Garth Brooks: The customer is not always right
Just finished reading a BBC article on Kid Rock’s refusal to put his songs on iTunes. What was interesting about the article was the contrast between Kid Rock’s reason for shunning iTunes and Garth Brooks’ reluctance to embrace online sales. (Both artists are among the small handful of top artists also not on iTunes or AmazonMP3.)
Rock says iTunes is based on “an old system, where iTunes takes the money, the record company takes the money, and they don’t give it to the artists.” Brooks, on the other hand, doesn’t want you to download his songs because he wants you to buy the full album.
He wants fans to download only full albums because he says each album is a complete work and the songs are designed to be heard together.
“We do albums, we have always done albums,” he recently told the BBC News website.
Not exactly surprising to me. I would assume anyone crazy enough to pull a Chris Gaines stunt obviously thinks a lot of his craft. But I’m most curious about this quote from him: “And if people try to make it a money issue, I can get the full album to the consumer for much less than they can get it at 99 cents a song.”
Really? Now that I’d like to see. If it’s really not about the money, why not follow the lead of bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails by putting out an album and making it available on your website for anyone to buy at whatever price they choose? Both of those bands are claiming success with that model.
Personally, while I’m not a huge country music fan I do appreciate a lot of Garth’s music. But I’d have to disagree with his statement “Friends in Low Places is not Friends in Low Places without Wolves or Wild Horses.” I love Friends in Low Places and the No Fences album is a decent one overall with hits like The Thunder Rolls and Unanswered Prayers, but if we were still talking cassette tapes Wolves would be a b-side that most would never listen to twice.
Bottomline: Do you want to give fans what they want, or what you want? It’s your prerogative, but don’t be upset if we don’t agree with you.
