Garth Brooks Says ‘Man Against Machine’ the Album Came Before ‘Man Against Machine’ the Song

Garth Brooks has always taken a slightly different approach when naming his albums. Unlike most artists, the country legend has never has an album share its name with one of its tracks -- until 'Man Against Machine.'

Typically, a record's name comes from a stand-out track, or perhaps it's inspired by the feeling of the entire album, but Brooks did it backwards for his latest release.

"The album was always titled 'Man Against Machine,' but as we're cutting this thing, [I] start[ed] to realize how much the music is up against," he tells Indiana radio station WKDQ. "You know, in the 14 years being away, and then dropping you back in, what [I'm] seeing is, there's a lot of companies making money off music that think they're doing music a favor. So, music's uphill. They've got a hard battle to fight to stay sincere, to pay songwriters, all this stuff.

"So [I] started realizing, not only is it man against machine for this whole record, but there probably should be a song that leads it off talking about that as well," Brooks adds. "So it's funny, you know, most of the time, the album titles come from the songs, but this time the song came from the album title."

The album's current single, 'Mom,' was written by Don Sampson and Wynn Varble, but Brooks says that it feels just as much his as anything he's written.

"It's crazy. There's songs in my past like 'The Dance' that I didn't have anything to do with writing, but it is my song -- I love and worship that song. And it's funny, 'Mom,' I didn't have anything to do with writing it, but the second I heard it, it became mine," he says. "I love and worship that song. It's very 'Garth,' even though I didn't have anything to do with it, and that's what I really like about this record ... I hadn't written in a lot of years, and so I didn't have the usual amount of Garth stuff on this that we usually do, but it's funny, the songs that even don't have my name on them as a writer, they are still me."

'Man Against Machine' debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart in November, making it Brooks' 14th career album to debut in the top spot. With all of those memorable releases, Brooks has a tough time deciding which album cover he likes best.

"That's tough. Tough, tough, tough, tough," he says. "I'm going to have to go with ... Well, I'm going to pick the one that's out right now, 'Man Against Machine,' because if you know me, I'm the farthest thing from a bada-- you've ever met, but I got to look like a bada-- on this cover."

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