"We've never allowed our stuff to go digital. When you do it right, you can all succeed," he said at a press conference. "We do digital the best we only know how. Digital will be handled at garthbrooks.com it will be the only place you can get Garth Brooks' music."

He still won't make his music available for purchase on iTunes or Amazon, nor will it be streamable on services like Spotify or Rdio (although fans on Pandora can, in theory, run into him there from time to time). His official music videos are also not available to stream on Vevo or YouTube (his latest press conference was conducted via Vimeo). In this regard, he's held out longer than notorious classic rock hold-outs Led Zeppelin and the Beatles.

Brooks' reluctancy to go digital all these years comes from his desire to not sell tracks individually, which was the same disagreement the Beatles had with iTunes. That Brooks' music won't be available there indicates that even on his website you will likely have to buy his full albums to get "Friends In Low Places."

Taking a page from Radiohead's book, his new-found digital sales presence will launch this year with his new album, his first since 2001. The album is expected in-stores and on Garth Brooks' website for a Black Friday release in November. Fans won't be able to set their own price, but Brooks promises it will be a "stupid" low one. Brooks' strategy puts his own packaging desires ahead of the market's demand and if his fanbase thinks the same way that he does, he could be right on target.

The timing is marred a bit by the news in 2013 digital sales have been down from the previous year while music streams (including data from AOL, Cricket, Medianet, Rdio, Rhapsody, Slacker, Spotify, YouTube/Vevo and Zune) were up 32%. Digital track sales were down 8.4% but still in the billions. Digital album sales for the year didn't even meet Brooks' own lifetime total, with only 117.6 million sold.