At long last, Brooks goes with the stream
A week after launching its paid streaming music service, Amazon announced a deal with one of streaming music’s biggest holdouts: country music superstar Garth Brooks. Brooks, the best-selling solo artist in U.S. history with 138 million albums sold, has kept his music off streaming services. But now select albums and songs are available on Amazon Music Unlimited. His albums, previously available only through his GhostTunes service, will be sold digitally via Amazon Music.
Brooks said he waited until the right partner came along before he was ready to dive into streaming.
“I love retail to death, but retail will never tell me what my stuff is worth and will never tell me how to sell it,” Brooks said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. “That’s the tail wagging the dog for me.”
Brooks entered semiretirement in 2000 near the height of his popularity to spend more time with his children and wife, Trisha Yearwood. In 2014, he returned with a major tour and a new album, “Man Against Machine.”
His upcoming albums, “Gunslinger” and “Christmas Together” with Yearwood, will be added to the streaming service later this year. Two of his bestselling albums, “Ultimate Hits” and “Double Live,” will be available for streaming. They include his popular hits “Friends in Low Places,” “The Dance” and “The Thunder Rolls.”