Garth Shows Up at the Wrong Dance

Ever get the feeling that Garth Brooks has too much time on his hands?

You might think so after hearing his latest album or watching his NBC-TV special on Wednesday.

It’s not enough that the country music star has already sold more albums in the U.S. than any other solo artist in history. He now wants to be a pop-rock star as well.

Brooks has such a loyal country fan base that the new album, “Garth Brooks in . . . the Life of Chris Gaines,” will undoubtedly add millions to the singer’s tally, but a lot of people are going to be shaking their heads after they hear this recording.

Just what is going on here?

In the album, which will be released today by Capitol Records, Brooks assumes the role of a fictional pop-rock star, Chris Gaines, and he sings a bunch of songs in various styles that have been popular over the last two decades, from R&B; to rock.

The excuse for all this is that Brooks will play the doomed pop star Gaines in “The Lamb,” a yet-to-be-made movie that is scheduled to be released late next year.

The album is a way to introduce us to the character before we actually see him on the screen; it’s an imaginary “greatest hits” collection from Gaines.

But the suspicion is that Brooks, who has long spoken about his love for such pop-rock acts as Billy Joel and James Taylor, has been dying to make an album like this for years. And the marketing genius that lives inside Brooks certainly knows about the value of widening his demographics beyond the country field. About the only crowds Brooks doesn’t go after here are rappers and alt-rockers.

It’s a daring step, and he’s using the television special to explain himself. In fact, the program is akin to an elaborate electronic press kit--the kind of music-and-interview video that record companies send to the media to promote a new album.

In the hourlong show, Brooks does a few songs from the album--as himself, not in the character of Gaines (who looks as if he goes to the same hairstylist as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince).

He also offers a few words--a lot of words, actually--of explanation about the project.

Brooks tells us he can understand how some die-hard Garth fans are going to pass on this music, and he forgives them.

“If they choose to sit this one out, I can’t complain,” he says. “We’ve had a wonderful decade thanks to them and God, and hopefully there is something we can bring them in the future that we can dance again to.”

But Brooks is also quick to urge everyone to stick around. After all, he says excitedly, there’s an awful lot of Garth in Chris.

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That may be so, but there’s also an awful lot of almost every other best-selling male artist of the last 15 years in Chris as well, and that’s the problem with the music. Gaines may prove to be one fascinating dude on film, but he’s a pretty dull one on record.

Brooks (as Gaines) may be saluting a lot of strong pop-rock visions in these songs, but he doesn’t have any strong point of view himself. There’s one song in roughly the biting country-rock style of the Eagles, one in the smooth R&B; manner of Babyface (“Lost in You,” which is already a pop Top 10 hit), one with a trace of Motown funk and a couple that are very Beatles-esque.

Trying to touch all demographic bases, Brooks-Gaines even has two faux Dylan songs--one (“Main Street”) in the style of father Bob’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” period and one (“Unsigned Letter”) that sounds so much like son Jakob and the Wallflowers that it could have been an outtake from “Bringing Down the Horse.”

But none of these songs--written chiefly by Nashville writers--rises above its influences. And Brooks’ vocals seem generic. The result is drab, anonymous pop.

Brooks has never been a great singer, but he has become the most successful figure ever in country music because he is a remarkable communicator, able to express the simple, deeply rooted emotions of such songs as “The Dance” and “Unanswered Prayers” with such absolute conviction that he touches country fans the way Bruce Springsteen touches rock fans.

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For all that has been written about the electricity of Brooks’ high-energy, rock-inspired concerts, the heart of his country connection rests with the perception of him as an honest Everyman.

As Gaines, Brooks steps from that role, and his limitations have never been more apparent.

The only time in the special that he seems on his home turf is the closing song, “Right Now.” The track combines Cheryl Wheeler’s “If It Were Up to Me,” a spoken-word number that talks about societal violence, with the chorus of the Youngbloods’ ‘60s anthem, “Get Together.”

In the track, Brooks recites various possible reasons for society’s ills--”maybe it’s the movies, maybe it’s the books, maybe it’s the government and all the other crooks, maybe it’s the drugs, maybe it’s the parents . . . maybe it’s the music, maybe it’s the crack. . . .”

Brooks leaves off Wheeler’s punch line--which ultimately blames the violence on guns--in favor of a more general theme of individual responsibility. (Brooks, in a June interview, said as a gun owner he did not agree with Wheeler’s advocacy of a firearm ban, so he got her consent to alter the lyric.) But the song has a catchy medley that underscores Brooks’ ability as a communicator. And he comes alive on stage as he sings it, reaching out to the fans in the front row.

For the rest of the special and the album, Brooks is just another faceless singer without anything essential to say. Ultimately, you can’t help but feel he’s wasting our time as well as his own.

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* “Garth Brooks . . . In the Life of Chris Gaines” airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. on KNBC Channel 4.