Zach Top: George Strait and Randy Travis Had to “Save Country Music”
Right now the signal is a little noisy on just where the country genre sits at the moment. Morgan Wallen is still indisputably the most popular artist in country music, even if some question just how “country” he is. Country has been in the crosshairs lately due to political friction stemming from the alternative Super Bowl Halftime show in early February. And Jelly Roll just won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Country Album.
But don’t let any of that distract you from the fact that traditional country music remains in a strong resurgence at the moment. Generally speaking, the country genre is more “country” right now that at any time in the last decade or two, and is more supportive of performers outside the conventional Nashville/Music Row bubble than ever before.
You can point to multiple things to verify this, including Ella Langley’s incredible #1 showing with her career-defining traditional country mega hit “Choosin’ Texas.” Everywhere you look, artists with more twangy sounds and traditional songs are finding traction. And then there is the continued success of neotraditionalist Zach Top.
Fresh off his win for Best Traditional Country Album at the 2026 Grammy Awards, Zach Top is preparing to headline the C2C (Country to Country) festival on Friday, March 13th at the O2 Arena in London. Ahead of the performance, he talked to Entertainment Focus, and had some great insight into this moment in country music from his perspective as an artist.
“It is crazy. I haven’t gotten out of the mindset of being the outsider or the underdog, you know, ’cause I still sound so much different than the rest of what’s going on,” Zach Top says. “It feels kind of wild that it’s caught on this well and that I am one of the, I guess, more prominent figures in the genre feels kind of crazy to me. I’m very humbled by it and very thankful, and overjoyed that this many people have caught on and fallen in love with the music as much as they have, when it sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of what’s on the radio and everything.”
For anyone who’s followed country music for a while, they know the genre works in cycles, with moments where the genre becomes more pop and commercial as it chases trends outside of its conventional borders.
“I feel like fans of country always find something new that comes along that’s a little different, a little wacky, and they go chase that. The industry goes and chases that for a while,” Zach Top rightfully observes. “I think this latest cycle has been a long one, starting back in I think 2010 when ‘Cruise’ came out from Florida Georgia Line. That felt like the big shift toward this hip-hop influence into country. Obviously, Morgan Wallen is at the peak of his powers in that same type of vein as well.”
But now there is an entirely alternative universe where traditional country is thriving too, working in parallel with the folks like Morgan Wallen and Jelly Roll. And Zach Top and other neotraditionalists like Braxton Keith, Jake Worthington, and others aren’t just here to take advantage of it. When it comes to Zach Top, he’s responsible for the trend taking hold in large part.
“It’s a cool place to be,” Zach Top says. “I’m very thankful that I hit the cycle at the right time where it’s swinging back toward the traditional thing, like it’s done so many times before. It’s just another iteration of the cycle but I’m glad I showed up at the right time and that people are hungry for my sound at the moment. It feels like the hunger from fans has turned somewhat toward a return to the roots and traditions of country music.”
But the quote that got Saving Country Music’s attention the most is when Zach Top said, “It’s just so funny to watch it ’cause back when George Strait and Randy Travis came around, they had to save country music after Kenny Rogers ruined it. I feel like these cycles have been going on as long as country music has been around. There’s always been something new and a little different and edgy that goes on for a little bit and then people return to something traditional and familiar feeling.”
It feels a bit harsh to say it was Kenny Rogers who “ruined” country music. Much of Rogers’ music is excellent, and some is quite traditional. But Kenny definitely was one of the crossover stars that made country music more pop for a period, and less country in the early ’80s. Just like Bro-Country opened the door for someone like Zach Top, Kenny Rogers helped open the door for George Strait and Randy Travis.
These observations from Zach Top tell us two things: First, timing is incredibly important. If Zach Top had come along a year or two before, or a year or two after, who knows, maybe his carer would have never taken off. There are so many traditional country artists that you wonder why they never found the same success as Zach. Timing has so much to do with it.
Second, since all these things work in a cycle in country music, you can’t take it for granted when the cycle is working in your favor like it is now. You can’t rest on your laurels just because a few traditional country artists are finding success right now, and expect it to be that way forever.
But perhaps the long-awaited split in the country genre that many people have been clamoring for is finally here. Since it isn’t just radio that rules the roost and the internet has allowed for multiple lanes to success to open up, neotraditonalists like Zach Top can become stars and win Grammy Awards while the Jelly Rolls of the world thrive in the mainstream and do the same. It’s no longer an either/or proposition.
Maybe living side by side is still not appetizing for some traditional country fans. But at least traditionalists and neotraditionalists now have a seat at the table, and equal opportunities to their pop country counterparts. Country music has come a long way since the height of Bro-Country, even if there’s still much to do. And that success is thanks to the talent and appeal of country music’s young traditionalists whose talent and success can’t go unrecognized any more.
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February 22, 2026 @ 11:45 am
Big up Pip, James and the EF Country team, working hard in the UK.
February 22, 2026 @ 1:33 pm
Man they seem to get a lot of really good artists touring over there. I haven’t checked in in quite a while but the Rogue Country UK Facebook group does a good job of spotlighting both their local artists and all the Americans who tour over there and it seems like a pretty nice scene from what I can tell
February 22, 2026 @ 12:00 pm
The Kenny rogers thing is interesting. He’s definitely a guy I think thought of mostly fondly now. But I suppose part of the cycle is the guys who seemed offensively pop decades ago now seem way better than the pop country of the current moment. Sort of like how Garth brooks sounds pretty dang country on his huge albums (debut, no fences, ropin the wind) compared to Morgan wallen
February 22, 2026 @ 12:22 pm
Think we have to factor in that Zach Top was at least partially talking about people’s perspective at the time about artists like Kenny Rogers as opposed to his assessment of Kenny Rogers personally.
Studying Kenny’s career, he’s impossible to pigeon hole. He has some incredible singer/songwriter songs, so great traditional country stuff, and then clearly searched for crossover stardom and took advantage of acting opportunities. You can’t really claim it’s one thing or another.
February 22, 2026 @ 2:40 pm
Zach Top is speaking from the perspective of people two generations prior. You have to go back and read what traditional Country musicians and fans thought of the pop’ification of Country in the late 70’s and 80’s to understand the point of the Kenny Rogers comment. There hasn’t been enough traditional Country in the mainstream for me to agree that Zach Top and Ella Langley are leading a neo-neotraditionalist revival vs it being more of a strong novelty at this point. If they hit 10 1#’s each vs 1 1# each then it can be considered a revival.
February 22, 2026 @ 12:02 pm
Commander Cody ruined country music.
February 22, 2026 @ 12:18 pm
Now that’s just outright blasphemy.
February 22, 2026 @ 2:53 pm
Nobody ruined anything, but the companies tried to cash in on labels (outlaw country, urban cowboy, cosmopolitian etc.) until it all became a soup of nothing.
Early Hank Thompson vs. early Wynn Stewart vs. early Ray Price? Three totally different styles, still we consider it stone cold country. The problem grows with time; early Roy Acuff vs. early Moe Bandy vs. Zack Top? Barely a fiddle in common.
It is what it is. I consider the true Texas/South/Bakersfield country that came along during the 50’s to the 70’s to be the pinnacle of country/western/swing. Whatever came before and after, lacks a certain dimension.
February 22, 2026 @ 1:12 pm
Yes that’s coming down a little harsh on Kenny. I’m not a fan of most or his 1980’s work, but Lucille, Coward Of The County, and The Gambler are all classics. But even most of his crossover hits weren’t offensive to the ears of traditional country music lovers
There’s always been crossover artists in country, I don’t think that’s the problem. The problem is when there in no lane at all for traditional country artists.
February 22, 2026 @ 1:36 pm
It will be interesting to see if, given the greater democratization of music thanks to the internet lowering entry barriers and making it easier for fans to seek out alternatives to the mainstream, the current swing back to traditional country will be longer lasting than previous cycles. And if, at the end of this current cycle’s peak, traditional country will continue to exist more concurrently and competitively with the mainstream, rather than recede out onto the fringes for a decade.
Also, I wonder if, this time around, traditional country’s staying power might be aided by consumers–consciously or subconsciously–seeking out what feels real as a respite from the onslaught of AI music and technology in general.
February 22, 2026 @ 1:40 pm
The problem wasn’t just Kenny rogers, it was all the goddamn horrible production at the time. There was quite a bit of weird experimentation in the 1970s including from people that we now think of as the outlaw hard country folks, but somewhere in the late ’70s it all just fossilized in a horrific sound coming out of nashville.
Also, I know that the “XYZ saved country music” thing is just to throw away line, but let’s not forget that a ton of people were working in the shadows throughout that horrible era and they also gave us hard country, neo traditional, the survival of honky tonk, etc.
There was a ton of hard country that kept going in California of all places. Dwight yoakam does a pretty good stage rant about it that I really hope to see and print someday. Emmylou Harris and the hot band did a lot to preserve hard country while also developing the concept of Americana and rolling a lttle rock in (this is more or less from Dwight’s greater Bakersfield speeches). Dwight and Pete Anderson developed Dwight’s sound in the middle of a bunch of rockabilly revival in LA in the late 70s and early 80s, when there was no room for Dwight in nashville. There were a bunch of people whose names are just about lost to time
I’m not 100% clear on how exactly the Ray Price sounding Honky Tonk Texas dancehall thing survived, but I suspect that that was not a revival and that it kept going through that horrible Nashville era. Right? Would love to be corrected if I’m wrong about that lineage.
And then there’s all the stuff that happened with red dirt which experimented with all the sounds but definitely kept and develop the songwriting traditions of country going, plus whatever came out of the Commander Cody type California bands. etc.
Randy Travis and George strait are obviously very important but they are just the most Nashville famous beginning of neo traditional and they also came from a thriving non-mainsrream live music scene that kept actual country going through the horrid late 70s early 80s sound
February 22, 2026 @ 2:44 pm
I remember reading a comment Buck Owens had said regarding country of the mid to late 70s. Something along the lines of doing a song and dumping a gallon of maple syrup on top of it. The lush sting arrangements and all. Still, some good music did come out of that period. About the only song from that era I truly don’t enjoy is Bonnie Tyler’s “It’s a Hearthache”. Of course the 70s and early 80s were a time when you had non country artists actually chart country. Eric Clapton, Comedian George Burns, Englebert Humperdinck, and Bob Seger all had top 40 country songs. Even Tom Jones had a #1 in 1976 with “Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow”, and would have a brief country career in the early 80s.
Also, disco’s influence was big on country then as well. Especially with Dolly on “Baby I’m Burning” Bill Anderson also caught disco fever with “Remembering the Good”. As far as Kenny Rogers, he started out with the New Edition. “Lucille” and “the Gambler” were great country songs, but he also did “Lady” and “Crazy”, which are more Soft Rock/R&B orientated. All in all, the music had always shifted and swayed, but always realigned itself.