Garth Brooks - No Fences (Cassette)

No Fences is the second studio album by the American country music artist Garth Brooks. It was released on August 27, 1990, and reached #1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart. The album also reached #3 on the Billboard 200. On the latter chart it stayed in the top 40 for 126 weeks, only one week less than Shania Twain'sCome On Over, the Soundscan era's record holder. No Fences remains Brooks' best-selling studio album to date with 17 million copies shipped in the US, and is the album that made him an international star. It was his first album issued in Europe (the original European release contained the four singles from his U.S. debut as bonus tracks).

AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Essentially, Garth Brooks's second album, No Fences, follows the same pattern as his debut, but it is a more assured and risky record. Brooks still performs neo-traditional country, such as the honky tonk hit "Friends in Low Places," but now he twists it around with clever pop hooks. Those pop/rock influences are most apparent on the ballads, which alternate between sensitive folk-rock and power ballad bombast. But what makes No Fences such a success is how seamlessly he blends the two seemingly opposing genres, and how he chooses a set of material that makes his genre-bending sound subtle and natural. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the songs are consistently entertaining, either.