Artist: Garth Brooks Album: Man Against Machine Bitrate: 243kbps avg Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz Label: RCA Genre: Country Size: 105.65 megs PlayTime: 0h 57min 45sec total Rip Date: 2014-11-11 Store Date: 2014-11-10 Track List: -------- 01. Man Against Machine 5:17 02. She's Tired Of Boys 5:08 03. Cold Like That 5:05 04. All-American Kid 4:27 05. Mom 4:03 06. Wrong About You 1:56 07. Rodeo And Juliet 2:25 08. Midnight Train 5:19 09. Cowboys Forever 3:46 10. People Loving People 3:39 11. Send 'Em On Down The Road 4:14 12. Fish 4:35 13. You Wreck Me 4:04 14. Tacoma 3:47 Release Notes: -------- More than a decade ago, Garth Brooks did the most admirable thing any successful performer can do: He walked away. Yes, country music was shifting underneath his boots, and the pyrotechnics that made him the most vivid country star of the 1990s were becoming commonplace. Yet Mr. BrooksÆs departure wasnÆt a slow fade into irrelevance, but a magicianÆs disappearance while standing in a spotlight. He wanted to spend more time with his family, so poof, there he went. And poof, heÆs back. Leaving on top allows you to return much the same, even though the planetÆs still moving. He has come back to a world, one could argue, that is far more country than he is, though certainly the markers of country-ness have changed. In his heyday, Mr. BrooksÆs pop theatrics marked him as an outsider and a challenge to the norm. Now, 13 years since his last album, he is a figurehead for open-minded values that the genre has fully internalized. There are new rebels, and Mr. Brooks, 52, is not among them. Photo Garth BrooksÆs new album, ôMan Against Machine.ö Credit Sony Music Nashville So ôMan Against Machineö (Pearl/RCA Nashville), his first album of original music since 2001, is defiantly behind the times, and skillful enough ù mostly ù to transcend them. It is grand scale and hammy, in places eye-rollingly schlocky and in others outrageously moving. As has always been true of Mr. Brooks, there is no correlation between the quality of a song and how well he sings it: His most affecting moments are often his corniest. Unlike, say, George Strait, whose longevity is based on his commitment to the micro ù cowboy nostalgia or stoic romance ù Mr. Brooks is a small-town guy interested in big questions, big systems, big problems with messy solutions. HeÆs not political, per se: His preoccupations are more cosmic, like an Oklahoman Bono. With great success comes the freedom to think on this scale, and on this new album, Mr. Brooks isnÆt shy. The title track is, in essence, an anti-modern rant taking up the cause of human power over technology, with lyrics that could have been plucked from a Rush album: ôJohn HenryÆs Æbout to show on the scene/ In this war of man against the machines.ö ItÆs bracing, awful stuff, so unaware of its absurdity that it is completely appealing. It was designed with Mr. BrooksÆs headset microphone in mind: HeÆs not singing, heÆs preaching. ôPeople Loving Peopleö is much the same, though less effective. ôDoctor you ainÆt got a pill/For whateverÆs making this world ill,ö he sings, going on to lament drugs and politics as escapist fantasies. Even Mr. BrooksÆs token cowboy song, ôCowboys Forever,ö is really about how cowboy values are the pillars of a wholesome society: ôThat one generation transformed a nation,ö he insists, extremely earnestly. Mr. Brooks is a populist, the type of guy who, to prime the pump for his return, released a boxed set of cover songs from several genres exclusively through Walmart. It served as a memory trigger for his fans, naturally, but also for anyone who liked any kind of music at any time in the last six decades. Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story But while that genre catholicity has always been part of Mr. BrooksÆs arsenal, heÆs too savvy to ignore the country base. He nods to that world here on the fiddle-heavy ôAll-American Kid,ö which feels as if it might veer skeptical but never goes there, instead neatly telling the story of a local football hero who goes off to war, then comes home. (ItÆs even more tepid in the wake of Kenny ChesneyÆs sleeker and more modern ôAmerican Kids.ö) And thereÆs the parable ôFish,ö in which Mr. Brooks learns the wisdom of simplicity, and the rejection of big-city capitalism, from a guy with a fishing rod. Again, itÆs brutally hackneyed material ù less complicated and less funny than Brad PaisleyÆs ôIÆm Gonna Miss Herö ù but Mr. Brooks takes it so seriously itÆs hard not to be charmed. That sincerity also enlivens the code-red melodrama of ôCold Like That,ö with its meatily pounded piano, and the grade-A treacle of ôMom,ö which is framed as a conversation between a frightened baby and God, sung heartily by Mr. Brooks, who never met a hokey concept he didnÆt squeeze tight. (See ôRodeo and Juliet,ö with faux-Shakespearean language sprinkled throughout.) ItÆs less evident on the grade-D treacle of ôSend ÆEm on Down the Road,ö about a father learning to let go. When Mr. Brooks is most potent on this album, besides his mystic feel-good moments, is when singing about love, usually of the broken kind. On ôYou Wreck Me,ö heÆs excellent with the emotionally spent verses, though thereÆs tension between those and the almost-bright chorus laden with cheapo slide guitar. ôMidnight Trainö is bursting with dark imagery: ôWhiskey bottle on the floor/King James Bible from the drawer/Neither won but Lord theyÆve done their best.ö Continue reading the main story Interactive Feature: Fall Arts Preview - Times 100 ôSheÆs Tired of Boysö is a classic Brooks love song, with a crucial, unusual detail that makes it stand out. In this case, itÆs a May-December romance between a young, white-collar woman and an older blue-collar guy: ôWhen she walked on to the job site we damn near died/She was a young manÆs dream full of college and pride.ö The detail is there to grab your attention, but itÆs not played lazily, for laughs or shock. And the song is given added poignancy with a chorus featuring lovely harmony sung by Mr. BrooksÆs wife, Trisha Yearwood, who adds a layer of empowered fatigue to Mr. BrooksÆs knowing wink. Like Mr. Brooks, Ms. Yearwood was a country star of the 1990s, though a less divisive one. And like Mr. Brooks, Ms. Yearwood has new music, too: There are six new songs on her greatest-hits album, ôPrizeFighter: Hit After Hitö (Gwendolyn/RCA Nashville), which will be released next week. She, too, has been largely silent of late, with no album of new material since 2007. But on her new tracks here, sheÆs still full of easy smolder, especially on songs about romantic transgression like ôEnd of the Worldö and ôYour HusbandÆs CheatinÆ on Us.ö Ms. Yearwood is more transparently concerned with morality than Mr. Brooks, who is instead motivated by passion. His songs arenÆt about intrigue, they just bleed. And when heÆs severely wounded, his howl is transfixing. ThatÆs the case on the album closer, ôTacoma,ö a slab of unadulterated white-soul fire in the vein of Michael McDonald that scorches everything that came before it: Might leave some tears in Topeka A couple of sleepless nights in Cheyenne Every time that I miss you baby IÆll hit the gas as fast as I can. This is familiar country structure ù the road song ù but an unleashed Mr. Brooks takes it from Nashville through Memphis and Muscle Shoals and maybe a Birmingham church. He is beholden to no one place or style, an upsetter of norms before, and an upsetter of norms now.