Album Review – Zach Top’s “Ain’t In It For My Health”
Neotraditional Country (#510.8) on the Country DDS.
It seems like everywhere you turn these days you’re accosted by the unfamiliar, the newfangled, the latest version of whatever it is, if not an outright scary and dystopian perspective on an uncertain future, and all while the older and allegedly obsolete sure felt superior, and probably was. As the world becomes more complex, faster-paced, and frenetic, we tend to turn to the things that feel genuine. Time tested. That is why the pull of nostalgia has become so potent.
It’s within this environment that the neotraditionalist sound of Zach Top has not just thrived, but excelled to a degree that nobody could have predicted a few short years ago, certainly defying conventional wisdom as he’s risen to very near the top of the country music industry. Young and old, male and female, they all find something warm, comforting, familiar, and assuring from the experience. This is what country music is, was, and what it always should be.
Zach Top’s 2024 album Cold Beer and Country Music sure did something right to shoot up the charts like it did, so there was little incentive or reason to tweak the process for Ain’t In It For My Health. Once again it’s Zach Top revitalizing that ’90s neotraditional sound. It’s that twangy, Brent Mason-style guitar out front in the mix. It’s producer and co-writer Carson Chamberlain taking his experiences working with Keith Whitley, Alan Jackson, and Clint Black back in the era, and paying it forward with Zach Top as the vessel.
There will be plenty of opportunity to tweak the formula in the future. But now’s the time to ride the wave that Zach Top is the swell and the tip of. The sounds and song themes are all pleasantly familiar, but the renderings are all original, with Zach Top co-writing all of the songs. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That goes for the sound of Zach Top, and for country music.
This consistent approach also means that the fair concerns about the shallowness and formulaic nature of some of the Zach Top songwriting persists. When your mission is to evoke a certain era as opposed to building your own, this is a risk you run. The song “Good Times and Tan Lines” is a little too close to “Chattahoochee” for comfort. As soon as you hear the island vibe guitar tone of “Flip-Flop,” you fear you’re getting a Zach Top beach song, and sure enough he delivers.
The word is that Zach Top and Carson Chamberlain have co-written hundreds of songs, many of course in this ’90s country style. There’s so many of them floating around, we’ve now seen multiple other artists cut them. It’s not that this approach doesn’t work. Clearly it’s been incredibly successful. But when you’re writing songs from perspiration and not always inspiration, it can leave something to be desired. A band like Silverada works in the nostalgic realm too, for example, but doesn’t skimp when trying to craft excellent songs.
But when Zach Top tries to go a little deeper, he often succeeds. The mid-tempo “When You See Me” makes for a great early song in the set, as does the slower, reserved, and reflective “Between the Ditches.” The early single “South of Sanity” isn’t entirely novel, but does capture Zach in what feels like a sincere emotional moment. And it will be hard for anyone who frequents a website called Saving Country Music dot com to not find some favor with the sentiment of the song “Country Boy Blues.”
And even when Zach Top is leaning more heavily on tried and true song themes, it’s hard to not find favor with what’s happening, because it all hearkens back to a much better time in life and country music. Curse nostalgia all you want, it’s certainly effective, whether as an appeal mechanism, or simply putting you in a more favorable frame of mind. In the context of the album itself, even the big fluffy single “Good Times and Tan Lines” is fun and has you singing along.
There are plenty of cynical takes on the use of nostalgia. But from the beginning, it’s always been country music’s most potent tool. By leveraging it smartly, it’s not just the 30-year retro that is smiling fondly upon Zach Top’s efforts. It’s the fact that he comes at a time when so many are grasping for something concrete, tangible, real, and familiar.
Zach Top embodies this all as he illustrates the timeless appeal of true country music. He isn’t just making music that’s curiously popular for its older sound. He’s ushering in an entirely new era for the country music genre.
1 3/4 Guns Up (8/10)
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Ain’t In It For My Health is available for pre-order in black vinyl, in blood moon vinyl, and on CD.
September 1, 2025 @ 7:34 am
Good review as always Trig but 8 is on the low side for me. I rarely give a 10 but this is at least a 9. Every song is a winner.
September 1, 2025 @ 7:47 am
It’s a very pleasant album. I generally prefer his quiet, slow songs to the fast ones, which always seem a bit rushed, but still come across as pleasantly unobtrusive, effortless, and natural.
That’s probably Zach Top’s greatest strength and greatest weakness at the same time: that everything seems so effortless.
I think 8 out of 10 is appropriate. It’s a good, sometimes very good album, but not an absolutely outstanding one.
September 3, 2025 @ 3:01 pm
This is well-observed comment about the seeming ease/effortlessness of Top and his music. I too enjoy the slower, more somber cuts of his in general. He has such a pleasant and upbeat sound, it’s nice to hear some heartache, drama, and effort. I enjoy this album about as much as the last one.
September 1, 2025 @ 7:49 am
I was listening to the whole record on my way back home on Friday and listening to Splitsville, he reminded me a lot of Joe Nichols and Brokenheartsville, which was 2000s music. I enjoyed the album and still think South of Sanity was the best song. 8 seems like an appropriate score and it was a very nice sophomore effort.
September 1, 2025 @ 8:35 am
“Splitsville” vs. “Brokenheartsville” is a good example of how Zach and Carson Chamberlain are sometimes recycling song ideas that are too easily synced up with existing tracks. I like this album and I like Zach Top. I also like a lot of the songs on this album. But I’m going to continue to say that the songwriting could use improvement, and this is where Top still has strong upside potential to continue to take his much to a higher level.
September 1, 2025 @ 10:00 am
The thing is from what I remember of country radio in the ’90s is there were a lot of kind of throw away weepy ballads that were probably just a thing if you were going through a divorce or something but we’re not really that memorable. Kind of remember that on a.m. radio after 11:00 p.m. it was all that type of slow weepy thing. Nothing wrong with it
I do think this album is absolutely flawless, and I didn’t necessarily like that stuff that much the first time around when it was mainstream.
September 1, 2025 @ 8:16 am
Maybe some don’t wanna tweak that sound just cause you like people who claim they are country but wanna sound like Metallica.
September 1, 2025 @ 9:13 am
8 is ridiculous. It’s almost like you penalize the guy that makes it and pleases the masses but rant and rave on an artist or band that is very niche.
I can just about guarantee this outsells any other “real” country music album this year by nearly double.
This review is almost a copy/paste from his debut copy.
I love your viewpoint and articles. You’ve introduced me to many artists but no one has put out the full package like he has.
September 1, 2025 @ 9:36 am
Zach Top is the reigning Saving Country Music Artist of the Year. So nobody is being discounted. I think what Zach Top is doing for neotraditional country is incredible. I think his songwriting needs more attention. That’s my honest opinion, and I respect if people disagree. 8 is not a bad score at all. In my opinion, it is commensurate with the material. I’m not going to goose the score just because he’s a traditionalist who is super popular. There are other measurements for that, like Artist of the Year.
I wouldn’t be surprised that this review and the review for his last album are similar (though haven’t revisited since I wrote it). It’s because the approach of the two albums is pretty much exactly the same. As I said in the review, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’m not demanding some radical change from Zach Top. But my job is to give my honest opinions, and that is what you’ll read here.
September 1, 2025 @ 11:41 am
Yeah, he and his team of songwriters’ lyricism, overall, can’t help but remind me of the Zac Brown Band’s overall on their first two albums: where many were praising the band across the board for their musicianship and group harmonies (which I did immensely enjoy)………..but aside from “Colder Weather”, “Highway 20 Ride” and “As She’s Walking Away” the band’s songwriting was so reliant on the most worn, tread and trite tropes of the commercial format and just underwhelmed when sized up to said instrumentation and melodies.
I just simply feel he can aim higher than “Like I Love You” and “I Know A Place” most notably.
September 3, 2025 @ 3:16 pm
Have to agree with Robert Metz. 8/10 is ridiculous. 6.5 would be generous. Can’t we all just admit that this album and most of Zach’s recorded body is 5/10 so far. As usual, Zach delivers a body of work that features his golden voice, his touched-by-God guitar playing, and songs that are entirely mediocre. The second verse of “Guitar” rhymes “It’s got me a lot of girls” with “it’s cost me some good girls.” The only possible explanation that laziness is somebody in the process saying, “It’s good enough.” He’s not using nostalgia for the sake of arrow-pointing to the real and true, but for the sake of releasing enough nostalgia chemicals in a flyover state millenial doomscroller’s brain to game a TikTok algorithm. I love Zach Top and have high hopes for his future, but I don’t believe anything so far reflects his truest creative aspirations for himself. For all the grief that this blog gives artists like Tyler Childers for embracing Rick Rubin’s off-the-wall ideas, Zach Top is a good example of an artist who ought to lean into something like that. He needs to break out of this familiar pattern.
September 2, 2025 @ 5:28 am
Are you freaking out over a 8/10 review score? This is a solid record. Its a step in the right direction but if anything its a continuation of his last album. Its still some filler tracks on here and I still think the songwriting can be tighter. From a critical standpoint its still room for improvement. If the 90s is the main influence for his craft the question I have is will we be singing these batch of songs twenty/thirty years from now? To rate this anything higher than a 8 signals he is at the peak of his powers and I hope as a fan that’s not the case.
September 1, 2025 @ 9:20 am
I had high hopes for this album to be better than it is. Most of the songs remind me of tracks you would hear on albums from the 90’s/early 2000’s go, meh…and skip to the next one. Nothing on here grabbed me in the way, say, “Hello Shitty Day” from Jake and Miranda did.
Too much of the album is, as pointed out, rehashed ideas from other songs almost to the point where I feel like they went and listened to those songs and were like, “Hey…let’s change up the lyrics a bit, keep the music almost note for note and lay that track down!” And yes, I get that “Hello Shitty Day” is similar to “Hello Walls”.
It’s not that I feel it is a bad album, it’s just kinda boring AF. I love the fact that he is having success and hoping it spills over to others. As what is normal, there are so many others that are putting out traditional country that are more deserving of having the success. But, I will take his music over 90% of the shit that is out there. For me, the “meh” factor drives this album to a 6. maybe 7.
September 1, 2025 @ 9:34 am
Too bad your opinion isn’t the be all end all
September 1, 2025 @ 10:11 am
That’s why it is called an opinion. Never said it is the be all end all.
September 1, 2025 @ 11:54 am
If all you appreciate from the 80’s and 90’s and early 00’s is the uptempo Country songs than yeah this album would seem boring but I take his selection of slower songs as a real commitment to embracing the Neotraditional Country. The uptempo songs by any new artist going for the 90’s sound seem to slide into cliques so much more than the slow songs.
My only complaint is that his songwriting still hasn’t reached the level of the 80’s and 90’s greats. Everyone is more excited about the idea of Zach Top over any of his individual songs. I don’t know if that’s because in the internet era you always see the artist’s name with a song vs hearing a song on the radio and waiting to hear the DJ say the name.
September 1, 2025 @ 4:37 pm
Interesting take but not ‘everyones’, can’t say I’ll be getting bored of this anytime soon. As you say it is an opinion, think yourself lucky he could have got Jay Joyce on board!
September 2, 2025 @ 6:20 am
I agree with this for the most part. I like Zach Top, and I like this album. You find yourself not wanting to criticize this album because it’s better than most popular country music out there, but is does have that kind of copycat feel of trying to sound too much like a 90s country album. You want to see Top have success, but disappointed that he doesn’t really add new growth to a tried and true formula.
I think this is where Trigger is going with the songwriting could improve narrative. Yes Top is getting attention for his Neo-Traditional sound, and that is a good thing for country music in general. But at some point there needs to be some development beyond copying the sounds of the past for Zach Top to be considered the torch bearer for the genre.
September 1, 2025 @ 9:35 am
There are no skips for me on this album. I’d give it 8.5 or 9. When You See Me is my favorite. I just saw Zach this past Friday in Pittsburgh with Dierks. Zach came out with Hot Country Knights and sang The Grundy County Auction Incident with a lit cigarette in his mouth. Never dropped the cig- now that’s country!
September 1, 2025 @ 9:59 am
Ooh here’s my take. Apart from certain exceptions country music evolution (I hate this word!) climaxed in the 90’s. Any artists who has the 90’s Neo/Traditional elements are doing it correct. All this recycling talk is rubbish for me. Both Zach Top’s albums (I’m loving this new one) can be repeatedly listened to all the way through. You will always have comparisons to Alan Jackson, Mark Chesnutt, Aaron Tippin et al as they are the higher echelons of this style/era. It’s inevitable you’ll get some similarities but for me the music never gets old and is always fresh. To make 2 Zach comparison I’d rather have Top “perspiration” instead of Bryan “perspiration” every day of the week. Zach has got the proper country vocal and when you add the traditional country instruments especially that fiddle then, for me, you can go no wrong. So I do agree with most of this review, but I really feel we shouldn’t be searching for negatives such as recycled similarities. When the music is this good and by an enormous stretch / margin better than most stuff out of mainstream deluded la la land, then we should just concentrate on FULLY supporting and applauding. I agree with Dave W and some others above this that it has to be at least a 9 – 10 rating. BTW check out Dave W’s fine latest edition Country Music People ‘Album of the Month’ TOP Top review.
September 1, 2025 @ 10:11 am
Agree with the review, very solid album from top to bottom. The writing is not Pony Bradshaw but who is?
A special mention goes to his incredible guitar skills, the opening track “guitar” alone is a masterclass.
September 1, 2025 @ 10:52 am
That 1st track is my favorite on the album.
September 1, 2025 @ 2:30 pm
“The writing is not Pony Bradshaw but who is?” is possibly the best sentence I have ever read on this discussion forum.
💯
September 1, 2025 @ 7:36 pm
Somehow, Mr. Bradshaw had flown under my radar until ~6 months ago. He landed in my recommendations on an app that rhymes with Shmotify, and I near ’bout had to pull over on my drive to work! He’s probably become my most-listened to (and asked-about when playing him at the shop) artist since then.
September 2, 2025 @ 4:06 am
…the european bunch of commentators here at scm deliver a well deserved shout-out for pony bradshaw. quality always finds its way – even over big waters it seems.
September 2, 2025 @ 1:43 pm
Exactly!
September 2, 2025 @ 4:21 am
Pony really is a phenomenal lyricist, no one writes like him.
September 1, 2025 @ 10:31 am
A significant improvement on his debut for my money.
September 1, 2025 @ 10:47 am
actually his debut album from 2022 is great!
September 1, 2025 @ 10:58 am
Just wanted to point out that not only is the electric guitar all over the album “Brent Mason-style”…it’s literally Brent Mason, lol.
Great album to me, and I love the resurgence of the90s country sound. It’s always been my favorite. I do hope to see some deeper songwriting in the future. None of these songs feel like they’ll be sticking around for decades.
September 1, 2025 @ 11:30 am
I was watching that interview he did with Dierks Bentley shortly after giving the album my first thorough listen………..and I can definitely see what Top meant when he said that with “Cold Beer & Country Music” he was playing more to the country crowd as well as his key influences………..whereas with this album he leaned more into his bluegrass roots.
And I think that really works to this album’s benefit as it lends this album a more emotionally intimate vibe compared to his debut.
A few key highlights of this come in “When You See Me” (one of my personal favorites) which is a moving ode to aspiring to come out the other side of a failed relationship and still strive to embrace your higher ideals and walk tall, “Between The Ditches” (a musing on his faith and aspiring to do his level best not to run too far astray as he occasionally stumbles along life’s path), “Livin’ A Lie” (which does come across as a melancholic flip-side of sorts to his hit “I Never Lie” where he projected composure/a facade in, with this resembling the whole facade falling apart and the true magnitude of his pain unraveling) and the already released “South Of Sanity” (a bittersweet ode to the heartwrenching balancing act of life on the road coupled with committing to a relationship). We also get a bit of this on “Splitsville” which is your definitive tear-in-your-beer barroom jukebox ode.
If there’s a primary criticism I have of this record…………….it mostly centers around the songwriting. And to be clear straight off the bat: it’s all-around tastefully done and there’s no bad songs on this record……………….but this album did leave me wanting more when it came to standout lyrical moments or showstoppers like “Use Me” on his debut…………and the closest this album came to something resembling that was with the aforementioned “When You See Me”. One specific song (that I also consider the album’s lowlight in my opinion, though still just “Meh!” as opposed to a bad song) that just didn’t work for me was “Flip-Flop”. For as much as I otherwise love Top’s vocal phrasing and timbre: it just didn’t sound convincing on this one in a way that Alan Jackson most certainly would have pulled off……….the necessary sass is just simply not there and it wasn’t really an interesting lyric anyway. There were also a few other songs that, as exquisitely produced and sung as they are, were pretty nondescript and just “there” from a lyrical standpoint in the lead single “Good Times & Tan Lines”, “I Know A Place” and “Like I Want You” which just sort of settle into playing to the most established tropes of the genre. So I felt after listening to this album that we haven’t yet heard peak songwriting Zach Top and there wasn’t even anything that captivated me quite like “Use Me” from his debut which was a slight letdown…………..but at the same time I can’t complain too much because this is by all metrics still an impeccably produced, authentic-to-him-and-his-experiences record and we’re all the better with this threshold of thoughtfulness and quality compared to much of what else is increasingly representing the mainstream.
Finally, I’ll say it was definitely a mistake releasing “Good Times & Tan Lines” as the album’s lead single. Given today is the unofficial final day of summer and it has yet to chart the Billboard Hot 100 (although it is at #18 on Mediabase as of right now)……………I simply think either “When She Sees Me” or “She Makes” was the correct choice: especially given summer songs have kind of been treated like a semi-niche song as of late (in contrast to throughout the height of bro-country’s popularity as well as during the heights of both Kenny Chesney and the Zac Brown Band’s popularity where their success made them more marketable). Obviously summer songs have never went away as most any artist cuts at least two of them on each of their studio albums or release stand-alone EPs themed around summer songs……………but you just don’t see them get greenlit as official singles much as of late and they are fated to remaining album tracks. I do get perhaps the intent was Top wishes to go against the grain and hope to usher in a renaissance of hit summer songs and that’s why he decided to release “Good Times & Tan Lines” as the lead single (which if that is the case, more power to him……………but I still feel overall it was the incorrect choice for lead single)
September 1, 2025 @ 1:50 pm
Yeah, if “Good Times and Tan Lines” hits #1 on Thanksgiving, it won’t feel right.
September 1, 2025 @ 2:55 pm
Tasty turkey with tan lines…
September 2, 2025 @ 5:18 pm
Totally agreed about Flip Flop; obvious choice to be left on the cutting room floor. I really hope he doesn’t go in that direction for his primary sound in the future. “She Makes” would have been a good lead single; that was in the top 2 or 3 for me as I tend to prefer faster to medium tempo songs in most cases. “Tight Rope” was also solid for what it was.
September 1, 2025 @ 11:46 am
The 90’s Country comparisons overshadow his 80’s Country influences on this album. To me it’s his slower songs that hit more like ‘She Makes’ and ‘When You See Me’. He’s much better when he’s singing from that 80’s and 90’s Country sound vs when he is singing about it – like with Good Times and Tan Lines.
September 1, 2025 @ 11:56 am
More like Tracy Byrd than Haggard, but that’s okay. It takes all kinds, and he sure can play the guitar. Glad to see him succeed.
September 1, 2025 @ 12:55 pm
Not everything needs to be “original.”
September 1, 2025 @ 1:47 pm
Sure. But originality is always something that’s going to factor into an album review.
September 1, 2025 @ 7:58 pm
Top is clearly shooting to emulate the 90s sound. That is enough for me.
September 1, 2025 @ 2:04 pm
I’m learning that “bro country” isn’t just about the lyrics, it’s about the overall sound. Cause…
“ Good times and tan lines
Cold beer and summer nights
That was all there was to life
Good times and tan lines
Good, good times and tan lines
FM on, coolers on the ground
Dig through the ice and pass ’em around
Waitin’ on the hot sun to go down
Little skinny-dippin’ when the moon comes out…”
…sounds every bit as vapid as lyrics from a bro country song. Warm nights, cold beers, cute girls in jeans, cowboy boots etc, these are tropes that people bash bro country for but when presented in a traditional manner with a classic country sound behind it, it’s all of a sudden fine.
I’m not saying I don’t like Zach Top because I do, I just don’t understand the excitement about him. Then again, I wasn’t listening to country music in the 90s so I probably don’t fully understand the appeal.
September 1, 2025 @ 5:52 pm
I definitely agree.
I feel similarly about some of the cliched songwriting on this album like I did on Jon Pardi’s “California Sunrise” and even “Heartache Medication” to some extent. Those albums were certainly great from an instrumental/musicianship perspective and they definitely deserve their flowers for their leadership in inspiring a turn back to neotraditionalism in the scheme of mainstream country music, but in the same breath no one was ever going to convince me “Dirt On My Boots”, “Cowboy Hat”, “Lucky Tonight”, “Paycheck”, “All Time High”, “Can’t Turn You Down”, etc. weren’t re-packaged regurgitations of bro-country lyricism (to be clear I’m NOT saying half of this album is bro-country lyricism, but I am saying it conforms to the most familiar, worn tropes and themes of mainstream country as of late albeit with much superior instrumentation and atmosphere).
September 2, 2025 @ 6:30 am
That’s a good observation.
Bro Country songs lack the ability to be self-deprecating. Why would the main character of the song have to go out of his way to uniquely describe how awesome he is?
I believe this is one reason why the writing is so lazy and generic – the framing of the songs is always about the guy being cool and getting the girl and “Since I’m already cool why do I have to find some creative way to re-tell that story, I’m already awesome.”
Uptempo Country songs from the 90’s had better songwriting. Most of these have a level of self-depreciation.
Examples:
Chattahoochee
I Like It I Love It
Liza Jane
Grundy County Auction / Be My Baby Tonight
Me Neither (Brad Paisley)
T.R.O.U.B.L.E (Yes I know it’s a cover)
Fishin’ in the Dark (I believe half of all Bro Country songs stole directly from this song but the lyrics of this song far surpass anything Bro-Country.)
September 1, 2025 @ 2:05 pm
I’ll be the first to admit that the 90s Country Revivalist movement just isn’t for me. Outside of “I Never Lie”, I’ve just not been that impressed with anything Top has ever put on wax, this release included.
The live show piqued interest once I became aware of how great of a guitar player he is, but his concert demographics also highlight my fear that Top appeals mostly to zoomers that missed 90s country and nostalgic millennials.
Top is well on his way to being super successful. I just hope he juggles financial success and ultimately crafting his own sound before he’s pigeonholed into this caricature.
September 4, 2025 @ 5:12 pm
He’s just another cosplayer. No substance at all.
To his defence, he’s not exactly alone being a cosplayer in this world of modern music.
September 1, 2025 @ 2:33 pm
I’m in my late 20s, and my parents didn’t listen to country music growing up, so I wasn’t entirely exposed to the 90s country sound that probably a lot of people who frequent this site have. I was in middle school heading into high school when Cruise came out, so most of my generation heard only bro country. I knew some of the 2000s hits that were played, but bro country was at its peak when I was going through my high school and college years. Bro country got me into country music, and this site helped me to promised land of what real country music is and how to seek it out because I grew tired of the mainstream.
I give that perspective because I absolutely love this album and I think it’s his best one yet. I definitely understand Trig’s and others perspective that the songwriting feels recycled because you’ve listened to those kinds of songs. This album: the lyrics, music, tones, etc made me feel like I entered a Time Machine and got to be in the 90s listening to country radio. The vibes and “aura” as the kids say is absolutely impeccable in this album. This is likely my album of the year. I also love how you get a mix of slow and fast songs, good love songs, heartbreak songs, while getting songs like Honkey stink Till it Hurts and Guitar. I could listen to this album frontwards and backwards on repeat and not get bored.
The other reason I give my background is there are millions probably just like me. Zach Top is the face and leader that is creating music that transport people who couldn’t live the 90s era, feel like they did live it. He’s leading this revival and it doesn’t hurt that he’s very handsome as well for the younger ladies.
September 1, 2025 @ 4:30 pm
Great to hear of someone ditching the Bro country and mainstream by properly getting engrossed into the proper traditional side of things. Welcome aboard
September 2, 2025 @ 4:36 am
…hold your enthusiastic horses for a minute, craig. go compare “cruise” with hank snow’s classic “i’m movin’ on”, which it dethroned 2013 from being the longest running country no. 1, adjust for the different periods of time and then care to explain to me the big difference(s) between these two tunes.
bro country sure wasn’t an artistic highlight in the history of country music but it was a reality and undeniably widely popular with a large part of the then country audience – like the engaging “i’ movin’ on” way back when. facts are facts, as embarrassing as they may feel.
September 1, 2025 @ 2:51 pm
“Ain’t In It For My Health” would have been the best album released last Friday.
But on the same day “Hard Headed Woman” by Margo Price was released.
September 2, 2025 @ 5:41 am
That Margo album is fire!
September 1, 2025 @ 2:52 pm
An 8 is high for me. The song writing doesn’t do anything for me, but to be fair, Zach Top has never been known for his song writing (e.g., Sturgill, Isbel, Childers, or Charles Wesley Godwin, etc.). Credit needs to be given for his singing ability and guitar playing.
September 1, 2025 @ 2:57 pm
It feels like the gist of this review is “mediocre songwriting, but hey, there’s a 90s veneer to the production, and we all know Zach Top is one of the good guys. So we’ll give it all a pass”
September 1, 2025 @ 9:52 pm
…and others are saying an 8 is a ridiculously low score.
I feel like how you feel about this album has a lot to do with how you weight songwriting. I don’t think the songwriting is mediocre. In spots, I think it’s great. In others, it was just too cliche to praise with a straight face.
I am glad folks are connecting with Top, this album, and traditional country music.
September 2, 2025 @ 10:03 am
Honest question. What keeps Tops music out of the “cosplay” category for copying the 90’s style?
The “authenticity” argument is always seen in the comments section here regarding artists and the music they play.
September 2, 2025 @ 10:34 am
Zach Top has plenty of country bonafies, from growing up on a ranch, coming up in the bluegrass ranks, to swinging a hammer when he first started working with Carson Chamberlain. You do feel like this is the music he wants to make, and reflects the kind of country he grew up listening to.
September 1, 2025 @ 3:16 pm
I just put the CD on today and I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel like I was back in 1993/1994 all over again. Going to give it a second listen again, but on the first go around I don’t think there were any songs that would qualify for a “skip”. Solid album from start to finish, and has to be in the top 5 albums of the year to this point.
September 1, 2025 @ 4:45 pm
This album is at the very least a 9. Sure, I’d like him to throw a good story song in the mix, but I felt this album was a big improvement from “Cold Beer & Country Music.” I loved that album, it was probably my favorite of the year, but it was a little shallow at times, which was okay because it was so country and so fun. But I felt Zach Top genuinely released a more mature album this time. “Good Times and Tan Lines” being the exception, and by far my least favorite song on the album.
I don’t know, I felt like this is the perfect album he could have released right now. It built on everything he put down on the last album, and improved it in basically every way.
September 1, 2025 @ 6:01 pm
Pleasant listening, but not particularly interesting. But hey – seems the entire world only cares about vibes these days, so this is perfect for that.
7/10 for some quality pickin’ and tight musicianship.
September 1, 2025 @ 6:19 pm
As someone who grew up on 90’s Country, I enjoy it. I bought the day it came out after I got off work. South of Sanity is the top billing for me on it. Not as lyrically strong as some other artists I listen to but good music to just hit the road and enjoy.
September 1, 2025 @ 7:54 pm
I like Zach , this album sounds good so far. There is a lot of great country music out there.
September 1, 2025 @ 8:10 pm
I may give it a listen. Like some i just havent been able to really dig his stuff outside one or two songs mainly because of what has been said. From what im reading in comments,i may not find any nuggets here but we will see.
September 2, 2025 @ 3:59 am
…overall a pleasant effort getting the appropriate treatment and rating (8/10) here. there’s lots to like on that record, even if zach top, and most likely his team, aren’t reinventing the gunpowder, so to speak. although not afraid of tackling the high notes, he seems to struggle a bit there. the dominant carson chamberlain might wanna keep him more in his vocal comfort zone somewhat lower down, which suits his vocal style/technique better.
if zach top will reinforce – or even lead – the current move backward to a more traditional country sound again, thereby attracting a new and younger audience, go ahead and just do it. it should however be noted that with jake worthington doing chesnutt, king doing strait, wynn williams doing josh turner, chandler dozier doing dwight, cameron marlow doing chris young and zach top doing aj at lot of the old ground is covered quite nicely and pretty fully nowadays. bringing other talents like jesse daniels, matt daniel, jade eagleson, drake milligan just to name a few more into the frame, leaves pretty much hardly anything to be desired actually. not to mention soon to be award-winning charley crockett either. there’s enough fresh traditional bait around by now, let’s wait and see whether there’s enough fish that bites.
September 2, 2025 @ 5:07 am
I thought this was a step down from the debut but still pretty good and much better than a lot of what’s out there. If he had come along in the 90s would we have even noticed Zack Top or would he have washed away like a host of other country singers? It’s something I think about. But I also like to think that he’s going to throw down lightning bolts on an album he hasn’t even made yet. At least he didn’t take that success of his first album and decide to follow hit with a rock album and declare he never really like country.
September 2, 2025 @ 5:40 am
I feel he has at least one great album in him, but it ain’t out yet.
September 2, 2025 @ 6:06 am
When I first read the song title “Between the Ditches”, EmmyLou popped into my head singing “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight”. 1978, just out of high school I was that “daughter gone bad, rollin’ between the ditches…” Well, not that bad but just having a good time! Then Tom mentioned Hank Snow’s “I’m Movin’ On” which EmmyLou sang also. Those two songs were a great start to my morning, very lively feel good songs. I found the two ZT song’s a bit underwhelming. There is a time for the quieter, less moving song’s and I wish him great success.
September 2, 2025 @ 6:20 am
Sonically the album needs better production for me. The sound is a little too “classic”. It doesn’t jump out of the speakers like a modern production. To me this will be an issue for songs sent to radio or playlisted amongst other current songs. Production sounds dated, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing?
I echo Trig’s sentiments on the writing. ZT is being held back by his own writing at the moment. He will progress, for sure. At what feels like an inflection point for his career with this album, I sure wish he would have included a few outside cuts – there are better songs and writers out there that would have elevated this album miles beyond what it is.
It’s fine, it just leaves me wondering what could have been. I don’t hate it…I just wanted to love it more.
September 2, 2025 @ 7:56 am
I’m of the opinion that if Zach Top was 27 in 1993 he would be successful but just another country musician. The appeal is he plays 90’s country and to young kids thats vintage (yikes) and to them what 70’s country was to my generation. But I do love him
September 2, 2025 @ 7:58 am
It is as good if not better than his last album. Good voice. Good songs. Good sound. Good country album.
September 2, 2025 @ 8:29 am
Take Isbell, Simpson, even Childers…Give me Zack Top . Is it Shakespeare? No. It is COUNTRY music,though. No confusion.
September 2, 2025 @ 9:43 am
Have no problem with you giving the album an 8, I personally think it’s around a 7. A little too much beach/coastal songs. 3-4 really solid songs and the rest are forgettable. Personally think he should cut down his album to 10 songs like George use to do, also would like to see him find a different producer than Carson for album 3. They hit lightning in a bottle but Carson and Zach are not Tony Brown and George. He needs to get with another producer to flesh some things out.
September 2, 2025 @ 9:56 pm
I think just like the 90’s, this music is a numbers game for writers, and we have the same feel good clichés/steel and fiddle/tried and true song structures/vocal affect. He performs it very, very well. If he simply did an AJ covers tour it would sell out. The contrast with Silverada is tricky- really apples and oranges. Successful bands are so rare in country music, which is all about the singer since Elvis.
September 3, 2025 @ 1:28 pm
I find it to be a pleasant album but nothing that grabs me or special. I am glad that he is leading a resurgence of Trad country but i can think of other doing it better.
September 3, 2025 @ 1:41 pm
Upon first listen, I think the songs on Cold Beer and Country Music are a lot stronger in general. There are a lot of songs I don’t even remember mere minutes after hearing them on Ain’t in it for My Health. “South of Sanity” is an obvious standout, but that’s about the only song that’s sticking with me the way so many songs on Cold Beer and Country Music did. Pretty much any serious song on that album required multiple listens. This one just isn’t doing it for me. I really think he needs to find that beautiful line between country and bluegrass in the future.
September 4, 2025 @ 5:51 pm
8 is too low, IMO. Album of the year for me. Not lower than 9. If that’s an 8 give me more.
September 5, 2025 @ 6:35 am
…after repeated listening of this album there can’t be another verdict from my part than this: one of the albums of the year. basta! were i to listen to zach top with fresh ears (no having experienced the 90s fully, conciously and joyfully) i would just love the overall result. not perfect, but a statement.
September 6, 2025 @ 6:57 am
I dig what he’s trying to do and there’s no denying his talent, but it sounded like a parody of 90s country to me. Like a cover band playing songs you think you’ve heard before but can’t remember the words. And frankly, I felt many of the songs fell flat lyrically. Some showed promise, but couldn’t stick the landing.
His next album will be important for his career. As the novelty of 90s country wears off, what will be the draw? Is there a unique perspective he can offer wrapped inside that familiar 90s twang?
September 6, 2025 @ 1:00 pm
Regarding concerns about the songwriting, maybe the one piece of the ’90s puzzle that Zach is missing is that, back then, artists cut a lot of outside songs, rather than co-writing every track themselves.