Ranking Garth Brooks’ phenomenal top five albums

Whichever way you look at the list of top country music artists, Garth Brooks is likely to be sitting in the top place. He has a phenomenal 172 million album sales to his name, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). That’s based on sales of his 17 studio albums and two live releases leaving Brooks very comfortably ahead of all the other country music artists. 

Often the figures are boosted by streaming numbers but less so for Brooks. He has been adamantly opposed to those streaming services over the years. He eventually reached an agreement with Apple Music in 2016, but don’t go looking for him on Spotify, YouTube, or others.

You don’t sell that many albums if the quality isn't good. Brooks has been pretty consistent across his many releases which tend to be highly rated. Perhaps now isn't the time to focus too deeply on his somewhat unusual dalliance with The Life of Chris Gaines, a 1999 album taking on the persona of an Australian singer.

If we look instead at the top end of his albums, there are several jostling for position in any ranking. As always there will be personal preferences. These five emerge at the top consistently, even if the actual order may vary from list to list. This is how I would rank the top five.

Garth Brooks’ top five albums ranked

5 - Sevens (1997)

This seventh studio album from Brooks ended a long two-year wait from his previous release, Fresh Horses. It marked a return to Brooks being more country music-focused overall but with plenty of variation on topic and style on the 14 tracks. 

Those include the touching “Belleau Wood” about the First World War, a slightly rowdy “Pina Colada” with a country/Caribbean theme reminiscent of Jimmy Buffet, and “Longneck Bottle”, a brief but great bar room drinking song that hit number one as a single. Perhaps most notable is the Grammy Award-winning “In Another Eyes” a duet with Trisha Yearwood, his future wife-to-be. The video below is a rare appearance on YouTube by Brooks on Yearwoods’ official account.

Seven had over ten million sales in the US and more worldwide. It went straight to number one on the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Music Album charts.  It's a great album from Brooks, it's only held back in fifth place by the strength of the four albums ahead of it.