The dominant force in country music in the 1990's -- in fact, in popular music in general -- has been Garth Brooks. Over 100 million of his albums have been sold in the U.S., second only to the number sold by the Beatles. He is the first singer labeled as "country" who has appealed to a wide enough audience to compete in popularity with "mainstream" popular singers. He has also been accused of not doing "real" country music -- and, as he has been quick to admit himself, his songs, and his style, certainly do not fit into the traditional "country" mold (whatever you think that is -- see "This Music Don't Play Backwards", under "My Songs", for one more opinion on this controversy). But adding "pop" styling to country songs is not a new or unique idea -- why has he been so much more successful than others who have done the same kind of thing? IMO, it's a matter of both his choice of songs, and songwriters (since he has not been the primary songwriter on hardly any of his songs), and his performance of them -- factors that are easy to identify, but much harder to carry out (otherwise anyone could be that popular). I have found more of his songs worth the effort to learn to sing and play myself, than those of any other performer who's become popular in the last decade (although he's still behind John Denver in this department, overall). Some of my favorites of his include "If Tomorrow Never Comes", "The Dance", "Wolves", "We Shall Be Free", "Belleau Wood" (on Sevens); and, of course, "Friends in Low Places" (the most popular country song, in terms of total sales, of all time). I have also "improved" on some of his songs that I liked, and those appear in the headings below. More explanation of how each one of these came to be written can be found on the page for each song. I hope you enjoy them.