GARTH BROOKS UNPLUGGED

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Who said an Oklahoma-born country crooner like Garth Brooks wouldn't fit in in a tough-minded, hip-hop-favoring metropolis like Manhattan? When Brooks played New York City's Central Park last Thursday before a crowd estimated at between 250,000 (according to the cops) and 750,000 (according to Brooks' camp), four of the country star's first five songs were clogged with enough sex and violence to do Bone Thugs-N-Harmony proud. Brooks kicked things off with the country-rock song Rodeo ("Well, it's bulls and blood/ It's dust and mud"), followed that with the homicidal country stomp Papa Loved Mama ("Mama's in the graveyard/ Papa's in the pen") and also churned out a theatrical rendition of The Thunder Rolls, a song that ends with a woman reaching for a pistol to kill her cheatin' man ("Tonight will be the last time/ She wonders where he's been"). Whew! With crime rates dropping in the Big Apple, Brooks may be a little too rough for the city slickers.

A few weeks before his big show, Brooks told TIME that he had played Manhattan only once before, early in his career and was eager to return. He was also eager for some big-time publicity: his biggest album, No Fences (1990), sold more than 13 million copies, but his latest, Fresh Horses (1995), sold just 4 million. The Central Park concert, which was free (the $11 million bill was footed by Brooks and HBO, which aired the show) was originally conceived as a mega-infomercial for his new CD, Sevens, which had a release conveniently set for Aug. 7.

But when Brooks' record label, EMI, announced in May that it was closing its New York office, and, in the process, getting rid of some of the people he had depended on over the years to market his albums, Brooks decided to withhold his new record indefinitely. Jimmy Bowen, a former head of EMI-Capitol Nashville who worked with Brooks before leaving his post in 1995, predicts the singer will iron out his differences with the label in time to get the CD out by late fall. Says Bowen: "Nobody wins if [Brooks] keeps it in house, including him."

Even without the new record to plug, Brooks decided to go on with the Central Park show. But he didn't play a single song from his unreleased album, focusing instead on his hits. "What we brought is a lot of our old stuff," he told the crowd. His performance was energetic and amiable but lacking in substance--Brooks was out merely to entertain, not to create great music. And most people were so far from the stage that Brooks was just a black speck in a cowboy hat. Hometown-hero Billy Joel, a special guest on a few songs, got a larger ovation. The highlight of the show came at the end, after the HBO telecast was over, when Brooks and Joel came out for an encore of Joel's You May Be Right. Brooks is better when he's not trying to sell you something and the cameras are off.

--By Christopher John Farley. With reporting by Elizabeth L. Bland and David Thigpen/New York

With reporting by ELIZABETH L. BLAND AND DAVID THIGPEN/NEW YORK