Ropin' the Wind

AMG Review of Ropin' the Wind

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

With Ropin' the Wind, Garth Brooks begins to make his '70s ock influences more explicit. Naturally, that is most notable in his reworking of Billy Joel's "Shameless," which he transforms from a ock power allad into contemporary country. But that influence is also evident on ambitious epics like "The River" and even the honky tonk ravers of "Papa Loved Mama" and "Rodeo." Some might say that those ock influences are what make Brooks a crossover success, but he wouldn't be nearly as successful if he didn't have a tangible country foundation to his music -- even when he comes close to standard arena rock bombast, there are gritty steel guitars or vocal inflections that prove he is trying to expand country's vocabulary, not trying to exploit it.