It was hard to say which was more startling: The posting on an office bullentin board with its two-inch-high bold black letters pleading, "HELP! I NEED GARTH BROOKS TICKETS." or the scrawled response: "You are pathetic. You do need help if you like country music."

An extreme reaction, to be sure, yet Garth Brooks is the kind of titanic force that seems to split the world into two camps: people who love him and people who hate him. And it looks like it's mostly people who love him.

Michael Jackson may have anointed himself the king of pop, but today the true king is this well-mannered, slightly pudgy Okie with features someone once described as a "face like a thumb with a hat on it."

Since his self-titled debut CD in 1989, Tulsa-born, 34-year-old Brooks has sold 59 million albums domestically - more than any other solo artist in history (yes, even more than Elvis) - and the concert tour he launched in March has broken box-office records in every venue it has played, including his three-night stop at the Miami Arena.

Need we remind you, tonight's show sold out in a mere eight minutes? Ticket brokers who snapped up blocks are getting as much as $300 for the $19 tickets, throwing in a buffet or transportation or such.

Look for this country star to make his first major South Florida appearance on a sci-fi stage spitting pyrotechnics and blinding lights straight out of a Speilberg mega-production. Brooks will literally rise through a hole cut in a white piano - on his opening tune, The Old Stuff. It's Cash meets Kiss.

There's more. Brooks' second CD, 1990's No Fences, is the best-sellin country album in history at 13 million and counting. His closest competitor? Himself, with 1991's Ropin' the Wind (11 million).

In a world of better singers (Randy Travis), more attractive performers (Chris Isaak) and superior songwriters (Elton John), the overwhelming question has to be...

WHY GARTH?

"You kind of wonder where's the appeal," says musician Mark Buckley, 35, of Miami Beach. "He comes across as a nice guy, but his music is pretty plain, pretty simple and very very easy easy to write. Contrived."

WHY GARTH?

"Because he's incredible," gushes account executive Jennifer Barr, 27, of Hollywood. "He is not the best-looking man in country, but he has charisma and draws people, not just from a physical standpoint but for his whole person."

"His energy," says Coral Gables tennis instructor Sean Lee, 28. "He has a star quality a lot of singers today lack."

"He has a teddy-bear appeal," coos Tampa's Jennifer Lee, 28, of PR Newswire. "There's something about him that makes him wholesome but not too wholesome."

Crossover appeal

But mere figures and fawning fans don't explain the bond Brooks has forged with the populace. You don't sell 59 million records to any one audience. Brooks' appeal crosses genres.

Patrick Fraser, 35, a news reporter for Miami's WSVN-Channel 7, is one of the converted: "I'm not even a country-music fanatic and I like him a lot. I'll put on the country music channel now because of Garth. He's fun to listen to."

Miami Shores' Silvia Stanforth, 33, manager of Hispanic services at PR Newswire, has a theory: "The words to his songs seem to be in simple messages."

So that's it. Messages... In his No. 1 single, Unanswered Prayers, a man returns to his hometown with his wife, and together they bump into one of his old flames. Fireworks? No, family values:

Even when he courts controversy, the underdog wins out. Friends in Low Places, a 1990 raucous barroom number, is practically an anthem for regular folks. The Thunder Rolls 1990 video tackled domestic violence, and in 1992, We Shall Be Free argued in favor of racial and religious tolerance and gay rights. Not a stance that normally endears an artist with country's core audience.

Traditional values

Brooks' music - amiable, polished, safe - is closer to traditional American values than anything Seattle has coughed up in the '90's and suggests a shift away from our liberal past. We didn't want Madonna's Sex, Michael Jackson has proved too Dangerous, and we no longer care what Prince calls himself.

Maybe it's a yearning for something familiar, reassuring, non-threatening. Baby boomers weaned on James Taylor, Dan Fogelberg and Jimmy Buffett (blueprint artists for today's country stars, Brooks included) find precisely those traits in today's country.

And Brooks - an advertising graduate from Oklahoma State University - proved an A student at marketing himself to that niche: Brooks, country fans say, is one of them.

"He makes everyone feel like they know him," says rising country star Terri Clark (Better Things to Do), a Canadian whose self-titled debut CD has just been certified gold.

Nashville author Bruce Feiler, Who is writing a biography of Brooks for Esquire, says Brooks "represents the people he's playing to."

Feiler attributes country's rise - and along with it, Brooks' - to a shift in demographics. Since 1990, 50 percent of Americans have resided in the suburbs.

"Country music, more than any other format, is a direct beneficiary of that change," Feiler says. "Country music is about what those aging baby boomers and their children are interested in - family values...and pure escapism. Garth comes along in 1989 and he is one of them. He's not a cowboy, he's not a farmer, he went to college.

Not trained in country

"The other key way he represents these people is he didn't listen to country as a child," Feiler continues. "His first influences were '70s rock - Kiss, Journey, Elton John, Billy Joel. Garth didn't become interested in country until 1980 when he first heard George Strait. So when he came out and started playing country in '89 he was influenced by these '70s arena shows he saw as a kid. Garth single-handedly yanked country music into the age of the arena. Hank Williams, George Strait, Hank Snow, all those guys stood in front of a mike and sang. Garth raises hell on stage and people loved it."

Fellow Nashville author Robert K. Oermann, commentator for The Nashville Network's TNN Country News, makes another point:

"Garth occured at a time in country history when SoundScan data began to be entered in [Billboard's] charts. Before, [sales reports were] based on what record-store clerks estimated, so for the first time there was hard data indicating country albums were selling better than what the charts were reflecting.

"To everyone's amazement in the pop world, here's the cowboy-hat guy selling [huge numbers of] records," Oermann said. "Mind you, in previous eras Alabama and Randy Travis sold tons of records but were never reflected in the media. That created curiousity, and Garth is a shrewd self-marketer and is good with media and at creating a public personality. That combined lifted him above others."

Jimmy Buffett's view

Pop star Jimmy Buffett comments: "You can't dissect anything about the music business [except] you've got to work hard, have a little bit of talent and a lot of luck. I'll give a surfer ananlogy, 'Every now and then someone catches a great wave.' That applies to Garth. There was a huge void out there and [with Garth] you get your money's worth. He's a great showman.

"In the age of video and with labels not willing to put time into developing acts... or teaching them how to survive, he caught it all," Buffett says. "He seems perplexed by it. If I were him I'd run in the backroom [after the show] and laugh, 'I'm getting away with this.'"

For Nashville, Brooks has been a godsend. Pre-Garth Brooks there were about 10 labels marketing country products, big names such as Capitol (Brooks' label), Columbia, Warner Bros. Now there are 24.

The upswing can be attributed to the money he's pumped into the industry.

"Once you get over four million, you're getting record buyers that aren't typically country fans," Osborne points out.

A disturbing by-product of his popularity is the near-extinction of classic artists such as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and George Jones on country radio. "Traditional artists sometimes get pissed off" about the domination of countrypolitan acts, says veteran Nashville publicist Evelyn Shriver.

Like Johnny Cash, who admitted in a recent phone conversation that he no longer listens to country radio. "I don't understand it," he said. "It's cheating the country fans who are missing the great country tradition."

Old timers speak up

Old timers' criticism notwithstanding, in January Brooks, accepted two American Music Awards for The Hits, an album of previously recorded material. He refused his third award, as Artist of the Year, saying Hootie & the Blowfish deserved the honor since they sold more records than he did last year.

Sales of Brooks' latest album, Fresh Horses, has lagged behind its predecessors - only three million sold since its November release. Like a child whose toys have been stepped on, Garth recently groused that he might quit altogether if his album sales don't pick up. "I'm hoping the tour will make the difference, but if it doesn't we'll have to take a serious look at where we are in our career. If the record and ticket sales don't tell me that I'm stirring things up or changing people's lives, then I think it's time for me to hang it up."