4. Garth Brooks Garth Brooks In... The Life Of Chris Gaines
Total Cost: $5,000,000 + $15,000,000 On Marketing In what's surely one of the most bizarre and ill-considered album releases of all time, country musician Garth Brooks released a record in 1999 under the fictitious persona of an imaginary rock star. Even more boldly, the album was alternatively titled Greatest Hits, a gag that might have been regarded as humorous and clever if the album had actually been any good. Brooks grew his hair long and dyed it black, donned some eye-liner and began writing moody rock tunes. The album's recording is reported to have cost around five million dollars, with a further fifteen million being spent on the record's promotion. That's a fairly hefty amount to shell out on someone with a soul patch. In the end, the album received mixed reviews and sold around two million copies. That might seem decent on its own, but considering the huge amount of money that had been pumped into the project it was considered a massive failure, so massive in fact that it derailed Brooks plans to star in a Chris Gaines film.
