Brooks bets on 'The Limited Series'
Friday, May 08, 1998. USA Today.
Story by Story by Brian Mansfield

Garth Brooks always has been an all-or-nothing guy. Soon, anybody who wants to buy his music may have to make that choice as well.

Last week, Capitol Records quit manufacturing six Brooks albums in preparation for the release of The Limited Series, a CD-only boxed set that contains all six albums plus six new songs.

The set, out Tuesday, packages the old and new material at a steep discount - for those who want to pony up for every album. Capitol Nashville chief Pat Quigley expects retailers to sell the package for approximately $40, though some will cut the price to as low as $27.85. The individual albums list for a total of $117.

But with the old editions of Brooks' albums off the market, those looking to fill holes in a partial collection will have to buy albums they already have.

Brooks is taking smaller royalties than usual, Quigley says, while everyone from CD packagers to the label is making do with smaller profit margins.

Apparently, Brooks is hoping that fans who've bought his albums on cassettes will see the set, with its added material, as reason enough to upgrade to CDs. (Cassettes account for two-thirds of the sales of Brooks' first three albums.) And starting next spring, when Capitol starts rolling out 10th-anniversary reissues of all his albums, Brooks may confront those same record buyers with another opportunity to upgrade. The potential lure? The digital bells and whistles of DVD, with its capability for interactivity and video.

''We want to make sure we can deliver a DVD that will play in a CD machine,'' says Quigley, who says technical issues must be addressed before a final decision is made. ''We think we can solve it.''

''If that turns out to be what we want - all seven albums - will be released in full DVD, 10-video-cut-per-album form, saying goodbye to CD and realizing that music alone - is not what we're going to settle for,'' Brooks said backstage at the Academy of Country Music Awards last month.

If Brooks does take the DVD route, many of those cassette-to-CD upgraders may be willing to follow him again - which would put Brooks closer to one of his major career goals.

Ultimately, he has said, he'd like to sell 100 million albums before the end of the century. The Limited Series will be one big step toward that number: Even though Capitol plans to produce just 2 million sets, they'll count as 12 million for record-keeping purposes, because the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) counts each disc of a multi-disc collection as one unit.

Add that 12 million to Brooks' current RIAA certifications, and he's at 79 million.

Brooks already is the best-selling solo act in U.S. history, according to the RIAA. Only the Beatles outpace him, with 105 million units as of March. An additional 12 million in sales would put Brooks comfortably ahead of such pretenders to his throne as Led Zeppelin (64.27 million), the Eagles (61 million), Billy Joel (59 million) and Barbra Streisand (57.25) million.

Factor in another few million as Sevens and Brooks' catalog continue to sell, then add the reissues, plus a live album, a duet album with Trisha Yearwood, a soundtrack and a Christmas recording that is in the planning stages.

Suddenly, 100 million looks like a very attainable goal. And Brooks, who's still in the prime of his career, seems within striking distance of even the Fab Four's lofty total.