Following the pattern of last month's article, this month will also feature a potpourri of country music web sites. Included in this article is the first review of a fan page, Planet Garth, a country music e-zine, Country Spotlight, a site dedicated to the women of Country Music, and this month's new discovery.
A Fan Page Site
Planet Garth is a fan-run web site that has the look of a professional, commercial site. The subject of the site is none other than the 1997 CMA Entertainer of the Year, Garth Brooks. As stated at the top of the site, this is an unofficial Brooks site; Garth admitted in an interview on MTV prior to his Central Park concert that he is not an on-line type of guy and professed that he was not aware of any unofficial sites. I didn't quite buy that, as there are several out there; at last count, Yahoo! listed 18 of them. One of the early ones, run by someone in the U.K., seems to have disappeared. The other sites can be found on the Yahoo! artists listing.
If you're looking for news on Garth, Planet Garth is the right place! The main page has news summaries of the latest info on the Garth-meister (including the latest guesses as to when the next album — "Sevens" — might be released), with links to the complete articles. These are based on recent press info and are excellently written. There is also information supplied by fans in the "Scoop" section. Several of these letters provide an insight into Garth's personal qualities of gentlemanly humanity. Also, if you're looking for tour information, this is probably the best place to look. There is information on the latest schedule as well as how to get tickets and deal with wristbands.
There is also the usual artist information, including a biographical summary; a robust photo section album; chords and lyrics information; and a multimedia section with both video and audio clips. Most of the video clips are ".mov" files that can be shown with either the Windows movie player or QuickTime. There is, however, one ".avi" file, which seems to load without a problem. On the audio side, most are RealAudio files but several are mpeg-2 files. You can search using Yahoo! in the Internet section for freely available mpeg players; I'll try to include a summary of players and plug-ins as a regular feature in future articles.
