Chris Gaines is a fictional alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 persona created as an alter ego

Alter ego

An alter ego is a second self, which is believe to be distinct from a person's normal or original personality. The term was coined in the early nineteenth century when dissociative identity disorder was first described by psychologists...

 for Garth Brooks

Garth Brooks

Troyal Garth Brooks , best known as Garth Brooks, is an American country music artist who helped make country music a worldwide phenomenon. His eponymous first album was released in 1989 and peaked at number 2 in the US country album chart while climbing to number 13 on the Billboard 200 album chart...

 to explore rock and roll styles far removed from his success as a country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 singer.

Initially, Brooks planned to feature the Gaines persona in The Lamb, a motion picture which, ultimately, never materialized. In 1999, Brooks released one album as Gaines; the album produced three charting Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

singles, including the Top 5 pop hit "Lost in You."

History

In 1999, Brooks and his production company Red Strokes Entertainment, with Paramount Pictures, began to develop a movie in which Brooks would star. The Lamb was to have revolved around Chris Gaines, a fictional rock singer and his emotionally conflicted life as a musician in the public eye. To create buzz for the project, Brooks took on the identity of Gaines in the October 1999 album Garth Brooks in ... The Life of Chris Gaines

Greatest Hits (Chris Gaines album)

Greatest Hits, also titled Garth Brooks in.... The Life of Chris Gaines, is part of the alter ego project of American country music artist Garth Brooks, in which Brooks assumes the fictitious persona of alternative rock artist Chris Gaines...

, which was intended as a 'pre-soundtrack' to the film. Brooks also subsequently appeared as Gaines in a television "mockumentary" for the VH1

VH1

VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...

 series Behind The Music

Behind the Music

Behind the Music is a television series on VH1. It originally ran from 1997 to 2006, before it was stopped and only aired new episodes sporadically. The series places its generality on documentation of musical artists or groups who are interviewed and profiled, and discuss how their careers became...

and as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

, which he hosted as himself.

Brooks' promotion of the album and the film did not seem to stir much excitement and the lack of success of the Chris Gaines experiment became fairly evident mere weeks after the album was released. The album received mixed reviews, and fan response was often bewilderment. Although the album made it to #2 on the pop album chart, expectations had been higher and retail stores began heavily discounting their oversupply. Less than expected sales of the album (more than two million) and no further developments in the production of the film as a result brought the project to an indefinite hiatus in February 2001 and Gaines quickly faded into obscurity.

Despite the less than spectacular response to the Chris Gaines project, Brooks gained his first - and only - US Top 40 pop single in "Lost in You", the first single from the album. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic speculated that the alternate persona and elaborate marketing scheme backfired, writing, "When Brooks' new persona and his album were revealed to the public, they were unforgiving - they didn't think he was playing a role, they simply thought he'd lost his mind." However, he in the same review later writes "Judged as Brooks' first pop album, it's pretty good, and if it had been released that way, it likely would have been embraced by a wide audience."

Studio albums

Title	Details	Peak chart positions					Certifications Music recording sales certification Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,... (sales threshold)
		US Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	CAN Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS...	CAN Country RPM (magazine) RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,...	GER Media Control Charts The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie...	NOR VG-lista VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by...
In the Life of Chris Gaines Greatest Hits (Chris Gaines album) Greatest Hits, also titled Garth Brooks in.... The Life of Chris Gaines, is part of the alter ego project of American country music artist Garth Brooks, in which Brooks assumes the fictitious persona of alternative rock artist Chris Gaines...	Release date: September 28, 1999 Label: Capitol Records Capitol Records Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine... Formats: CD Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... , cassette Compact Cassette The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...	2	5	2	72	13	CAN Canadian Recording Industry Association Music Canada is a Toronto-based, non-profit trade organization that was founded 9 April 1963 to represent the interests of companies that record, artists, manufacture, production, promotion and distribution of music in Canada... : Platinum US Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States... : 2× Platinum

Singles

Year	Single	Peak chart positions							Certifications Music recording sales certification Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,... (sales threshold)	Album
		US Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...	US AC	US Country Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...	CAN Canadian Singles Chart The Canadian Singles Chart is currently compiled by the U.S.-based music sales tracking company, Nielsen SoundScan . The chart is compiled every Wednesday, and is published by Jam! Canoe on Thursdays....	CAN AC RPM (magazine) RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,...	CAN Country RPM (magazine) RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,...	UK UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
1999	"Lost in You Lost in You (Chris Gaines song) "Lost in You" is the title of a song co-written by Gordon Kennedy, Wayne Kirkpatrick, and Tommy Sims. It was recorded by American country music artist Garth Brooks under the fictitious persona of alternative rock artist Chris Gaines. It was released in July 1999 as the lead single from the album... "	5	9	62	2	1	55	70	US Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States... : Gold	In the Life of Chris Gaines
	"It Don't Matter to the Sun"	113[A]	—	24	—	—	23	—
	"Right Now"	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
	"That's the Way I Remember It"	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
"—" denotes releases that did not chart

^ "It Don't Matter to the Sun" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100 but peaked on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles

Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles

The Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States. It lists the top 25 singles below number 100 that have not yet charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Sometimes, however, singles halt their progress on this chart, and never appear on the Hot 100...

chart at number thirteen.