Citing his belief in “the Wal-Mart school of business,” Brooks would slash the retail price of his late-nineties albums in order to generate mind-numbing opening-week sales. His emphasis was always on volume. When Brooks toured the world for 220 concerts in the middle of the decade, he capped the price of every ticket at $20. Though he almost certainly lost some short-term revenue by doing this, it guaranteed that every show was a 100 percent capacity sellout. The traditionally regional draw of country music was disconnected from his popularity: When he put on a free show in Manhattan’s
...more
