A live performance from Garth Brooks, whose second album recently appeared, albeit briefly, on Spotify. Photo Credit: Library of Congress Life
Garth Brooks’ No Fences recently arrived on Spotify – albeit briefly – despite the country veteran’s long-running exclusive deal with Amazon Music.
Eagle-eyed fans quickly spotted the 35-year-old work on Spotify, where Garth Brooks has made just a handful of collaborations and live recordings available.
That’s because of the Tulsa native’s mentioned tie-up with Amazon Music, which has served as his catalog’s exclusive on-demand streaming home since 2016. Previously, Brooks elaborated on the arrangement’s commercial appeal and seemingly signaled that the deal would remain in place.
This stance doesn’t appear to have changed in 2025. As things stand, there isn’t any indication that the 62-year-old is preparing to license Spotify (or Apple Music, for that matter). To be sure, the initially highlighted No Fences upload wasn’t live on Spotify at the time of writing.
And while it was live, the unauthorized project apparently had multiple issues, including but not limited to three missing tracks (of 10 total), misspelled titles, and credit errors, one X user explored in detail.
Of course, only time will tell whether Brooks will, in fact, shelve his Amazon Music-exclusive deal in favor of distributing via competitors. But the veteran act doesn’t exactly need a promotional push, and in general, said competitors’ per-stream royalty rates leave something to be desired.
Furthermore, there are certainly additional perks to partnering with Amazon Music, which continues to book concerts following Prime-exclusive Thursday Night Football games. When touching on these advantages, Brooks pointed specifically to the physical-sales benefits of Amazon’s retail infrastructure.
After making those comments, Brooks in 2023 played Amazon Music Live’s first-ever Black Friday concert and dropped a six-episode Amazon Original docuseries entitled Friends in Low Places last year.
In general, though platform-exclusive studio releases have long been on ice, Amazon Music ramped up its exclusive offerings last year.
Just in passing, that refers to the platform’s acting as Stagecoach’s “exclusive streaming destination” and as the “exclusive merch provider” behind Mariah Carey’s residency. Amazon Music also added an exclusive live track from Post Malone (performed at Stagecoach) and an exclusive Dua Lipa remix of “Illusion.”
Closer to the present, Amazon Music and Universal Music last month unveiled a fresh licensing agreement. Among many other things, that multifaceted pact is expected to see the service host exclusive content from the major label’s artists.