Garth Brooks released his final album, Fun, on November 20, and although it was not previously mentioned or included in any of the idioms or press releases published prior to the album, the work comprised 15 tracks as opposed to the 14 that had been promised. The reason for the discrepancy was a trace in the 13th digit that contained two seconds of dead air and no obvious explanation for it.
"For some reason there is an empty 2-second track in 13th place," said Saving Country Music the review of the album. “Is Garth superstitious? Is he trying to put some space between a sentimental song in "Where The Cross Don & # 39; t Burn" and a fun track in "Party Gras"? It's not either way. You let the earlier track run longer at the end … "
A discussion soon ensued in the comments section about the reason for the missing track, with many attributing Garth's superstitions to skipping track # 13. After all, he has shown superstition in the past and named his 1997 album Sevens, for example. He also didn't record any songs on the 13th track positions on his 1998 double live album. Instead there was six seconds of crowd noise. Though superstition seemed like a plausible explanation, there are other Garth records he recorded a 13th track on, including his 2014 comeback record Man Against Machine.
But superstition wasn't the culprit, as we now find out. As Garth explained in his Inside Studio G session on Facebook on Nov. 23, this had to do with getting the mood right.
"It's not like I'm superstitious, knocking on wood," said Garth, knocking on his head. “You know, they say superstition is lack of belief. It doesn't hurt for me to have both … What I wanted after "Where the Cross Doesn't Burn" I wanted four or five seconds of just silence to somehow absorb what this song was saying and (track 13) me have to play two or three seconds to register for the computers and then go to (track) 14. Everything went perfectly together. "
As suggested in the fun review, it was about lingering on the feeling of "Where the Cross Doesn't Burn" and not creating a harrowing moment where you had a very sentimental song and a very boisterous one after that. While it is very common when sequencing an album to leave a few extra seconds at the end of a more sentimental track for it to take effect, including a blank track is not common. Another more conventional option would have been to simply rearrange the track list so you don't have such a contrast between two songs.
Fun was the first album that Garth Brooks produced himself. The combination of producer Allen Reynolds and engineer Mark Miller was behind all of Garth Brooks' great releases from the 90s and 00s. By the time Garth came out of retirement, producer Allen Reynolds had retired and Mark Miller stepped onto the producer spot. Then Miller left before Fun began production.
Although a very small dot, including an empty track at # 13, is a good way to point out the unusual approach to Garth's fun record. Although there are some high quality songs in the album, some of the mixing and mastering issues that take over 2 1/2 years to release and the weird approach to track # 13 speak for some of the rookie mistakes that Garth, the producer, made has made new record.
