Garth Brooks to release new album, 'Time Traveler', but oh wait, there's a catch!

Sorry Garth, love your work over the years, but you leave me cold with these marketing ploys.
As usual, I have everything you did before, and I'm not buying 'everything' again.
I'll wait a few years and pick you up in the marked down bin I'm afraid just to hear the new album.
Time to find some fresh and more tactful ways of selling that suits the fans I feel.

Garth Brooks Being Unfair to Fans with “Time Traveler” Release -...

"Garth Brooks has just announced his 14th studio album called Time Traveler to be released on November 7th. Consisting of 10 songs, the album was produced by Garth Brooks himself. But to purchase and listen to the new album, you’ll have to purchase six other albums that you either might already have or may not particularly want. It’s the latest scheme from the country superstar to drive up his sales numbers.

Time Traveler will only be available—at least initially—by purchasing it in a bigger box set exclusively available at Bass Pro Shops. As Garth explains, the Bass Pro release is part of his “Limited Series,” which has released two other box set collections in the past. Overall, Garth has now released eight box sets total. This third limited series also comes with the albums Man Against Machine (2014), Gunslinger (2016), and Fun (2020), along with Triple Live (2018).

Garth says about the new album, “There are a lot of different eras on this album, thus the name. Country music’s core is sincerity, after that, you can dress it up a thousand different ways. I am so lucky to live under the flag of Country Music.”

Will Time Traveler be available by itself at some point? Maybe, but Garth is not mentioning anything about this at the moment and wants you to purchase the box set first. Will Time Traveler eventually be available via streaming services? If it is, it would be exclusive to Amazon, since Garth has an exclusive streaming deal with them. But at the moment, there is no guarantees if or when this will happen either.

All of this is to funnel fans toward purchasing the $29.95 box set. Perhaps if you don’t have physical copies of any of the box set albums, that is not a bad deal. But if you do, you’re being forced to purchase albums you don’t want or need to get the one that you do. Garth has been doing this for years.



Garth Brooks first announced the new Bass Pro Shops box set back in August. But at that time, he didn’t even reveal the name of the new album, nor the track list. We still don’t have the detailed track list at this point.

On Garth’s first “Limited Series” release in 1998, it included his first six albums, with each album including an additional song. On the second “Limited Series” released in 2005, it included four previously-released albums, as well as The Lost Sessions that included 11 unheard tracks, including the Chris LeDoux tribute single “Good Ride Cowboy.” In that case The Lost Sessions was also issued separately later, but with an expanded 17-song track list. So even if you got The Lost Sessions in the box set, you still needed to buy the album separately to complete the catalog.

It is likely Garth Brooks will release Time Traveler separately at some point as well, but who knows when. As some fans are also pointing out, even though the Limited Series box set will be available at Bass Pro on November 7th, if you purchase it online from the retailer, it won’t ship until November 27th to December 4th. Perhaps this is to push people toward going to the physical stores. But with only 200 Bass Pro locations, this is not a possibility for many Garth Brooks fans, especially ones that live in rural areas.

Others have been quick to point out that they don’t even have a CD player anymore. Most newer cars do not come with one. At this point, CD would be the only way to listen to Time Traveler. People may have to travel back in time to find a CD player to hear it.

According to the RIAA, Garth Brooks is the top selling solo artist of all time in the world, even beating out Elvis. He’s sold 157 million albums in the United States alone. Though Garth’s popularity is unquestionable and his country bonafides are hard to dispute, his marketing and packaging schemes sometimes precede the positive sentiments about his music. This is certainly the case for Time Traveler."

 

I’m happy with Garth from his 1989 debut up to the Sevens album 8 years later.

Don’t feel any great need to hear new music from him.

 

<cough cough-> The Ultimate Upsell Marketing 101 <cough>.

 

coming soon on the BASS PRO SHOP Record label -- deluxe reissues of Steve Hillage "Fish Rising" and Chris Squire " Fish Out Of Water " .

 

Come on, he's only worth $400million, he's practically on the streets. The man needs to eat.

 

I respect his attempt to drive CD player sales

 

Cool. Keep us informed.

 

Do you know the release date for John Lennon's Shaved Fish?

 

There's no denying Garth Brooks has made a boatload of money packaging and repackaging and rerepackaging his old hit songs. So has Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, etc., it's an industry norm. Smart guy, if the measure is "what kind of business smarts does he have?".

His pop-country songs could at times be enjoyable.

But I will admit that it drove me crazy back in the 90s that he and his female counterpart Shania Twain had all those monster hits with mostly-shallow faux country songs, while real country music was shoved aside on "country" radio. (True confessions: I worked as a country radio DJ back in the 90s, so I was exposed to this constantly)

Marty Stuart and Patty Loveless made nice careers for themselves, recording some truly remarkable, heart-felt, country-to-its-rock-hard-coal-to-diamonds-core songs. In a truly just world, they would have been recognized as country music's real stars from that era.

 

Ah Garth, you greedy knob'ead! Never change.

 

I'm not buying it unless there's some Chris Gaines in there.

 

Makes you wonder if the next Toad The Wet Sprocket album's gonna only be available there...

 

May this scheme backfire big time! (And of course, the album will be released independently next year anyway)

 

I don't care for him but I think that's totally beside the point. As a marketing scheme I think this is pretty cynical, far beyond what most artists do to their own fans. Not a fan of it. Imagine if you could only hear Hackney Diamonds by buying a Rolling Stones box set from Hard Rock Cafe or some such--their fans would riot.

 

Garth Brooks has kept his concert prices affordable, and beaten the scalpers to make his live shows affordable and accessible for fans.

So I wouldn't be totally cynical about Garth, like I would be about a band like Kiss, which does milk its fans for every dollar it can. For being decent about concert prices, I can overlook Garth's eccentricities on how he wants to release his new album.

For whatever reason, Garth does seem to be chasing after sales stats and business deals that seem very weird in today's music industry. His past few albums had sharp drop off in sales. And he still won't put his music on streamers outside Amazon, whom he has an exclusive deal with. I'm not sure if his tactics here are to squeeze the fans for an extra $20, prop up sagging record sales, or bank on a safe guarantee from Bass Pro Shop for the exclusivity versus rely on record sales.

Garth still has many fans, but I think legacy acts like him should focus on their future legacy and not becoming lost to younger fans, who are definitely not going to Bass Pro Shop to discover new music through physical CD. But Garth has made weird business decisions and turned out to be great moves.

 

The price savvy Garth fans will surely await mass availability a few months after the "Time Traveler" set has left the Bass Pro Shops. It should be widely available via your local Goodwill store with/without the original box, all 7 CDs separated out and priced just $.50 each in like new condition. You'll just need to fish for the "TT" exclusive disc.
I just hope there's room on the Goodwill shelves next to all the existing Garth Brooks original and music club CD release editions

 

Honestly I rather wait until he releases Time Traveler separately. I only was meant to have 3 but I bought the 2005 boxset on accident on ebay for 5 bucks. I was going to skip it because the lost sessions has 17 tracks while double live 25th anniversary got an extra 5 tracks. I only got anthology 1 & 2 because I like reading. I also bought the blame it all on my roots boxset because those cover albums are brand new studio albums. I got the ultimate collection boxset because it was a gift and it features a bonus track version of Gunslinger, a live album with brand new songs, and the old school features a cover originally by randy Travis

 

I can't think of a single artist who has treated his own catalog (both previous and current) as shabbily as Garth has. He's nothing but pure commodity at this point.

 

Well... there's always Dave Clark, the "genius" who held on to his catalogue soooo long that he and his music were literally forgotten, and he made pennies on the dollar. In a sense, he is the flip side of Garth's marketing savvy.

 

Garth ?

 

Saw this at a Cabela's (they're owned by Bass Pro now) the other day. Prominently displayed front and center right as you walk in the door. 30 bucks for a 7 cd box set seemed like a good deal when I saw it.

I don't own any of his music nor do I plan to any time soon, but I guess if I was interested in testing the waters I'd consider picking this up.

 

FWIW, the box set includes his last three regular albums, the new one, and the very same triple live disc from the infamous Legacy box.

That's a load of music for $30, assuming you didn't already buy it and still like Garth Brooks enough to care.

 

Garth should sell a CD player too.

Could have done like the Doors, sell a mini player with a bunch of Garth 3" discs.

How come Garth doesn't participate in RSD?

Why doesn't Garth sell color vinyl, like everyone else?

 

Garth Brooks music is still unavailable on Qobuz...
Very bizarre for such a huge star.
How is that possible ?

 

I watched some of Brooks’ live show on Amazon last night, and I can report that he has no problem eating.