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Garth Brooks Reveals New Album

countdown | November 1, 2014

It might have been the most exclusive Halloween party in Nashville: The city’s music media invited to an album party hosted by Garth Brooks. The setting was the Chet Atkins Chapel in the Sony Nashville building on Music Row. On a bare stage with a stool and an acoustic guitar, Garth Brooks talked about the most anticipated album of his career: “Man Against Machine.”

During his 90-minute presentation, it was clear there was a lot of old and a lot of new. He was not going to simply pick up where he left off 15 years ago. And he wasn’t going to try to repeat himself. But he was still the same guy. He told the group that he’s learned a lot from the first few months of his World Tour. “You can never beat the old stuff. The old stuff has 25 year head start. Better find something that doesn’t sound like what you’ve done before. Find stuff that people who like your stuff will like. Old Garth in new clothes, and he still wears the old clothes.”

The album’s title and cover were both firsts for him: “I’ve never titled an album after a song. This is the first. But this is how we feel. This song scares the hell out of some people when we do it live, and we start the show with it.” Asked about the dark and angry looking cover, Garth said, “I like it because it’s the only picture we shot that day where I have one chin. The sunglasses are another change. I’ve never done anything with glasses, but so be it.” The color cover will be the main one. There will be a limited edition cover in black & white.

Garth went on to say, “We put a lot of pressure on ourselves with this album because of the time off. We’re not calling it new music, we’re calling it the next music. It just fits in with all the other music. It’s an ALBUM. The songs were meant to follow each other. It’s not a bunch of singles, although there are singles on it.”

Back in July, Garth said he had enough songs for a double album. But today he said that has changed. “We tried to do a double album, and ran out of time. Digital made it impossible. Physically there’s no way to complete the second disc, so we made two individual albums, one now, and one next year.” But he definitely had enough songs for two albums: “The search process was big. The weird thing, and this will sound egotistical, but it’s not meant to be, is that a lot of these writers were raised on Garth Brooks music. The greatest thing is songwriting is amazing, you had your choice, we cut 30 things for this album.” As for his own writing, “For one, any time I tried to write, it wasn’t there. When you’re 24/7 as a parent, it’s all about them. I didn’t trust my pen.” So he contributed to three songs.

He closed by telling the people in the room, “Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to make country music again.” Man Against Machine by Garth Brooks will be released on November 11.

Man Against Machine Track List

1. Man Against Machine

Larry Bastian/Jenny Yates/Garth Brooks

2. She’s Tired of Boys

Amanda Williams/Garth Brooks

3. Cold Like That

Steven Lee Olsen/Melissa Peirce/Chris Wallin

4. All-American Kid

Craig Campbell/Brice Long/Terry McBride

5. Mom

Don Sampson/Wynn Varble

6. Wrong About You