Garth Brooks Finally Coming to iTunes – Updated
UPDATE: In the sober light of Tuesday morning, it has been discovered that Electric Barnyard’s Garth Brooks interview, despite not being conducted on the traditionally-recognized April Fools Day on April 1st, was an ill-begotten morning show ruse. You can listen to the audio below to decide how funny you deem the pre-April Fools, April Fools prank.
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The greatest-selling country music artist of all time, and one of the very last artists to resist releasing his music digitally, is finally succumbing to the digital music revolution. Garth Brooks, announced today on the Electric Barnyard show of Country 92.5 in Connecticut, says his albums are coming to iTunes Tuesday, April 1st, including your ability to purchase individual songs. For excited Garth Brooks fans, hopefully this is no April Fools joke.
Garth Brooks has become famous as one of the final holdouts to the music downloading and streaming revolution. Just in January, Garth reiterated why his philosophical differences with iTunes kept him from contemporizing his music catalog. “Right now there are a lot of hurdles to climb, one of which is digital,” Garth said. “We don’t have a digital partner right now. I’ll never have a digital partner in iTunes as long as they keep the same rules they have now. I respect them; they’re friends of mine. They show me respect. They make me believe they’re friends of mine. But if they’re not going to change their ways, I’m not going to change mine. We have to figure out how we get new music to the people.”
READ: Garth Brooks Set For Nothing Short of World Domination
Garth has recently been gearing up for a return, moving to Nashville, getting ready for a world tour, and wanting to make music that he says will be, “at a level I’ve never seen before.“
March 31, 2014 @ 8:18 am
April 1st? Oooo boy I hope you’re right and hope that this is a not a joke. And if it isn’t a joke, can you imagine the resurgence he would get with the younger fans?
March 31, 2014 @ 8:40 am
Well today isn’t April Fools Day, and tomorrow is a Tuesday—the day of the week traditionally reserved for releasing music. With all the interest in him releasing his music to iTunes, he’d be a fool to dangle this carrot to then just pull it back. If this announcement happened tomorrow, I wouldn’t have even paid attention to it.
I think it remains to be seen how much younger fans will get into his music.
March 31, 2014 @ 8:23 am
FINALLY. His attitude on this has really annoyed me, and as someone who has always liked his music, I’ve found it frustrating. I don’t even own a CD player anymore, and my laptop doesn’t have a CD drive, so there’s been no way to listen to any of his songs. Now I just gotta wait patiently until he agrees to be on Spotify. How long do you think it’ll take for him to cave on that one?
March 31, 2014 @ 8:44 am
We’ll have to see. He may go straight to Spotify, who knows? But knowing how business savvy Garth is, he’ll reap as much money as he can by hitting iTunes, and then wait until the last possible second to get on Spotify, if ever. He’s already proven he doesn’t “need” to do anything just because the rest of music is. When you’re one of the biggest artists of all time, that’s the power you have,
April 1, 2014 @ 1:03 pm
Have someone rip the CDs into mp3, slap them on a flash drive. Upload to iTunes and add your own cover art. That is what I did.
March 31, 2014 @ 8:27 am
I bet that he’s trying to spur interest in his upcoming music by reminding folks of the classics, so to speak. Even Blake Shelton was pining for Brooks’ music to be on iTunes. I find it fascinating that Brooks has apparently backpedaled completely. I thought for sure that when I read this article, it would say something about iTunes only offering his full albums.
On that note, I don’t really think that Brooks feels “the album concept should be more respected.” He’s certainly never shied away from compilations in the past, which more or less are collections of singles. Speaking of Blame It All On My Roots, will the box set be available through iTunes or only his other albums?
March 31, 2014 @ 8:55 am
I’m not sure if Garth is as married to the album concept as he’s portraying either, but that is what he’s said. When you get down to it, there has to be some reason or reasons, because at this point I’m not sure it’s all about economics that he would refuse iTunes up to this point. When you’re one of the biggest artists of all time, you can afford to do things your own way.
We do not have many details yet on the specifics of what his iTunes move will look like and if some of his releases will be excluded. We may not know until tomorrow when it all transpires. The audio from the interview is supposed to be posted shortly, and when it is I will update the story. That may give us some more insight.
March 31, 2014 @ 9:13 am
It kind of reminds me of AC/DC’s etiquette with iTunes. They said the exact same thing, only they took it a bit farther by stating that “we don’t release singles” (even though they have and they do). Then, in late 2012, they finally relented just in time for the release of their album Live At River Plate. Neither Brooks nor AC/DC are on Spotify and I doubt that they ever will be. Not much money there, and like you say, when you sell records like hotcakes, you can do what you want.
So is it confirmed that the music will be online tomorrow?
March 31, 2014 @ 10:56 am
“So is it confirmed that the music will be online tomorrow?”
He was interviewed by the Electric Barnyard show on 92.5 in Connecticut this morning and said as much. The radio station has promised to post the audio shortly, and hopefully that will glean more information. As soon as they post the audio, I will transcribe it here, and embed the audio if possible. Garth has a history of loose lips and letting cats out of the bag. He did it with the box set, he did it with his upcoming tours and such. If it’s all a big April Fools joke, I find it hard to figure out how anyone will find it funny. I’m not sure how “confirmed” that is for you, but that’s what we know at the moment. If we get more confirmation from sources, I will add the information here.
April 1, 2014 @ 10:42 am
This seems a cruel joke to me. It’s one thing to crack a joke on the date that affects a few people, but another entirely to do it a day early and possibly get thousands of people excited for something that isn’t going to happen. I wasn’t even planning on buying any of Garth’s music from iTunes and I feel irritated.
March 31, 2014 @ 8:43 am
Agree with above comments. He never cared about the album as a whole, other than they are more profitable than single songs. If he’s planning a return to the spotlight, I think it has probably become apparent to him that the ONLY way he’ll come out ahead in album sales is through iTunes. Given the wide audience he caters to, I’m sure physical copies will sell better than many other artists, but he would still be missing it sorely if that were the only way to get ahold of new music. While he’s at it, might as well pick up some re-sales of albums that have been forgotten.
March 31, 2014 @ 8:59 am
He could be totally be blowing smoke up our skirts with the whole “album concept” talk, but I think Garth is confident he doesn’t “need” to do anything, primarily because he already has a license to print money, and because his “Blame It All On My Roots” box set has sold nearly 1 million copies when he only released it through 1 retailer. I agree, if he’s ever going to have any big impact, especially with the younger generation, he had to go digital. But I think this has to do with a more overall strategy for his music, reaping iTunes customers before streaming becomes the dominant music source.
March 31, 2014 @ 2:17 pm
I”m calling a really bad Aprils Fools joke.
March 31, 2014 @ 2:21 pm
” at a level I’ve Never seen before”
I can hardly wait to hear this now that he’s put himself above everyone else.
What an arrogant dick!!!
The sooner he gets his new album out the better then the chubby bald twit
Can see that his day in the sun has come to a close.
Ya, I know he will have his followers from days gone by and all but if he’s supposed to
Be the saving grace of country I sure don’t wanna hear his 2.0 version of what he did
Before.
March 31, 2014 @ 3:09 pm
(quote)This was Garth”™s last chance to take advantage of the rush on his digital music before the download format becomes a potential dinosaur amid the soaring popularity of streaming, and the resurgence of vinyl in the physical format.(quote)
For real?????????
March 31, 2014 @ 4:03 pm
I think so. Digital downloads are already dramatically losing market share and have been for the past year. Download companies like iTunes and Amazon are saying they’re going to try and get into the streaming business. It may be now or never for downloads. In fact in anything, I’d say Garth is about 9-12 months late.
March 31, 2014 @ 4:16 pm
They are losing their market share as of now but they could within the next couple of years. The majority of people still download via iTunes.
March 31, 2014 @ 5:08 pm
I guess I’m a dinosaur. I thought digital and streaming were the same thing. What’s the difference?
March 31, 2014 @ 5:33 pm
Streaming service are things like Pandora, Spotify and iHeartradio. I think in the next couple of years those will surpass iTunes in revenue.
March 31, 2014 @ 6:10 pm
The primary difference would be that with downloads, you still own the music, even though it is in a digital format. With streaming, you never own anything, you just subscribe for the right to listen to the music in their catalog.
March 31, 2014 @ 6:18 pm
Do you still think this isn’t a joke? They still haven’t posted the audio yet…..
March 31, 2014 @ 6:07 pm
I learned from Hank III that this Walmart boy had his business degree way before his first hit single.
He knows exactly what he’s doin’ folks.
It’s something to do with a retirement portfolio.
Ask The Eagles.
March 31, 2014 @ 6:19 pm
Interestingly the website hasn’t posted the interview; I wonder if he did jump the gun (which he’s notorious for). He earn his MBA in 2010, so the man’s not stupid; I suss this will be true and will align with new music released just before the new fall tour dates are announced.
March 31, 2014 @ 6:39 pm
My thing is it says April 1. I hope they’re right I’m just saying as of now it’s BS because probably tomorrow they will post a banner saying April Fools. Garth is definitely not stupid.
March 31, 2014 @ 8:00 pm
First off, Garth Brooks didn’t release a press release. There’s not a bunch of sites running with this story (likely because they’re concerned it might be an April Fools joke), and many because they’re simply not aware of it. If you’re trying to pull an April Fools joke, the first thing you have to do is make everyone aware of the prank your about to pull. I’d say less than 1% of country fans have any idea of this story, because only two outlets and a few other people on Twitter have reported it. If he comes out tomorrow and posts an April Fools “Ha! Got Ya!” banner, people are simply going to go, “Huh?” because they’re completely unaware that the iTunes matter was even broached.
Second, the interview did happen, Garth did say he was making his music available on iTunes. Just because they did not post the audio, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. There were numerous people who piped up on Twitter when it was broadcast saying they heard it. I don’t know why they didn’t post the audio, but dealing with radio stations a lot, it is not uncommon something gets put off until the next day. Maybe Garth’s peeps asked them not to post it, I don’t know.
Almost this same exact thing happened in the run up to his release of the “Blame It All On My Roots” box set. Garth spilled the beans numerous times prematurely, and by the time we had an official announcement, everybody already knew about it. I think Garth is a technology idiot, and is used to the 1993 reality where if you say something on a local radio show, that’s where it stays.
Let me put it like this: If tomorrow his music is not released to iTunes, and we get the audio from the interview and it has him on the record saying that it will be, whether he screams “April Fools” or not, we have an even BIGGER story on our hands than this one, AND a bunch of pissed off Garth Brooks fans.
March 31, 2014 @ 8:55 pm
You could be right. We’ll see tomorrow. I hope it happens because if it does, take my money pls!!!! And you’re right Garth is a technology idiot.
March 31, 2014 @ 10:50 pm
I’m nervous about this. Tweeted it to a lot of people tonight, hopefully it’s true. I can’t find it anywhere except here.
March 31, 2014 @ 11:22 pm
Look, I think people need to take a deep breath over this thing and let it play out.
“I can”™t find it anywhere except here.”
I wasn’t the one who initially reported this. I’m not the source of this information. The Electric Barnyard show on Country 92.5 in Connecticut reported it. They are the ones that interviewed Garth, and then reported on what he said. I simply took their information and offered a little more back story and commentary about it. If it ends up not being true for whatever reason, I’m sure there will be plenty of people who will want to point and laugh at me like I have egg on my face, but I am simply saying, “This is what another reputable news source is reporting. Here’s my thoughts.” If it is an April Fool’s joke, the joke is on Garth, because the news has reached such a miniscule amount of people, the action of pulling the rug out from under them will not draw any attention. If it is somehow untrue for some other reason, the question would be, why would Garth say it? Hopefully we will get the audio tomorrow, or clarification from the Garth camp and can determine the truth. My guess is when I wake up tomorrow, all of this will make sense.
April 1, 2014 @ 4:14 am
Audio is up…it was an April Fool’s joke, they had someone with a poor imitation of his voice talking about it.
April 1, 2014 @ 5:10 am
I just listened to the audio; the person calling is not Garth. It’s not even a good imitation, so I don’t know if the people at the radio station were pranked or they’re a part of it.
April 1, 2014 @ 5:14 am
I just listened to the audio; the person calling is not Garth. It’s not even a good imitation, so I don’t know if the people at the radio station were pranked or they’re a part of it.
UPDATE: they just added an ‘April Fools’ to the audio, so its a prank.
April 1, 2014 @ 1:40 pm
I can hear the sounds of satellites linking up.
I think Garth will have his own satellite and we’ll be able to subscribe by the month if we want to. He doesn’t need iTunes or anybody else.
He’s going to come out with the next best thing.
April 3, 2014 @ 3:37 pm
The guy on the phone sounds absolutely nothing like Garth Brooks.