The countdown is on to the November 11th release of Garth Brooks’ new album, Man Against Machine! Featuring the first single, “People Loving People,” the 14-song collection is one that Garth promises will run the stylistic gamut of what you might expect…and what you might not: in other words, a Garth album! (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
- In Case You Missed It… Garth visited ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday morning for an interview with Robin Roberts and to perform the only song he’s ever recorded that could rival his all-time favorite, “The Dance” — it’s the Man Against Machine track called “Mom.” Take a look: GMA interview; Garth sings “Mom” on GMA.
- Garth was thrilled and extremely impressed with the caliber of today’s songwriting as he chose the songs for Man Against Machine. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
- For Garth, the greatest honor he can receive for his music is when it finds a meaningful place in someone’s life. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
- In a soundbite we shared earlier this year, Garth talks about the feeling of getting back into the recording studio for the making of Man Against Machine. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)
- When you pre-order Man Against Machine — or an awesome digital bundle of Garth’s music and videos that includes not only this album, but also his 2015 album! — you’ll immediately get the single “People Loving People” and the song “Send ‘em on Down the Road.” You can pre-order now on GarthBrooks.com, or go to GhostTunes.com.
- Spanning 14 songs, including three co-written by Garth, the Man Against Machine track listing appears below:
Man Against Machine
(Larry Bastian/Jenny Yates/Garth Brooks)
She’s Tired of Boys
(Amanda Williams/Garth Brooks)
Cold Like That
(Steven Lee Olsen/Melissa Peirce/Chris Wallin)
All-American Kid
(Craig Campbell/Brice Long/Terry McBride)
Mom
(Don Sampson/Wynn Varble)
Wrong About You
(Adam Wright)
Rodeo and Juliet
(Bryan Kennedy/Garth Brooks)
Midnight Train
(Melissa Peirce/Matthew A. Rossi)
Cowboys Forever
(Wynn Varble/John Martin/Dean Dillon)
People Loving People
(Lee Miller/Chris Wallin/busbee)
Send ’em on Down the Road
(Marc Beeson/Allen Shamblin)
Fish
(Chris Wallin/Wynn Varble)
You Wreck Me
(Stephanie Bentley/Kevin Kadish/Dan Muckala)
Tacoma
(Caitlyn Smith/Bob DiPiero)
Garth Brooks talks about the perception of him as an artist, as well as what to expect from his new album, Man Against Machine. (1:01)
“Yeah, it’s kind of weird, as time goes by, your position changes. At first you were the new guy that nobody was sure, you know, what was goin’ on, and then you became the guy that people were really not sure what was goin’ on and didn’t know if it was good for the country music format, ‘cause it wasn’t traditional country at that time, it was what I just called ‘Oklahoma Country.’ Chris LeDoux described it as cowboy rock & roll. And then you get into these younger guys now come on, and they’re comin’ in twice as hard as you ever did with guitars and stuff, and you start to get looked at as kind of the traditional artist, which is kind of weird. But don’t worry: you hear this new album and ‘tradition’ is not gonna come to your…(laughs) it’s not gonna come to your mind, but it kind of will. It’s a Garth record, which means we have everything. We have everything from cowboy songs, we have everything to waltzes to things that people have never heard in country music before. That’s kind of what we do: we just follow our hearts. And to me, an album or a collection of music at that time should reflect who the artist is at that time — and this new album reflects us very, very well.”
Garth Brooks is knocked out by the caliber of Nashville songwriting today. (:44)
“The older I get, I would think the more less I would like — you know, just how we all do as we get older — the less we like what’s goin’ on. But the songwriting in Nashville right now, try not to offend anybody, is head and shoulders over where it was in the ’90s. And they’re all young kids, but they’ve got some great messages, and they got some great substance. It’s getting it from the publishing houses to the radio that’s the artists’ jobs and the record labels’ jobs. And that’s our job, as an artist. This new record, I think, has some of the best writing on it ever, with songs called ‘Send ‘Em on Down the Road,’ songs called ‘You Wreck Me,’ ‘Cold Like That,’ ‘Tacoma’ — these are songs that are comin’ that have some pretty hellacious substance in it.”
Garth Brooks says that the greatest honor for him is when his music has a meaningful place in someone’s life. (:37)
“They can give you GRAMMYs, which are very appreciated. They can give you all kinds of awards, but the truth is, the greatest award is for someone to say we played this at our wedding, it was the first dance with my husband, it was the first dance with my father or my mother at the mother-son wedding dance. With songs like ‘If Tomorrow Never Comes’ and ‘The Dance,’ you also get these wonderful, wonderful reports of people playin’ it at their funerals, people playin’ it for graduations – it’s their class song, like ‘The River.’ Wonderful, wonderful high points in your career. Forget about the artist; it’s all about the song.”
Garth Brooks was thrilled to get back into the recording studio for the making of Man Against Machine. (:40)
“Steppin’ back in the studio was a dream for me for a lot of reasons. The most important probably was just getting to play music again. You know, when we retired around 2000, 2001, I truthfully thought that was it. I mean, I thought I was gonna go home, raise my babies, and then the window would be closed. And I’m not saying that the window’s open, but I’ve been given an opportunity to see what’s on the back half of this. And walkin’ in the studio and seein’ those guys that I hadn’t seen in years, that were my brothers that I just loved to death that we made all the early records with was a wonderful feeling. And I think that translates into the music and onto the record. I think you hear it when you hear the songs from this record.”
