Garth Brooks’s “Ropin’ the Wind” became the first country album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200.
Capitol Records released the album in September 1991. It was Brooks’s third studio album and followed his rapid rise from a successful debut and the blockbuster “No Fences.” The record combined original songs with carefully chosen covers, including “Shameless,” later strongly associated with Brooks.
Its chart achievement demonstrated how far country music had expanded into the mainstream. “Ropin’ the Wind” opened at number one on the all-genre Billboard 200, not merely Billboard’s country albums chart. It later received diamond certification from the Recording Industry Association of America.
The album is sometimes confused with “No Fences,” which was Brooks’s enormous earlier commercial breakthrough. “Ropin’ the Wind” was the specific record that made the historic debut achievement. Its success helped make Brooks one of the defining country artists of the 1990s.