Why did Garth Brooks took a break from music? Career history explored as singer claims industry has been "gutted" after his 14-year hiatus

Garth Brooks has been "gutted" after his 14-year hiatus and talks about his break from music.

Legendary country singer Garth Brooks addressed his comeback after a 14-year hiatus, as the singer was at a loss after coming back to a completely different industry. The singer-songwriter had announced his retirement in 2000 when he was at the top of his game to take care of his family, after releasing mega-hit songs like "Friends in Low Places" and "The River" during the '90s. He made the decision to come back in 2014 after leaving the industry to take care of his three daughters in his home state of Oklahoma. He came back to Nashville only to find it had turned into a "gutted town."

In his new book, "The Anthology Part V," he talks about how "we'd lost over 80 percent of our songwriters. They were gone." when he made the decision to come back along with his wife and fellow superstar, Trisha Yearwood.

He further mentioned, "t was a gutted town when it came to songwriters. And, I'm sorry, try and feed the world without farmers. The songwriters? They're the farmers that feed music, and they were gone. So you kind of said, okay, you're getting back into this thing. But there's a lot I am not happy about that's happened in the last fourteen years. … It created a mood. Things got darker."

In another portion of the book, he talks about "how songwriters made a living and how dreams come true," but in 2014, all he could see was all we had lost." Garth further talked about the influence of technology, which was also something new he had to deal with after his return.

"As much as I love songwriting, and as much as I love the publishers that independently push their songs, what's happened to the songwriter is technology. For fourteen years I watched from the sidelines as music fell a victim to technology."

"The iPod comes out, which leads to the smartphone. And music made the mistake of backing down to technology, because the threat that technology made to music was this: ‘If you’re not going to play our game, then all the iPods and smartphones will be filled with illegally downloaded stuff. And there's nothing we can do about that.'" the singer further explains.

Garth Brooks further detailed his frustrations, stating, "Music blinked, and bam!, they let technology price their product. And all I can say is, can you believe ‘Hotel California’ is worth only 99 cents? … We understood that technology was taking over music, would eventually choke and damn near kill music while the technology prospered."

Garth Brooks' new book

The singer took on multiple challenges after returning, including empty nest syndrome, working around a completely different and evolving industry, and the whole new idea of streaming music.

Since Garth Brooks couldn't quite see a way forward, he decided to create his own path by launching his own digital music store, GhostTunes, in September 2014, with the intention of giving a greater portion of the money from the sales of the music to songwriters and artists. The company was later absorbed in 2017 by Amazon Music.

Garth Brooks also spoke about the failed business venture in his book.

"Anybody that calls GhostTunes a mistake can't see the writing on the wall, that technology is f---ing music over. The genie is so far out of the bottle at this point. I never want to offend anyone. With that said, my opinion is technology has no love for art. None whatsoever. It just has a love for something that can sell its hardware and software."

Garth Brooks' career history

In September 2014, Brooks kicked off the Garth Brooks World Tour. He was initially apprehensive, thinking no one would show up, telling his team that he'd be happy to see 100,000 people waiting online to buy tickets, but much to his surprise, by the time the tickets went on sale, there were over 300,000 in queue.

Seeing the excessive demand, the singer added 11 concerts in Chicago alone. In the end, Garth Brooks went above and beyond with his performance as the comeback tour went on for three years, concluding with seven Nashville shows in December 2017.

Garth Brooks also managed to get the epic feat of winning the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year Award more times than one could count. Before his comeback, he won it four times in the 90s. After starting again, he won it in 2016, 2017, and 2019. He finally announced that he no longer wanted to be considered for the honor in 2020.

His comeback story was such a success due to the immense work he and his team put forward in his tour, which spanned over three years, with multiple more shows being added.

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"The one thing that no one can take away, that nobody rules but you, is live," he shared. "The live show, that's when it's just you and the people that determine whether your stuff is a success or a failure. … It's about passion. It's all on the line every time. You're just going straight to the people."

Garth Brooks further continued: "Live music was there before radio, before records, probably goes back further than any of us might even believe. One person throwing down a melody and rhythm for another: I'm guessing that if there was love — and surely if there was sex! — there had to have been music. Something like the age of streaming will never be powerful enough to take that away. Live music will win every time. When I think about this, really think about it, I stop worrying about the future of the music business."

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