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Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars: In 1991, Garth Brooks Turned Country Into Pop
This Greatest Pop Stars Sidebar looks at how Garth Brooks brought country to pop levels for the first time.
In this sidebar to our Greatest Pop Stars by Year article series, we look at how Garth Brooks took country music to stadiums and diamond sales in the '90s. “The Thunder Rolls” carries a pumped-up sense of melodrama that’s straight out of AOR, a sound that undoubtedly assisted the song’s rise to the top of the country charts in the middle of 1991. That’s a testament to the enduring influence of Garth’s early ’90s reign, an era that kicked off in 1991, when No Fences and Ropin’ the Wind were racking up sales that dwarfed both Michael Jackson and Nirvana, as audiences flocked to see the Oklahoma megastar fly around an arena singing into a wireless microphone.
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