Garth Brooks Just Announced a New Album … Kind Of
Garth Brooks has just announced a new album, and he’s announced it in the Garthiest of Garthiest kind of ways. We don’t have a name for the new album yet. That remains a mystery. There is no track list just yet, or cover art. We don’t really have a release date for the album either, though we know it’s being released, and physical copies are currently available for pre-order.
But like Garth Brooks loves to do, to purchase his new album at the moment, you have to buy a bunch of albums and songs you probably have already purchased before.
“Okay so it’s out. We weren’t ready for it, because we had to do Bass Pro—big box retailer—they had to release their catalog for Christmas. I can’t believe it’s already here, right?” Garth explained on this week’s “Inside Studio G” streaming show on Facebook.
Long story short, Garth’s new album is currently available, but it’s only available through a box set exclusively being sold via Bass Pro Shops where you have to purchase seven total albums to get it.
“Try to understand what this is,” Garth goes on to explain. “For anyone that’s a Garth fan from way back, the first limited series came out in the late ’90s. It was a chance for people to get all the music at a really low price … Did the same thing in 2007 I think. Did the second limited series. And now the third, and I guarantee you this will be the last limited series.”
The box set says it will ship between November 27th and December 4th from Bass Pro Shops. Though the listing doesn’t say specifically what the box set comes with, only that it’s “Packed with hits from Garth Brooks’ legendary career,” Garth explained on “Inside Studio G” that it comes with all the albums Brooks has released post retirement, including Man Against Machine (2014), Gunslinger (2016), and Fun (2020), along with Triple Live (2018).
Will the new album eventually be available for streaming? Yes, but exclusively on Amazon. When? We have no clue at the moment. Will individual copies of the new album be made available for purchase beyond the Bass Pro Shops box set? Perhaps, though maybe not. We’ll just have to wait and see, and that has not been announced yet.
A cynic would say this is Garth’s way of padding his sales numbers, and roping folks into impulse purchases for the Christmas buying season through this box set. Is $29.95 for seven albums a good deal? Of course. But if you have any or all of these album already, you’re purchasing them for the second time just to get the new album, once again underscoring how Garth Brooks is the king of selling you the same song over and over.
As for what folks can expect from the new album? Garth says that he’ll have songs from it playing on his new streaming radio station The 615 on TuneIn. There is a new Garth Brooks song already playing on there called “Only Country Music” that is a good country song. He’s also been playing two other new songs in concert, including one that he played a portion of acoustically in the most recent “Inside Studio G” session, probably titled “Pleasure in the Pain.”
But when a fan specifically asked what the new album was called and if “Only Country Music” and “Pleasure in the Pain” would be on there, Garth dodged the question, saying “We try to never give anything away…” but alluded that “The Pleasure and the Pain” will be on there.
Garth does seem to be assuring people that whatever they get, it is definitely going to be country. “I very rarely get to do the [Keith] Whitley type … just the drinking songs. In Whitley’s words, ‘lower than a well diggers shoes.’ Sometimes it feels so good to feel bad. I think that’s what country music is great at,” Garth says.
It’s understandable if Bass Pro Shops needed to push out their Winter catalog and include the Garth Limited Series Box Set that he may have not have been ready to reveal all the details of just yet. But when you’re asking people to pay for something, it’s customary to let them know what they’re getting, or in this instance, if they’ll have to opportunity to purchase the new album individually. We’ll just have to wait and see.
August 8, 2023 @ 9:56 am
Nothing says great music like “Available at Bass Pro Shop”… Was Buc-ees not available?
August 8, 2023 @ 9:59 am
I thought everyone bought their music a Cracker Barrel.
August 8, 2023 @ 12:01 pm
Some groups had great Cracker Barrel exclusives. Alison Krauss and Union Station, and I think that Vince Gil Paul Franklin Bakersfield album started as a Cracker Barrel exclusive. (I might be remembering that one wrong)
Garth isn’t either of them.
August 23, 2023 @ 10:10 am
I have a great Green/Red vinyl pressing of Vince Gill’s Christmas albums from Cracker Barrel.
They’ve released some really good stuff
August 8, 2023 @ 12:24 pm
I have bought some great music at Cracker Barrel. Don’t sass…
August 8, 2023 @ 1:07 pm
Ricky Skaggs released acoustic versions of his Epic-era country hits as a Cracker Barrel exclusive….a great collection!
August 8, 2023 @ 4:52 pm
I need to look that up.
August 8, 2023 @ 7:11 pm
Where else can one buy CDs anymore?
August 9, 2023 @ 6:17 am
I buy CDs from Napalm Records and Nuclear Blast Records as well as Amazon. I also purchase CDs directly from artists/bands.
August 8, 2023 @ 10:11 am
Are the bodies buried in one of the shops? Let the hunt commence!!
August 8, 2023 @ 10:35 am
Now we know where Luca Brasi sleeps.
August 8, 2023 @ 10:13 am
I’ve made cynical comments about Garth’s re-releases and box sets…but the man sure does take care of the songwriters who penned these songs. Nice mailbox money for decades.
August 9, 2023 @ 6:50 am
I think that’s a big reason he does it
August 8, 2023 @ 10:34 am
I’d have several questions for Garth’s team, but if I could only ask one….who buys physical CDs anymore?
August 8, 2023 @ 12:08 pm
As an older millennial who’d rather buy a physical product over streaming and digital, me.
I’ve seen how Apple can take away something you bought because they don’t have the license for it anymore or whatever that I just don’t want to deal with that hassle. To me, it’s easier to buy a physical product and not worry whether a company is going to take it away from me digitally.
August 8, 2023 @ 12:32 pm
I do, though I’d prefer if more of his catalog were reissued on vinyl
August 8, 2023 @ 3:35 pm
I prefer Garth on 8 track.
August 8, 2023 @ 5:20 pm
8 tracks can’t hold a candle to my 78s. Also, I light my home exclusively with candles.
August 9, 2023 @ 3:43 pm
I use a hand-cranked phonograph and I go to bed when the sun goes disappears. It’s coming back, right?!? 😉
August 8, 2023 @ 1:33 pm
Boomer here, constantly hitting Amazon looking for third-party sellers dumping like-new CDs of recent releases at a deep discount as well as older music I missed years ago. I know, I know … I’m not helping the artists/writers out by filling my music collection this way, but hey, SOMEONE bought those CDs at full price at some point, right? I’ll definitely miss physical product if streaming and downloading become the only ways to purchase music.
August 8, 2023 @ 3:26 pm
I love heading over to the merch table and having some of our favorites chat and sign their current CD for me. Most of the time it has to be an album I absolutely love as well as album cover that does it for me, Brit Taylor was only too happy to sign my Kentucky Blue CD in the coolest copper marker. Sunny Sweeney sent me a signed Married Alone disc she loves working the merch table all the time. Jesse Daniel signed me a Rollin’ On. I like the way they all look on the shelf but I don’t need to play em in a player I have the files. Cannon, Butts, and more …….are up there. My Vinyl days ended years ago, and I mean years!!!!
August 15, 2023 @ 10:57 am
I do. Physical media for life!
August 8, 2023 @ 10:35 am
This is almost as annoying as how he released The Anthology II. There is/was no track list easily available, and it’s only on TalkShopLive, but he claimed it would be out in stores one of these days. I don’t really want to buy stuff from that site, as it’s overpriced. I’ve got all Garth’s records, and I’ve got double copies of some things at this point. I didn’t buy that Target box set he had some years back for this reason. It’s frustrating. If the releases had newer live versions of older stuff from the 90s, it would be an improvement. There’s got to be a full version of “This is Garth Brooks” or any of the specials he made in the 90s. He could do what Billy Joel does with some of his live records. A lot of these package products feel like he’s making playlists of his own stuff with just new fancy packaging. Oh, yeah, he has a duets album coming supposedly, and he has something he plans to release for the Dublin shows he just did in 2022. He will tease fans for months for releases that will come Black Friday time of year. I like Garth and his music, but he needs to chill it on the marketing stuff. It makes no sense. It’s 2023; people have way more distractions and things they can waste their money on then you. Treat them with respect and share details in a timely manner. It’s not that hard. You add that to some of the comments he’s been making on political issues to get his name out there. Those I don’t feel like are going well. He’a been annoying people on both sides of any issue he talks about. It’s almost a master class he has been trying to play out on how to no longer make fans and alienate your own people.
August 8, 2023 @ 10:44 am
I’ve never been one to over criticize Garth, the artist, because, as far as pop country stars go, Garth is probably one of the most country of the bunch. At the very least, I do not think Garth is the person who does damage to country music.
If nothing else, while he mixes up some of the arena rock, he never really throws the country under the bus. There’s always at least one or two stone gold country tracks even on his least country albums. And he does a pretty good job of throwing in some familiar songs that serious country enthusiast will
Recognize
But Garth Brooks the performer, Garth Brooks the personality, is a very easy target to criticize. Most of the criticisms have been well laid out in the past, aside from the fact that he relies on a lot of showmanship even when his music doesn’t need it, the fact that some of his social issues songs are just plain corny, the Chris Gaines thing that is just plain misunderstood. (There was supposed to be a movie about the fictional character by the same name, that Garth was supposed to act in, with the CD of the music, being a byproduct, but with the film, never being finished or released, we are instead left with a CD that may have been intended as a soundtrack to an interpretive film, but is instead just weird Garth music by a different name)
And the fact that Garth Brooks inexplicably seems to want to market all of his music to 50 year old consumers, who haven’t figured out that they can go to the mall or Amazon for things
OK, old Walmart exclusive, a Cracker Barrel, exclusive, a target exclusive, I’d get it
But Bass Pro shops? Buying music at Bass Pro shops is the epitome of stocking stuffing. It’s probably right there next to the orchestra of people who weren’t good enough to be in a major well-known Orchestra playing instrumentals from musicals and movies that people over 50 will recognize, but not playing them well enough that any radio station would want to pick them up, And those compilations of instrumentals by various studio musicians, showing you the love of that instrument, but once again, not played at any particular level meriting serious listening Except for the few people who couldn’t tell the difference between a Banjo played badly, and Banjo played well
I’m sure he’s a sharp businessman, but if somebody told me that they wanted to go to Bass Pro shops to buy a Garth Brooks exclusive CD, I would almost expect it to be a stripped down acoustic album, covering a bunch of his familiar songs that sounds like he recorded it in the basement on a Tuesday night
But dailey and Vincent sings the Statler brothers was a Crakcer barrel exclusive So what the hell do I know?
For that matter, George Jones, with the smoky mountain boys, was a Cracker Barrel exclusive, and that was a great album
you know what maybe I just don’t know what I’m talking about
August 8, 2023 @ 12:02 pm
George Jones and the smoky mountain boys at Cracker Barrel sounds like something that happened in the 1970’s after a couple of days of binge drinking by all those involved.
August 8, 2023 @ 4:55 pm
This! Exactly!
August 8, 2023 @ 11:07 am
I feel like this quote from Tommy Boy pops in my head anytime Garth is in the news about “new” music.
Ray Zalinsky : “I make car parts for the American working man because that’s who I am and that’s who I care about. Truth is, I make car parts for the American working man because I’m a hell of a salesman and he doesn’t know any better.”
August 8, 2023 @ 11:13 am
What comes to my mind whenever Garth pops up for almost any reason is what Waylon Jennings supposedly said about Garth’s sincerity. Ah, insincerity, I mean.
August 8, 2023 @ 9:04 pm
Who cares what Waylon had to say about Garth.
The dude hated everyone in the 1990s that got the tiny bit of fame who wasn’t Travis Tritt.
August 8, 2023 @ 11:07 am
I’m sure, I guess, that this sort of exclusive makes economic sense for Garth but I find that mystifying.
How can Bass Pro expect to make enough on CD sales to pay more than Amazon (or Spotify, though that may bit be open to Garth) would pay for a streaming release?
August 8, 2023 @ 11:21 am
My pickup doesn’t have a CD player, and if it did, I’d have Garth’s first album from 1989 and nothing else of his.
August 8, 2023 @ 11:39 am
I bought Red Headed Stranger on cd last year for the purpose of keeping a cd in my car just in case. I got my first truck last weekend, brand new, and lo and behold, no CD player. Whack.
August 8, 2023 @ 7:00 pm
Hard to argue with that, James. I might throw in his second release, “No Fences” and maybe the very first Hits collection (1994), but that’s pretty much it. By the way, recall that the Hits collection was available “for a limited time only”? The wheels of Corporation Garth were turning from the early days….use the “limited edition” concept to create demand and then pull it before it does too much damage to sales of the regular album releases.
August 8, 2023 @ 11:22 am
This guy.
August 8, 2023 @ 11:29 am
Garth is such an easy target it isn’t even fun anymore. To be honest, he is in the same category as Shania, embarassing.
August 8, 2023 @ 1:07 pm
Not even close.
Garth released some classic country tunes. Shania hasn’t.
August 8, 2023 @ 6:20 pm
You have a point there.
August 9, 2023 @ 6:50 am
Don’t tell Daydreamer that. Haha.
August 8, 2023 @ 11:37 am
I just rolled my eyes so hard they fell out of my head.
August 8, 2023 @ 11:45 am
I’m curious who Garth and his marketing team are trying to market this to. It seems maybe for superfans, or maybe as an impulsive gift purchase?
I think most people do most of their music listening in the car. Neither of my cars have a CD player. I listen to music at home quite a bit, and I’m usually streaming. When I play physical media it’s typically vinyl. When I buy albums I buy vinyl.
Streaming is so much more convenient, and vinyl is much more collectable. CDs are going the way of the cassette.
It seems Garth is kinda behind the times.
August 8, 2023 @ 11:59 am
Is this “The Onion”?
August 8, 2023 @ 12:03 pm
Hopefully no “assholes” buy his album.
August 8, 2023 @ 2:38 pm
No, we wont.
August 9, 2023 @ 7:18 am
I’m sure he’s very upset about your $30
August 9, 2023 @ 6:25 pm
$30 x 1000’s
August 9, 2023 @ 7:49 pm
That’s cute.
August 8, 2023 @ 4:13 pm
I heard he wasn’t interested in selling his CD’s to people who were going to “act like assholes”. Good luck
August 8, 2023 @ 12:35 pm
This is OK I guess…but I really wish we would see the release of the long-promised duets album with Trisha. They’ve said they are working on it.
August 8, 2023 @ 12:40 pm
Well at least we know the new album is going to be reel country music!
August 8, 2023 @ 12:49 pm
Thanks for the heads-up on this, Trigger. I can see I’ll be needing to warn my family and in-laws not to buy this for me for Christmas, as they often conflate my love of country music with a love for Garth Brooks. I was unfortunate enough to receive the last box set for Christmas when it came out.
Having been the unlucky recipient of one of these, I can say that it is super annoying to have to paw through seven discs and a bunch of track listings to find one of the two or three Garth songs I don’t mind listening to. That said, I’m sure the Garth crowd will buy this. Garth’s is the perfect fanbase to have; regardless of how many times they get screwed and fleeced, they consistently show up in numbers to do it all again.
August 8, 2023 @ 1:08 pm
I keep seeing in the comment section, yes, I actually read through the comments on these articles just to see if anything interesting comes up. But I keep seeing in the comment section that there are people saying that they don’t have cd players in their vehicles.
It’s weird enough to me to not have a CD player in the house, because my house has one in most of the major rooms
But it is especially weird to me to not have one in cars.
As somebody else in the comment section said, and it is my opinion exactly, I don’t trust the idea that the thing I’m paying to experience is on a stranger’s computer accessed through the Internet, and I don’t physically owner copy that cannot be revoked
So I like to own physical copies of things, plus it’s just really cool to impress people with a big CD shelf or a big bookshelf
But not having a CD player in the car is just mystifying for me. I understand that you can pay for Sirius radio now, which has more channel is the cater to more people than just whatever local station is playing whatever stuff is still marketable in your area, but for me, I like music enough, that I want to listen to exactly what I feel like at any given time, and no station that is curated by anyone other than me could possibly deliver that.
And I have completely walked out on car deals over cars that don’t have cd players while salesman. Try to hype up the thing about being able to connect to my phone. Listen guy, I don’t listen to music with my phone. I have CDs and I have cd players to play them. And I’m only going to buy a car without a CD player if you give me a huge discount on the car so that I have money left over to get one put an aftermarket.
After all, if I want to get a hot ham sandwich with mustard and mashed potatoes at a restaurant, and they told me they’re out of mashed potatoes, but here’s spinach quiche and peach cobbler That I’m expected to pay full price for even though I didn’t want or order either of those things and I still didn’t get my mashed potatoes.
I’ll take the spinach quiche and the peach cobbler free but I’m not going to pay full price for them if I didn’t order them especially if they are being offered in substitution of what I actually wanted. And I feel that way about car salesman trying to sell up fancy car Consouls that don’t have cd players, but supposedly do all the stuff with my phone but I don’t understand or have set up because I don’t want to waste app space on my phone.
August 8, 2023 @ 9:13 pm
Been awhile since you bought a new car, Fuzz? New cars don’t come with CD players. And no you’re not getting a discount. Lol.
August 8, 2023 @ 1:51 pm
With Garth, you’re inevitably left feeling that it’s all about the sale. Don’t get me wrong, I understand it’s a business and there’s absolutely no shame in wanting to make a buck. But Garth’s relentless emphasis on “the product” has transformed him from a performer to a brand, and not necessarily one that is associated with super high quality at this point.
August 8, 2023 @ 2:10 pm
Meanwhile – artists and songwriters today who are trying to make it / make a living at music are earning $0.0000014 per listen for their art. (Anyone see the Snoop Dog rant recently about this? Worth watching. I think he was at a conference or something as a guest speaker?) As long as Garth’s doing business like it’s 1997, he should add one song from a handful of ground floor independent artists on this Bass Pro packaged deal as ‘bonus tracks’. Bonus tracks – not bodies, Garth.
August 8, 2023 @ 3:11 pm
Maybe they should have titled this box of music –
Garth’s Big Bassed Box of Music 2023.
“We weren’t ready for it, because we had to do Bass Pro—big box retailer—…”
Thank you so much, Mr. Brooks.
All we masses of the great unwashed, had no idea Bass Pro Shops is a “big box retailer.”
Anyone else like to take a swing at this dick?
August 8, 2023 @ 3:48 pm
Sounds like FUN
FUN
FUN
We bout to get a 3 year release delay
August 8, 2023 @ 4:00 pm
If Garth’s Big @$$ got a Bass Pro Hat,
How much @$$ would his Bass Box Set get?
August 8, 2023 @ 5:30 pm
All I want for Christmas is my mom back Garth, not your old music again.
August 8, 2023 @ 6:05 pm
Not wading into the politics of Garthnomics here. We’ve known he does this for years. Just want to clarify two points:
1) Trigger, the song is called “Pleasure in the Pain.” It’s a beautiful song.
2) What Garth failed to mention is the tie-in to his Missouri shows last year. Johnny Morris, who owns Bass Pro, opened Thunder Ridge amphitheater in the Branson area to draw bigger headliners to the region. Garth was the inaugural performer with three shows, which Johnny called him personally to do. The Triple Live cover/booklet in the Bass Pro box set has images from those Thunder Ridge concerts. It’s a continuation of that partnership.
On Garthnomics, I will just say this: He is learning that repackaged music in a box set to get new stuff doesn’t work that well in 2023. Especially post pandemic. He’s learned it with anthologies, too. The hype is big with his TSL integration, but sales quickly fizzle out. The anthologies are never sold out. You know what they say about the definition of insanity…
August 8, 2023 @ 7:16 pm
It’s amazing how Garth Brooks has made so much out of so little. “Only in America,” I guess.
August 8, 2023 @ 7:50 pm
Who TF cares???
August 8, 2023 @ 9:18 pm
Another sad stab at padding his already overly padded sales figures. At $29.99, if he sells one million sets (which I doubt he will at this point), at seven CDs per box it would equal 7 million copies sold. It’s a sham and a joke. This is all about’s Garth’s “Big Box” sized ego. If it was about the music and for his fans, he would be releasing the new album separately at the same time.
August 8, 2023 @ 11:37 pm
He is a great singer, songwriter and showman. No doubt the new album will be released on its own at some stage and maybe that announcement will follow. I look forward to the new album but I am not buying the box set and I do not want to spend money on songs I already have.
August 9, 2023 @ 7:46 am
Sucker born every minute. My take.
Garth is a great singer. Wish he would record a classic country album.
He’s no Merle Haggard as far as leaving a legacy. He will be remembered as a huge selling artist.
The songs will not be classics.
August 15, 2023 @ 1:44 pm
He did yet another box set in 2013 and it had four albums of cover songs and one of them was an album of country classics. The box set was called “Blame It All on My Roots: Five Decades of Influences.”
August 9, 2023 @ 8:27 am
I will just keep my money. I know I am an A–hole.
August 9, 2023 @ 8:39 am
It’s a real shame that Garth has limited his releases to Amazon and always tied up with big box sets. He may be making more money in the short term, but I believe it has really really damaged his long term cultural impact, and the greater influence he could be having in country music.
August 9, 2023 @ 4:54 pm
Not interested!!!!!!!
Garth Brooks to me is an entertainer I have no feelings about. Why? Well in an early interview when he was really selling records he made a statement I didn’t like or care for. He said country music wouldn’t be what it is today without me. I chuckled and turned the tv channel. There have been alot more entertainers before Garth that molded the genre. If you want a complete immersion in the genre please watch the documentary Country Music by Ken Burns. Then you’ll really see who brought us to where we are now. And it certainly wasn’t you Mr Brooks!!!!!!!!!
August 9, 2023 @ 8:45 pm
Garth needs to understand how he is limiting his legacy with these exclusive contracts.
August 15, 2023 @ 9:49 am
Can he at least quit using promo photos that are CLEARLY from 15+ years ago? FTLOG.
August 15, 2023 @ 2:31 pm
When I was in eighth grade, my English teacher told me about this song called “Papa Loved Mama.” My interest was piqued and I took my birthday money and bought “No Fences” and “Ropin’ the Wind” that weekend. I’ve been a Garth fan ever since.
That being said…this constant repackaging and reselling of the same material over and over again is getting tedious and this is just frustrating.
August 17, 2023 @ 4:56 pm
I’m a huge Garth fan and have been from the beginning. His New Zealand in 1994 is still one of the great memories I have. I will be buying the new album, but not the boxset, I’m not really a collector, so wont buy albums that I have already bought.
I wish he would release something that is 100% completely new. Do a project that is once again mind blowing.