Brooks is a neotraditionalist only by association. Though his arrangements are generally spare and his sentiments often hard-scrabble, he digs James Taylor as much as Lefty Frizzell and shows off by borrowing a song from Billy Joel. Covering the bases is his specialty. What makes his voice remarkable is less its personal grain than how facilely it negotiates the range of honky-tonk grit and twang, and though Ropin' the Wind was launched by Brooks's two earlier (and still top-50) multiplatinum entries, its Nashville-styled popcraft will give it more legs than either. From the cheerful marital hostilities of We Bury the Hatchet to the feckless regrets of Burning Bridges to the well-wrought soulfulness of that Billy Joel number to the overwrought meaningfulness of The River, it's got hits for anybody who ever hated synthesizers. That's not a pop majority. But from Natalie Cole to Skid Row, the biggest pop audiences rarely are.

Playboy, Oct. 1991

Sept. 1991

Nov. 1991