This Upcoming Garth Brooks Single Could Be Very Interesting
Granted, you’re making a perilous decision pinning your hopes on someone like Garth Brooks to help turn the needle to the positive in popular country. Plans for Garth to ride out of retirement on a traditional country wave and rid us of the scourge of Bro-Country forever in 2014 never quite materialized. Instead we got mild radio singles and some weird orb at center stage that I’m still unclear exactly what the purpose was. But hey, that’s Garth. You take the good with the … orb.
Now he’s got a new record on the way, and a new tour coming up he’s planning to announce July 9th, as well as a new single he will unveil on June 18th. Though Garth hasn’t given us a name for the new single or any other specifics, he’s saying all the right things ahead of it.
“We were playing all the stuff that we used to play in the honky tonks, and hearing it bounce off those brick walls and hearing those people sing along, I said, ‘You know what? What we need is a good damn honky-tonk song.’ So that’s what we went to do,” Garth told a throng of reporters at a recent CMA Fest Q&A event about the new single. “This is one of those songs I can play all day long. I love this song.”
Always the hype man, Garth went on to tout the song as a mix of “Two of a Kind (Workin’ on a Full House), “Ain’t Goin’ Down (Til the Sun Comes Up),” and “Callin’ Baton Rouge.” “I’m just gonna say that a seat belt and a helmet might be nice on this one,” Garth promised.
Yeah we’ll see, but adding a wrinkle of intrigue to the whole thing is something may be brewing between Garth and young, up-and-coming traditional country Texas songwriter Randall King, whose recent 2018 self-titled effort has a lot of folks singing his praises, including Garth who promoted the record on one of his weekly Facebook Live events when it was released.
“Everybody always asks me, who are the new people that you’re looking at coming up. Guys, I’m going to tell you right now, this kid right here, Randall King,” Garth said. “All I can say is, sweet guy, good guy, hell of a writer, hell of a songwriter. An independent artist. He’s not signed to a record label. This is what country music is all about for me.”
With Garth praising Randall King’s songwriting, should we be surprised if this new blazing “honky tonk” number from Garth has Randall King’s name tied to it somehow? And if it’s not the single, then perhaps another song off the upcoming Garth Brooks record? At this point it’s nothing more than a hunch based on murmurs, but don’t be surprised.
READ: Randall King Receives Deserved Praise for Self-Titled Debut
Garth Brooks once looked to champion another deserving songwriter with a big 2018 record in Caitlyn Smith. Garth’s first single after retirement was supposed to be Caitlyn’s “Tacoma” co-penned with Bob DiPiero. But then ISIS started beheading people in Syria, and last minute Garth decided instead to release “People Loving People.”
Right now there is a rising tide of honky tonk artists from the independent realm to the mainstream finding traction with the sort of late 80’s traditional country sound Garth Brooks and others championed at the time. Now that Garth has his radio strategy figured out a bit better, a big honky tonk song from him could give the emerging movement a big boost.
We’ll just have to see come June 18th.
Corncaster
June 12, 2018 @ 8:54 am
I bought RK’s EP and his new record from his website. He signed them both. The new record does not sound “throwback.” The production is pretty modern, especially on the guitars. It’s a muscle car, not an old Model T. I imagine this is what Garth Brooks finds appealing: RK likes plenty of rock with his country. And some of his songwriting is really good, especially in “When He Knows Me” (living with a man with dementia), “One Goodbye,” “One More Won’t Hurt,” and “Reason to Quit.” These are solid songs full of life. The others are the usual wit and swagger. His whole approach reminds me of good pitching in baseball. He seems to throw everything well.
Black Boots
June 12, 2018 @ 8:58 am
When you said RK, at first i thought you meant Rilo Kiley, whose “More Adventurous” album might actually be up some people’s alley here. The singer is Jenny Lewis who made a critically acclaimed country-esque album with the Watson Twins called Rabbit Fur Coat.
I’m not really sure why I said all that. I think i just love Jenny and Rilo Kiley. 🙂
Thoroughbred
June 12, 2018 @ 1:30 pm
The Wizard!
Rob
June 12, 2018 @ 3:04 pm
R Kelly?
Corncaster
June 12, 2018 @ 6:17 pm
Reading Komprehension
Tara Danielle
June 13, 2018 @ 8:58 am
Maybe to Garth, the 90’s are throwback. LOL.
Diana Crist
June 13, 2018 @ 10:54 am
He is the best singer im glad he is back i can t wait to hear is new cd
North Woods Country
June 12, 2018 @ 8:56 am
All I care about is that this new album doesn’t sound like it was recorded and mixed inside a pop can. The production on his two recent albums has been atrocious for an artist of his caliber.
rideus
June 12, 2018 @ 1:01 pm
I agree, the mixing/production on Gunslinger was awful. Buried guitars, vocals too high, no sonic quality at all, very dry……no life. MAM was a little better but not much….
albert
June 12, 2018 @ 4:38 pm
in my opinion all of Garth’s stuff suffers from production /mixing issues …..it almost sounds rushed , or simply lazy in those repects .
rideus
June 13, 2018 @ 6:03 am
Agreed – all of his stuff sounds like there is a blanket over it. Especially when it is amplified through a large PA….
albert
June 13, 2018 @ 12:30 pm
”Agreed – all of his stuff sounds like there is a blanket over it. Especially when it is amplified through a large PA”
………or car stereo or ipod or home system …..just no sparkle or dynamic punch. It’s like Garth singing to a Garth karaoke track
Black Boots
June 12, 2018 @ 8:56 am
He’ll probably lip sync the track.
Mike W.
June 12, 2018 @ 10:31 am
I mean it would be great for Randall King and other “traditional” Country songwriters, but I am not going to hold my breath. At this point the “Prominent Country Artist Promises Renewed Focus On Traditional Country Songs” idea is as played out as the Bro-Country artists singing about trucks and backwoods. Maybe I am just being overly negative since its a raining, dreary day where I am, but I feel like Blake Shelton, Joe Nichols, even Luke Bryan have all said the same things (roughly) before and a lot of folks ended up just being let down. If/when Garth proves there is more to his words than just trying to appease a segment of his fanbase, then I will believe him.
Andrew
June 12, 2018 @ 12:46 pm
Thing is, Garth has included some hardcore honky-tonk songs on each of his albums since the return, they just haven’t been released as singles. But the people who already decided they don’t like Garth won’t give him credit for that.
rideus
June 13, 2018 @ 5:53 am
Agreed – I wish he would’ve released some as singles. Honkytonk Somewhere was a great tune I thought off of Gunslinger………..as I commented earlier, the mixing/production wasn’t very good however….
Corncaster
June 13, 2018 @ 5:10 pm
Garth has never driven past “hardcore.”
Corncaster
June 13, 2018 @ 5:11 pm
He has waved at it, in its general direction.
TheGrandTour
June 15, 2018 @ 4:56 am
Granted, maybe he’s never set up residence there, but to claim he’s never driven past it, you’d have to explain…
Not Counting You
Much Too Young
Two of a Kind, Working on a Full House
Friends in Low Places
American Honkytonk Bar Association
Midnight Sun
Longneck Bottle
Cowboy Cadillac
Good Ride, Cowboy
Please, Operator
My Baby No Está Aquí
She Don’t Care About Me
Cowgirl’s Saddle
Under the Table
Rodeo & Juliet
Honkytonk Somewhere
Whiskey to Wine
Cowboys and Friends
Stringbuzz
June 12, 2018 @ 11:29 am
I am just so disappointed in Garth over last few years.
Lee
June 12, 2018 @ 12:33 pm
Garth is done with his string of great hits… he keeps pushing out crap that is so aweful. I think hebest throw in the towel on new recordings, it takes away from his great songs of the past. If it weren’t for the songwriters back then he would be nothing! His ego is not his amigo!
Stringbuzz
June 12, 2018 @ 1:58 pm
You’re comment actually made me think about it. And I do in a way think his recent outputs has kinda given me this not so enthusiastic recent opinion change on the whole. I like the stuff I like of his, but I’ve not really been listening to him a lot.
Radio guy
June 12, 2018 @ 11:39 am
Talked today with someone who heard it last week. Much more traditional sound… he compared it to Rodeo.
MH
June 12, 2018 @ 12:58 pm
LOL
Big Red
June 12, 2018 @ 11:21 pm
Although I enjoy it, I wouldn’t necessarily consider “Rodeo” one of Garth’s traditional sounding songs.
wayne
June 12, 2018 @ 12:55 pm
Garth sets himself up by making these grandiose statements. But if he can at least meet expectations, and he still has significant artistic weight to throw around, it could be somewhat of a catalyst.
Blackh4t
June 12, 2018 @ 1:13 pm
….but does it talk about horses and cattle? One of the things about Garths old music was the cowboy lyrics. Songs about rodeos and the lonliness and solitude of cowboy life.
Its whats missing in modern country and in Americana. And in Countrypolitan.
We need another Chris Ledoux
Trigger
June 12, 2018 @ 4:37 pm
Well, he was walking around CMA Fest with a T-shirt that said “Just LeDoux It, ” so maybe he’s feeling nostalgic.
TheGrandTour
June 13, 2018 @ 5:12 am
I agree. As much as some people love to hate Garth, some of the cowboy songs on his first five albums are absolute gems and rival even King George’s best stuff. songs like “Cowboy Bill”, “Wild Horses”, his cover of “Night Rider’s Lament”, and “The Cowboy Song” are solid gold.
rideus
June 13, 2018 @ 6:01 am
Cowboys and Angels off of Fresh Horses was pretty solid as well – makes me think of when I thought Dustin Lynch wouldn’t go of the rails like he did after releasing a different song with same title……….
TheGrandTour
June 13, 2018 @ 6:17 am
Also…does anyone remember “That Girl is a Cowboy” off of Garth’s Lost Sessions album? Great song and highly underrated.
rideus
June 13, 2018 @ 6:43 am
Good call – great tune and agreed, overlooked…………
Blackh4t
June 13, 2018 @ 1:24 pm
With Garth name dropping Robert Earl Keen. That was pretty cool.
Cobra
June 12, 2018 @ 1:43 pm
When “Man Against Machine” came out, I described it as “the album Garth fans deserve, even if it’s not the one they hoped for.” It had a lot of good songs on it and if you didn’t know he’d been gone for so many years, it’d have been difficult to tell it was a return album. I probably liked the album more than a others, especially as a Garth fan. “Gunslinger” however was another story: even as a Garth fan, I thought the album felt completely uninspired, with the exception of a few choice tracks. Nevertheless, I’ve remained a Garth fan because I’ve always been a Garth fan. So I’ll be looking forward to what he has to offer next.
TheGrandTour
June 13, 2018 @ 6:16 am
Also…does anyone remember “That Girl is a Cowboy” off of Garth’s Lost Sessions album? Great song and highly underrated.
Ulysses McCaskill
June 12, 2018 @ 2:21 pm
Lookie here, Garth posted himself a video on the Youtube…
https://youtu.be/yXSYtD2mm8U
Whiskey_Pete
June 12, 2018 @ 2:24 pm
What’s he going to call himself now?
Corncaster
June 13, 2018 @ 5:13 pm
“Townes Van Gant”
Roy
June 12, 2018 @ 2:34 pm
Remember a couple of years ago, Garth was trying to relate to his fans by acting like a technology-clueless, middle aged, out-of- touch regular guy? He pretended that he had a bunch of songs recorded on his iphone, but he accidently flushed it down the commode or something. And he had no backups or anything. Trigger wrote a funny article about it. I wonder if Garth was finally able to recover those songs, and this is one of them?
Corncaster
June 13, 2018 @ 5:15 pm
Garth Brooks: The Hidey Bowl Recordings
GrantH
June 12, 2018 @ 5:19 pm
Didn’t even realize this until I looked it up just now, but Garth’s most recent “number one hit” only peaked at #13 on the “Hot Country” chart, which still takes into consideration stuff like actual sales numbers and streaming. I think situations like that show that country musics’ continued emphasis on radio airplay as the sole barometer of what “the people” want is completely outdated.
Andrew
June 13, 2018 @ 10:28 am
Keep in mind Garth’s music still isn’t on streaming services and while it can now be bought digitally it’s only through Amazon and only the full album rather than individual songs, so it’s reasonable to think those things hampered sales.
Ray
June 12, 2018 @ 5:57 pm
If anyone doubts there is a HUGE audience for he type of single Garth described, they should have attended the CMA Fan Fest and watch young kids go nuts over Brooks & Dunn’s “Brand New Man,” Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt and others that played between shows. Bring back 90s country, with a splash of Merle, George (Jones and Strait), Waylon and Willie.
Summer Jam
June 12, 2018 @ 7:26 pm
It doesnt matter what the people want to hear. Facts are, radio will not play real country music. Look at all the artists that have tried the past few years, bro-country was the last of the country sound. Post bro-country, mainstream country took a hardcore lean towards pop and alot of it is indeed straight up pop. The fans and people of this country are not the problem, country radio is extremely corrupt. People will listen to what they are delivered with, and you dont ever see real country music being promoted anywhere like on Youtube or country radio, its always pop clowns like Thomas Rhett, Old Dominion, and Kane Brown. People like you and me that sit on the internet and research musical artists are rare, most people do not go hunting for music – they see what is being promoted on youtube, spotify, pandora, and radio. If there was a way to reach the folks of this country with real country music, trust me it would be just as popular as whats being played on country radio today.
Pierre Brunelle
June 13, 2018 @ 5:46 am
I agree with your comments.
There is a demand for real country music but radio want to push for a monogenre and erase cultural aspects one by one.
GrantH
June 12, 2018 @ 8:14 pm
I went to a Clay Walker show in Fort Worth and the chicks were going nuts for him; I bring that up because young adult women are the primary target audience for the country industry these days. But guess what? Guys like Clay Walker with fiddles in their songs and who wear cowboy hats have been designated as “old guys” by the industry big wigs, so it doesn’t matter what people actually like in the real world. I concur completely with Summer Jam’s comment above.
Corncaster
June 13, 2018 @ 5:17 pm
let it burn
Summer Jam
June 12, 2018 @ 7:19 pm
The problem is that no matter how many artists (regardless of their popularity) put out actual country sounding music, it never catches on. All us folks keep hoping that when someone like Blake Shelton or Luke Bryan releases a good country sounding single, or Midland gets a big hit, or Jon Pardi releases a neo-traditional single, etc, that it means all the other artists that follow trends will put out real country music. Not gonna happen, real country music is a “trend” of the past, its “uncool” to these newer artists to play that “hillbilly redneck music”. Country radio is getting progressively worse, “I Lived It” is stalled out at #7 on Country Airplay, “She Aint In It” peaked at #23 and then plummeted off the charts, and “Burnout” isnt doing too good. Shit, even Tyler Farr cant get airplay, he put out that really solid song “A Guy Walks Into A Bar” then country radio gave him the two middle fingers. My point is, everyone that put out music that actually had a country sound is disappearing from radio, and losing their labels. Easton Corbin? History. David Nail? Hes completely done. Tyler Farr? Hes done. Joe Nichols? It was over for him in 2014. Brad Paisley? Hes done. Zac Brown Band? Done. Hell even a band like Parmalee who does what everyone else does and releases everything but country music to radio, cant even get played. If you arent some clown like Kane Brown or Thomas Rhett, and dont pander to the constantly changing trends at country radio, you aint getting played.
Corncaster
June 13, 2018 @ 5:18 pm
radio is what’s over. buck em.
Justin C
June 12, 2018 @ 7:57 pm
Then ISIS started beheading people in Syria …lmao
MJBods
June 13, 2018 @ 8:41 am
I’m convinced that had Garth released “Tacoma” as his comeback single it would have been a huge hit. It would have landed right at the time when people were hungry for better song writing on the radio, and it showed with the rise of Chris Stapleton a year later. Such a bad last minute decision to release People Loving People. But hey, maybe Garth needed to fall flat a little so that he doesn’t just coast on the tail end of his career and challenges himself to make some kick ass country music.
Woogeroo
June 13, 2018 @ 10:31 am
Well, I guess we’ll have to wait and hear.
Everett
June 13, 2018 @ 4:49 pm
I graduated college at Oklahoma State University in 2006. Stillwater has always been a hotbed for Red Dirt and Texas Country, such as The Great Divide (and Mike McClure Band), Cross Canadian Ragweed and Jason Boland and the Stragglers. Garth also graduated college at OSU in 1984, before I was even in kindergarten, lol! Garth served as a bouncer at the Tumbleweed nightclub, which I think is still open. The Strip is a section of Washington Street south of campus, which features several bars, including Willie’s Saloon, where Garth played in his college years. Behind the bar, there is a picture of Garth before he went to Nashville for last time, and had a full on mustache. The picture wished him well in Music City. Not long after he was signed and recorded his first album.
Say what you want about Garth today, he really played to the local people in Stillwater, and he got a lot of support. I’d like to see that again.
JONATHAN DARBY
June 15, 2018 @ 9:14 am
I guess your Randall King hunch was pretty good. Garth mentioned on Bobby Bones interview that he cowrote one of the songs on the new album with Randall, titled “The Road I’m On.”. It isn’t the lead single though. I’ve heard mention the lead was written with Mitch Rosell.