Going . . . Going . . . Gone : Garth Brooks’ greatest-hits album and Prince’s ‘Black Album’ will have short shelf lives--deliberately.

Get ‘em while they’re hot!

That’s the cry going out to Garth Brooks and Prince fans regarding their new albums. These are limited-time offers, folks.

Brooks’ greatest-hits package, due in stores Dec. 20, will be off the shelves by summer, and Prince’s long-withheld “Black Album,” released last week, will be unavailable after January.

The strategy is fairly common in the home video market--especially with Disney, which releases such classics as “Snow White” and “Cinderella” for limited times. The idea is to turn them into seasonal specials that can be revived every few years or so.

But music, except for Christmas albums, doesn’t generally work that way.

Brooks’ albums in particular have a track record of selling over long periods of time--all four of his regular albums remain in the Billboard magazine country music Top 50, with his debut still selling steadily more than four years after its release.

So why pull the hits collection off the market after six months?

“Garth wanted to treat it as a special event,” says Scott Stem, spokesman for Brooks’ manager Bob Doyle. The idea is also to provide something to introduce Brooks to new fans who could later explore the older albums.

The plan was inspired by the country star’s participation in a similar limited-edition campaign staged in the fall by McDonald’s. Brooks was one of several artists, including Elton John and Tina Turner, to have anthologies available only through the fast-food chain and only for a few weeks.

EMI Records, which put that promotion together, claims that a total of 10 million CDs and cassettes were sold in the deal, though actual figures have not been made available. In any case, it was good enough for Brooks to give it a try on his own.

The two-month expiration date on Prince’s album apparently has more to do with the bitter legal squabbling between the Minneapolis maverick and Warner Bros. Records than any real marketing game plan. Bob Merlis, Warner Bros.’ senior vice president of media, acknowledges that the arrangement is a compromise between the artist and the label arising from uncertainty about his future contract status.

While the sales potential of the Prince album is questionable--it has, after all, been widely bootlegged since it was originally planned for release in 1987--the Brooks album would seem to be a sure-fire hit. Retailers, though, are less upset about the limited sales period than they are about the timing of the release--just five days before Christmas.

“It’ll sell great, but if stores run out fast there’s no chance to reorder before Christmas,” says Bob Bell, new-release buyer for the Wherehouse chain. “We’ve never seen a release of someone of this stature in Christmas Week before.”