albums out of print and issuedThe Limited Series, a box set that contained all six records plus bonus tracks. Once all two million copies of The Limited Series were sold, the individual albums would remain out of print until their tenth anniversary, when they would be released only on DVD audio. The Double Live set followed in late 1998, and its sales were brisk but not quite as heavy as projected. In the spring of 1998, Brooks unsuccessfully tried out for the San Diego Padres pro baseball team, a major indication of his growing desire to expand his success beyond country music.



Once it became clear that professional baseball wasn't in his future, he became fascinated with film, specifically starring in The Lamb, a supposed thriller about a conflicted, tortured rock star called Chris Gaines. He was determined to win the role, and he did after extensive lobbying. Sometime in the spring of 1999, the film was given the green light with Babyface as a producer and Brooks as the star. During pre-production, Brooks decided the best way to prep for the role was to become Chris Gaines. He invented a brooding, leather-clad image and filled in holes in Gaines' back story by inventing biographies and a musical history. The most important piece in the puzzle was a collection of Gaines' "greatest hits," since it would prime audiences for the big-budget spectacular of The Lamb, scheduled for late 2000. So, Brooks jumped the gun, recording a set of 13 songs -- as Chris Gaines -- that would fill in the fictional singer's history.


As the Chris Gaines album was about to hit stores, Brooks' new persona was revealed to the public. Since the machinations of The Lamb were only known to music insiders and fans who religiously followed the trades, Brooks' sudden re-emergence as a slimmed-down, soul-patched, shaggy-haired soulful pop crooner was utterly bizarre to almost every observer. There was a massive PR campaign to shed light on Chris Gaines, complete with a TV special, but the details were so convoluted that it couldn't be explained easily. In the Life of Chris Gaines was released at the end of September 1999, and although it entered the charts at number two, it was a major commercial disappointment; by the time Christmas rolled around, some major stores were offering heavy discounts on the record in hopes of clearing out unsold stock. Fan bewilderment over the Gaines project also likely hurt sales of Brooks' second holiday record, Garth Brooks & the Magic of Christmas, a traditional pop-styled outing that appeared just two months later.



Brooks kept a low profile through most of 2000, as the disastrous marketplace showing of the Chris Gaines album effectively scuttled plans for The Lamb. His personal life was also in turmoil, as he and his wife announced that they were divorcing in October of 2000. By the time the divorce was finalized the following year, Brooks was on his way to retirement, choosing to retreat from music and concentrate on fatherhood. He announced that his next album, Scarecrow, would be his last and it was released to appropriate fanfare that November, debuting at number one on the Billboard pop and country charts, but failing to generate a hit single bigger than “Wrapped Up In You,” which peaked at five.

After the release of Scarecrow, Brooks eased into retirement, spending the next few years quietly and not resurfacing in the public eye until he had a busy 2006. Toward the end of that year, he married country singer Trisha Yearwood on December 10, but prior to that, he struck a deal with Wal-Mart to become the exclusive retailer for his back catalog. The first release under this deal was a new box set called The Limited Series that collected all the albums he released after his first box set called The Limited Series. This second Limited Series was released in time for the holiday season of 2005 and also included a new disc of outtakes called The Lost Sessions which was later released as an individual disc in 2006. The Lost Sessions featured a duet with Yearwood called “Love Will Always Win,” which climbed to 23 on the country charts in '06, a modest placing that was nevertheless his biggest hit since “Wrapped Up In You.”

Decision: Garth never had a pop hit single, except for his one hit as Chris Gaines, but he has sold an unbelievable 128 million albums(3rd all time to the Beatles and Elvis Presley). That alone qualifies him to the Pop Music Hall Of Fame...

Roxette

Roxette were one of the biggest global pop acts of the 1980s, selling over 75 million records around the world and dominating the charts with songs like "The Look," "Listen to Your Heart," "Joyride," and "It Must Have Been Love." Hailing from Halmstad, Sweden, Roxette were a duo featuring vocalist Marie Fredriksson and songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Per Gessle. Fredriksson and Gessle first met in the late '70s, when she was a member of the pop combo Strul & Ma Mas Barn and he played with Gyllene Tider, one of Sweden's biggest groups of the late '70s and early '80s. In 1981, after Fredriksson's group broke up, she joined Gyllene Tider as backing vocalist for a concert tour, and later worked with them in the studio in the same capacity. In 1984, Fredriksson released her first solo album, Het Vind (Hot Wind) andGessle contributed a song for the sessions; the same year, Gyllene Tider recorded their only English-language album,The Heartland Café, and Gessle once again invited Fredriksson to contribute to the sessions. For the American release,Gyllene Tider's American label, Capitol Records, edited the 11-song album down to a six-track EP, and shortened the title to Heartland. Capitol also felt the name Gyllene Tider might not register with U.S. listeners, so the group adopted the name Roxette, taken from a song by British pub rock icons Dr. Feelgood. The Heartland Café proved to be Gyllene Tider'd last album, and Gessle decided it was finally time for him and Fredriksson to record a project together. As Roxette, they cut a single in 1986, "Neverending Love," which was a major hit in Sweden, and a number of songs Fredriksson and Gessle had ear-marked for her third solo album became the basis of the first proper Roxette album, Pearls of Passion. In hopes of greater international success, Roxette wrote and recorded their material in English, but while Pearls of Passion was a hit at home, Capitol/EMI didn't bother to release the album in the United States. The same fate initially be fell 1988's Look Sharp! until an American student studying in Sweden brought a copy of the album home to Minneapolis and persuaded a DJ at a local radio station to give "The Look" a spin. The song clicked with listeners, and soon Capitol rush-released Look Sharp! in the United States; both "The Look" and "It Must Have Been Love" went to number one on the singles charts, and the album went platinum, establishing Roxette in the States and kickstarting their career in Europe. Their next album, 1991's Joyride, also went platinum in America, and it was followed in 1992 by Tourism: Songs from Studios, Stages, Hotel Rooms and Other Strange Places, a collection of material recorded during the group's 1991 world tour. In 1994, Roxette released Crash! Boom! Bang!, which was successful in Sweden and Europe but failed to live up to the sales figures of their second and third albums in America. In 1996, Roxette went on hiatus after recording a Spanish-language album, as Gyllene Tider staged a reunion tour and Gessle released a solo album. Roxette returned to duty in 1999 with the album Have a Nice Day, and Room Service followed in 2001, with the duo making a high-profile appearance as part of the Eurovision Song Contest. However, in the fall of 2002, Roxette was forced to curtail their activities when Fredriksson was diagnosed with a brain tumor; over the next several years, she focused on her recovery and recorded solo material, while Gessle also pursued solo projects and staged another Gyllene Tider reunion. In 2008, Gessle surprised fans at a concert in Amsterdam when he brought out Fredriksson to sing several Roxette hits, and in 2009, the duo staged a comeback tour that sold out halls all across Europe and the Netherlands. With Fredriksson back in fighting shape, Roxette returned to the recording studio, and 2011's Charm School was their first album of new material in ten years, followed by another successful world concert tour.

Decision: Between 1989 and 1991, Roxette had 4 #1 hits and 2 #2's, then completely disappeared from the US charts. They fall just short of the Pop HOF.

Babyface

As a singer, producer, and songwriter, Babyface was an inescapable presence in virtually every major facet of pop music during the '90s. His own recordings helped rejuvenate the R&B tradition of the smooth, sensitive, urban crooner and made him a staple of urban contemporary radio. Yet their considerable success was eclipsed by his songwriting and production work for other artists, which linked him with some of the biggest stars and hit singles of the decade (and not just in the realm of R&B). You'd be hard-pressed to name a '90s hitmaker with a track record more consistently successful and versatile than Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds.

Kenneth Edmonds was born April 10, 1959, in Indianapolis and began playing in local R&B bands as a teenager. He served a stint in Bootsy Collins' backing unit (where he earned his nickname) and subsequently joined the funk outfitManchild, which signed a record deal in 1977 and released three albums. After their breakup, Babyface and partnerAntonio "L.A." Reid formed an urban funk group called the Deele in the early '80s, which scored a few sizable hits on the R&B charts. Babyface and Reid began producing and writing for other artists on the side, landing hits in Pebbles' "Girlfriend" and the Whispers' "Rock Steady"; following the Deele's third album in 1988, the duo left to continue their outside activities full-time, co-founding the LaFace label in 1989. Further hits followed in Bobby Brown's "Every Little Step," Sheena Easton's "The Lover in Me," and Karyn White's "The Way You Love Me" and "Superwoman," all of which performed well on both the pop and R&B charts.


Babyface had actually recorded a little-noticed solo album in 1986, titled Lovers, but with his newfound success having marked him as one to watch, his solo career now began in earnest. Released in 1989, Tender Lover caught fire, spinning off four singles over the next year, including the R&B chart smashes "It's No Crime" (number one) and "Whip Appeal" (number two; both also reached the pop Top Ten); the album also went double platinum. Now firmly established as a powerhouse, Babyface went on to co-write hits for Johnny Gill ("My, My, My," nominated for the Best R&B Song Grammy),Whitney Houston ("I'm Your Baby Tonight"), and Madonna ("Take a Bow"); his biggest success, however, came with Boyz II Men, whose recording of "End of the Road" became one of the longest-running number ones in pop history (the Babyface-penned follow-up "I'll Make Love to You" was also pretty successful in its own right). He was co-nominated for an Album of the Year Grammy for his production on The Bodyguard soundtrack and went on to work with artists like Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, En Vogue, and Mary J. Blige. As if that weren't enough, LaFace had become a highly successful and lucrative imprint, breaking artists like Toni Braxton, TLC, OutKast, and Usher (often with input from Reid and Babyface).




It's no wonder Babyface wound up taking a break from his own career as a singer during the early '90s, releasing only a remix album, A Closer Look, in 1991. The proper follow-up to Tender Lover didn't appear until 1993; even so, For the Cool in You was an even bigger hit than its predecessor, going triple platinum and producing Babyface's first Top Five pop hit, the change-of-pace acoustic guitar ballad "When Can I See You Again" (which won him his first Grammy as a performer for Best Male R&B Vocal). In 1995, he scored another major success with the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack, not only producing it but scoring the film itself and writing nearly all of its songs, including the Whitney Houston smash "Exhale (Shoop, Shoop)." The same year, he won the first of three consecutive Grammys as Producer of the Year. Successes just kept coming in 1996; the guest-laden album The Day spawned another Top Ten pop/R&B hit in "Every Time I Close My Eyes," and he solidified his crossover credentials once and for all by winning a Grammy for Record of the Year as producer of Eric Clapton's "Change the World."




Encouraged by the success of Waiting to Exhale, Babyface and his wife,Tracey Edmonds, formed their own film production company, which debuted in 1997 with the acclaimed urban family comedy/drama Soul Food (Babyface, naturally, masterminded the soundtrack). The next year, he contributed lyrics to the animated musical The Prince of Egypt, which went uncredited on the soundtrack album. With the movies taking up more of his time, his next musical releases were quick one-offs: an MTV Unplugged album in 1997 and the seasonal Christmas with Babyface the next year. His production and songwriting activities continued, though he remained silent as a performer for a few years. In 2000, Epic released the best-of compilation A Collection of His Greatest Hits, marking the end of his tenure with the label; he had elected to move to Arista, where L.A. Reid had been a high-ranking executive. In 2001, Babyface released a new album, Face2Face, and also produced the punk-pop soundtrack for the film Josie & the Pussycats. The back-to-basics Grown & Sexy came in July 2005, followed by 2007's covers-based Playlist for Mercury.

Decision: As a recording artist, Babyface had great success with 6 top 10 Pop singles, but as a producer and writer, he had mega-success in the late 80s and 90s, writing and/or producing 12 #1 singles and over 25 top 10 hits for many different artists. Babyface is a Pop Music Hall Of Famer.

MC Hammer

There had been hit rap singles and albums before him, but MC Hammer was the man who truly brought rap music to a mass pop audience. Armed with a flamboyant wardrobe (particularly his trademark baggy parachute pants) and a raft of sampled hooks lifted straight from their sources, Hammer's talents as a dancer and showman far exceeded his technique as an MC. Still, he had an ear for catchy source material, and that helped his second album, Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em, become the best-selling rap album of all time. Even if he was never able to duplicate that level of success, and even if his street credibility was virtually non-existent, Hammer still broke down numerous doors for rap music in the mainstream, demonstrating that hip-hop had the potential for blockbuster success in the marketplace.




MC Hammer was born Stanley Kirk Burrell in Oakland, California on March 30, 1962. A member of a strongly religious family, he landed a job as a bat/ball boy for the Oakland Athletics baseball team, where he entertained fans by dancing during breaks in the game, and earned the nickname "Hammer" for his resemblance to all-time home run leader "Hammerin'" Hank Aaron. An aspiring ballplayer himself, he failed to catch on with a professional organization following high school, and enlisted in the Navy for three years. Long a fan of funk and soul, he became interested in hip-hop upon returning to civilian life, and began performing in local clubs; with the financial help of several Athletics players, he also started his own record label, Bustin' Records, and recorded a couple of popular local singles. With ex-Con Funk Shun mastermind Felton Pilate producing, Hammer recorded an album titled Feel My Power in 1987. After impressing a Capitol Records executive with his already elaborate live show, he was signed to a multi-album deal, the first of which was a revamped version of Feel My Power retitled Let's Get It Started. Producing an R&B hit in "Turn This Mutha Out," Let's Get It Started went double platinum.



Still, nothing could have foreshadowed the phenomenon of Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em, the 1990-released follow-up. Its first single, "U Can't Touch This," blatantly copped most of its hooks from Rick James' funk classic "Super Freak," yet Hammer's added catch phrases (and young listeners' unfamiliarity with the original song) helped make it a smash. "U Can't Touch This" dominated radio and MTV during 1990 in a way few rap singles ever had, and won two Grammys (Best R&B Song, Best Solo Rap Performance); save for a quirk in its release format -- it was only available as a 12", which cut down on its sales -- it would easily have been the first rap single to top the Billboard pop chart. The next two singles, "Have You Seen Her" (a flat-out cover of the Chi-Lites' '70s soul ballad) and "Pray" (built on the keyboard hook from Prince's "When Doves Cry"), followed "U Can't Touch This" into the Top Ten, eventually pushing sales of Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em past the ten-million mark and making it the number one album of the year. Still, a backlash was growing against Hammer's frequent borrowing (some said theft) of classic hooks for his own hits; hip-hop purists also railed about his often simplistic, repetitive lyrics (indeed, "Pray" set a new record for the number of times its title was repeated during the song, at well over 100). The charges of rank commercialism weren't lessened by the merchandising machine that soon kicked in: endorsement deals, MC Hammer dolls, even a Saturday morning cartoon show.


Seeking to counteract the criticism, Hammer dropped the "MC" from his name and used more live instrumentation on his 1991 follow-up album, Too Legit to Quit. While it sold very well (over three million copies) and produced a sizable hit in the title track, Hammer's stage show had become as lavish as his lifestyle; loaded with singers, dancers, and backup musicians, the supporting concert tour was too expensive for the album's sales to finance, and it was canceled partway through. Hammer scored his last big hit with "Addams Groove," the theme to the film version of The Addams Family, and then paused to reconsider his approach. In 1994, he returned with The Funky Headhunter, a harder-edged, more aggressive record that went gold, but failed to win him a new audience among hardcore hip-hop fans. On 1995's Inside Out, Hammer seemed unsure of whether he wanted to appeal to pop or rap audiences; the album flopped, and Hammer was let out of his contract. In 1996, Hammer filed for bankruptcy, his taste for luxury having gotten the better of his dwindling income; his mansion was sold at a fraction of its cost. The crisis prompted a religious reawakening, and he began to write new material with an emphasis on spirituality and family. The album Family Affair was slated for release on Hammer's own Oaktown Records label, but plans were aborted at the last minute; only 1,000 copies were pressed, and were never distributed nationally, save for limited Internet downloads. Several projects were rumored to be in the works, including another album (War Chest: Turn of the Century) and a soundtrack to the film Return to Glory: The Powerful Stirring of the Black Man, but none ever appeared. Finally, Hammer released a new album, the patriotic-themed Active Duty, through his own World Hit label in late 2001.

Decision: Hammer owned the world in 1990, but was a has been by 1994. Pretty much a one album wonder, not a Pop Hall Of Famer.

Next: 1990 Nominees: Mariah Carey, En Vogue & Wilson Phillips