In speaking to Access Hollywood‘s Billy Bush in support of his first album in 13 years Brooks opened up about his reluctance to use YouTube to promote his new music and offered his support to Taylor Swift, who eschewed the free streaming of her new album 1989.
“And I’m telling you, the devil – nice people, but YouTube. Oh my gosh,” Brooks said. “They claim they pay people. They’re not paying anything either and people are getting millions and millions and millions of views and they don’t get squat. Trust me.”
Brooks did admit that YouTube will pay artists, but at the end of the day, the songwriters are the ones who get hurt.
“Songwriters are hurting. I applaud Miss Taylor and I applaud everyone for standing up for the songwriters, because without them, music is nothing,” he said. “It’s totally backward right now. If the artists will just keep hammering away, unify, stick together, then music will become the king again, which is what it should be. Music should always be first.”
Though you will not find an official Garth Brooks music video on YouTube, showing up on the video streaming site is inevitable, as Brooks will tell you himself. “You can’t get out of it. I had a sweet meeting with them. They were all fired up. They’re the sweetest, and they’re all like 12,” he said. “I had the first question: ‘How do you get out?’ Silence. You don’t.”
A quick search of Garth Brooks’ name on YouTube shows up with over 139,000 videos, including live performances, free streams and fanmade lyric videos.
His new album Man Against Machine is out now at physical retailers and on his own music streaming service GhostTunes.
