Notes

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Garth Brooks' first live album, the generically-titled Double Live, is a professionally entertaining album with a few nice bonuses — including extra verses for "Friends in Low Places" and "The Thunder Rolls," plus three new songs: the dedicated-to-mama "It's Your Song," the Trisha Yearwood duet "Wild as the Wind," and the rocker "Tearin' It Up (And Burnin' It Down)" — but much of this record is either identical to the studio counterparts or offers nothing new. Brooks makes no attempt to camouflage his studio trickery — it's clear that the intros to "Two Pina Coladas," "The River" and "We Shall Be Free" are pasted on in the studio — and even when the crowd intrudes on "The Fever," it feels forced, not like the genuine kinetic energy that can be captured on a live recording. Part of the problem is that the album is a compilation, selecting 25 songs from 25 different dates. Even with studio polish (and there is quite a lot of that), an album culled from such a wide variety of sources can't help but feel patchwork, and Double Live does. The handful of new twists will surely satisfy diehards, yet Double Live simply isn't that interesting for the average Garth fan. It's the kind of record that's touted as an event upon its original release, but years later, it seems like little more than a curio.