Signed to Capitol Records in 1988, Brooks impressed with his eponymous debut album, that featured the moving song "The Dance", which reached many unfamiliar with country music through its tearjerking music video and the magic of television. Releasing one smash hit album after another, he broke new ground beginning with his second full-length release, "No Fences" (1990), which debuted at Number One on both the country and pop charts in Billboard. His subsequent efforts would enjoy the same cross-genre success, and when he played his famed 1997 televised concert in New York City's Central Park, a nation watching at home on HBO ("Garth Live From Central Park") was witness to the huge and diverse crowd that he brought out in a city that doesn't even have a broadcasting country music radio station. Brooks followed this great victory with a veritable media blitz, even hosting and serving as the musical guest on a January 1998 episode of "Saturday Night Live".

Tall, with a sweetly familiar face and a physique slightly inclined towards roundness, Brooks made a strong case for his Everyman image, backing up his average looks and "aw shucks" lip service with comparable actions, displaying a decidedly non-diva attitude in meetings with fans and always doing his share in charitable endeavors, and remembering his small town roots. In keeping with this image, Brooks' entries into film music have underlined he more romantic side of the regular work-a-day attitude. His song "To Make You Feel My Love" was featured in the charming 1998 feature "Hope Floats", in which a woman is systematically dumped by her longtime husband on a TV talk show, while the ballad "When You Come Back To Me Again", written for the heart-tugging time travel drama "Frequency" (2000) was a poignant addition to the relationship between two everyday heroes, Dennis Quaid's 1960s fireman and his son, a 1990s cop (Jim Caviezel). Away from the common man, Brooks signed on to co-produce with famed R&B multi-talent Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds a thriller entitled "The Lamb", which was to star the country singer as fictional pop icon Chris Gaines. By 1999, with the film still in development, Brooks released the pop-rock concept album "Garth Brooks In... The Life of Chris Gaines". Critics and fans alike gave the album a somewhat cool reception, though the songs included weren't all that different from Brooks' own brand of rock-infused country. In 2000, with "The Lamb" still on hold, his fourteen-year marriage officially nearing its end, Brooks announced his impending retirement from the music business, promising only to complete the soundtrack of "The Lamb" if it were to go forward but also pointing to a future album of duets with fellow crooner and frequent collaborator Trisha Yearwood and also a possible solo album. Though the performer has made it clear that even in the event of future albums, a tour in the near future is not a possibility, his popularity has hardly waned. The end of 2000 saw the Hollywood Foreign Press Association put him in the running for the Best Original Song Golden Globe for his "Frequency" effort.