Behind the Garth Brooks Chart-Topping Country Treasure Buried Beneath Hollywood

Let’s talk about buried treasure.

Garth Brooks‘ The Hits didn’t just top the charts—it made history. Debuting at No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and Top Country Albums, the 1994 collection came with a bonus CD packed with 20-second snippets from 61 songs. Brooks then had the album’s master recording buried under his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in June 1995.

He revealed the news during his speech at the star ceremony on June 30, 1995, saying The Hits were “buried deep in the concrete beneath the star.”  The move ensured the album could never be re-released, underscoring the singer’s dedication to the album’s limited availability. It was a choice that turned the master tapes into a time capsule beneath one of Hollywood’s most iconic symbols.

Known for his master marketing brain, Brooks’ plan to emphasize limited availability worked. The Hits was Brooks’ first widely released greatest hits package – it was also the first Best Of album by a country artist to be certified for 7 million albums sold. Since then, Brooks’ The Hits, an 18-song collection home to “The Dance,” “Standing Outside the Fire,” “We Shall Be Free,” “The Thunder Rolls,” “Rodeo,” and more, has reached diamond certification, which means at least 10 million copies of the album have been sold domestically.

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Garth Brooks Roped a Diamond

“‘We Shall Be Free’ is definitely and easily the most controversial song I have ever done,” Brooks said in the album’s notes. “A song of love, a song of tolerance from someone who claims not to be a prophet but just an ordinary man. I never thought there would be any problems with this song. Sometimes the roads we take do not turn out to be the roads we envisioned them to be. All I can say about ‘We Shall Be Free” is that I will stand by every line of this song as long as I live. I am very proud of it. And I am very proud of Stephanie Davis, the writer. I hope you enjoy it and see it for what it was meant to be.”

Rolling Stone praised the album, and Billboard recognized The Hits with a Top Billboard 200 Album award in 1995.

Brooks released The Hits on December 13, 1994. True to his word, it is now out of print. However, its impact is still apparent. Brooks had already sold tens of millions of albums when The Hits came out, so its success not only mirrored his current popularity in country music – but foreshadowed his place in the genre’s history.

The collection distilled the first five years of the Country Music Hall of Famer’s career into 18 songs. Its sweeping popularity not only grew his visibility as an artist but also expanded country music to new fan bases. It proved that country music could appeal to the masses.

‘The Hits’ Underscored the Growing Popularity of Country Music

The album provided a way for casual listeners and new fans to catch up with his career. It served as an introduction to his arena-ready and rowdy – sometimes intimate — country music.

Brooks served The Hits when the genre was already commercially booming, thanks to his previous albums and records by Alan Jackson, Shania Twain, and more. The album’s numbers highlighted how much the country genre had grown, with sales and stadium crowds rivaling those of rock and pop acts.
Decades later, Brooks carried the title of the top-selling solo artist of all time. And he did it, without having to dig up the treasure.

(Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)