Quintin Jardine's blog

Man against  Machine – Garth Brooks. The man’s first album of new material in 13 years. Kinky Friedman used to call GB ‘The Anti-Hank’, and if you’re a country purist you’ll understand what  he meant, and question his right to the cowboy hat.  The new collection is welcome, the voice is massive, and it has fiddles and steel guitars a-plenty, but it’s more rock than anything else. After all this time I was waiting for the big track to jump out and grab me, but it isn’t there. ‘In the LIfe of Chris Gaines’ remains my favourite Brooks album, by a distance.

By the way, for those who wonder what he looks like without the airbrushing and the cowboy hat —