On This Day in 1993, Garth Brooks Released His Second Consecutive No. 1 Album, Which He Made While “Living on the Road”

Garth Brooks scored his third No. 1 album—and second consecutive—with In Pieces. The country singer‘s fifth LP, In Pieces was released on Aug. 31, 1993.

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The album debuted at No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart. Brooks’ 1991 album, Ropin’ the Wind, as well as his 1992 release, The Chase, topped both charts too.

RIAA certified for sales of over 10 million copies, In Pieces featured two No. 1 country singles: “Ain’t Going Down (‘Til The Sun Comes Up)” and “American Honky-Tonk Bar Association.”

Additionally, the music video for “The Red Strokes” won Brooks the ACM Award for Video of the Year in 1994.

In a 2020 interview with Billboard, Brooks shared why many songs on In Pieces were made to be performed live.

“Everything in my life had gone up in volume. Everything was louder, everything was faster, quicker. And [producer] Allen [Reynolds] noticed it,” Brooks said. “It’s probably the most live record we’ve done.”

“[Engineer] Mark Miller said it best: An artist should reveal who they are at the time they’re making an album,” he continued. “I was living on the road. It couldn’t have been more than a few days out of the year that we were home. The rest of it was out on the road, onstage, with the guys that you started this whole thing with and just turning it up way too loud.”

Garth Brooks’ Storied Career

Over the course of his career, Brooks has released 35 records. He’s won two GRAMMY Awards, 17 AMAs, and the RIAA Award for best-selling solo albums artist of the century in the U.S.

Brooks is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He’s also in the Musicians Hall of Fame, the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, and the Grand Ole Opry.

His most recent LP, Time Traveler, came out in November 2023. Since then, Brooks released the fifth volume his The Anthology series, The Anthology, Part V: The Comeback, The First Five Years.

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