Is Garth Brooks finally ready to let us stream his music?
The country music superstar’s music has actually been streaming for a while now – but only on Amazon Music.
Garth has long kept his music off of Spotify and Apple Music, even going so far as to start his own streaming platform GhostTunes back in 2014.
Unfortunately for all of us, GhostTunes never really took off, and it shut down when Garth made the decision to bring his music to Amazon back in 2017.
According to Digital Music News, Garth spoke about his reasoning for keeping his music off Spotify and Apple Music during an appearance at CRS, the annual Country Radio Seminar in Nashville, explaining that he didn’t want his music on streaming platforms as a way of protecting songwriters:
“The fact is that Amazon is a retailer as well. So you can sign your streaming deal, but part of that streaming deal is to move those physical units so the songwriters get paid. And people, we can talk all day that ‘Garth went on to raise his kids, what a great…’ — Garth did that for himself. I stick up for the songwriters because I’m freakin’ one of them! Everything I do for the songwriters, I do for myself.
I’m the most selfish guy you’ve ever met, OK? But if we don’t take care of these songwriters, what do you guys have to play? It’s just tough, so that’s why I love partnering with [Amazon]. So the physical comes in, and nobody’s doing physical anymore. So these songwriters are still doing well.
And I hope that songwriters want to get a Garth Brooks cut. One, because I hope that they think that it would be cool. But two, right behind it closely, I hope it’s because they know that if you’re a Garth Brooks songwriter, you’re going to get paid.”
Now, that logic has never made a ton of sense to me. Sure, songwriters don’t make as much from a Spotify or an Apple Music stream as they do from a physical sale, but guess how much they make if those songs aren’t even on streaming services? Zero.
But regardless, the only way to listen to Garth’s music currently is to either buy one of his hundreds of CD box sets, or to subscribe to Amazon Music. (It’s a damn shame that we can’t still listen on GhostTunes).
It seems that may be changing though.
Garth’s sophomore album No Fences has been added to Spotify, the first time any of his music has appeared on the streaming platform.
Released in 1990 as the follow-up to his massive self-titled debut album, No Fences featured hits like “The Thunder Rolls,” “Two Of A Kind, Workin’ On A Full House” and of course his signature song, “Friends In Low Places.”
The album has been certified as 18x platinum, and is one of Garth’s seven albums to be certified diamond, the RIAA’s highest certification.
There’s no explanation for why the album has been added to Spotify, and it doesn’t appear to be on Apple Music right now so it’s just limited to one platform. (Also, every song is marked as “explicit” so it almost seems like something that wasn’t authorized by Garth).
I guess we’ll have to wait to see whether it gets taken down, or whether Garth suddenly had a change of heart and will be adding the rest of his catalog in the future. But if you have Spotify and want to listen to the album, now’s your chance.