Country artist Garth Brooks has long been a holdout when it comes to streaming his music online. That all changed Wednesday as Amazon announced it has locked down an exclusive on streaming rights for selections from the Oklahoma-born singer’s musical catalog.
In addition to rolling out new releases in the coming weeks, “Amazon Music Unlimited also will be the official sponsor of Brooks’ current tour, which will go worldwide in 2017,” Variety reported Wednesday.
Amazon Music Unlimited is the Seattle, Wash.-based online shopping giant’s foray into streaming, going up against established competitors like Pandora, Apple Music and Spotify.
Mr. Brooks’ teaming up with Amazon seems a bit of a departure from his earlier skeptical rhetoric about big business’s influence on the music industry.
In September 2014, Mr. Brooks launched a website named GhostTunes as an online venue for selling his music, and that of other interested artists wishing to compete with Apple’s iTunes outsize influence on digital-purchasing of music.
“We don’t want the corporations wagging the tail of the dog,” Mr. Brooks said of his company, reported the Los Angeles Times, which explained that the country artist wanted to give fellow musicians greater say in how their works are made available for purchase digitally.
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• Ken Shepherd can be reached at kshepherd@washingtontimes.com.
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