Health

The idea behind Alan Jackson’s 2008 hit “Good Time” is pretty simple: work sucks, thank God it’s Friday, let’s go shut down a honky tonk. Seventeen years later, Zach Top has the same impulse. On “Country Boy Blues,” he polishes his truck, puts on his Sunday best, and hits the town—Lower Broadway in Nashville. But Top, unlike Jackson, ends the night in solemn disbelief: He walks through Music City’s epicenter without hearing a single country tune.

I imagine the strip was full of rap, EDM, and cover bands playing “Mr. Brightside.” While country music is reaching new heights commercially, the age-old debate about real country music is as heated as ever. (See: mudslinger Gavin Adcock’s recent beef with outlaw torchbearer Charley Crockett.) For Zach Top, a young traditionalist inspired by smooth stars of the 1990s like George Strait and Randy Travis, it seems that conversations around the genre’s purity aren’t so much angering as they are befuddling. Today’s country regularly strays from its roots to incorporate production from other genres, yet there isn’t a hint of modernity in Top’s sound. His dedication to a bygone era of country radio serves as a form of subtle resistance, and his emergence as a breakout star tells another story: Country fans like country music. Who would’ve thought?

His new album, Ain’t In It for My Health, is good, clean country fun, full of clear-eyed comedic writing and tight arrangements. There’s a sweetness in its simplicity: No mind-bending metaphors to be found, just crisp verses that fit smack in the middle of the beer-drinking, heart-aching, forgive-me-for-my-ramblin’-ways Venn diagram. In these songs, Top professes his first love (“Guitar”), giddily does his best Jimmy Buffet impression (“Flip Flop”), takes his girlfriend to his favorite secluded spot (“I Know a Place”), and knocks back a few too many shots of whiskey (“Honky Tonk Till It Hurts”).

Truthfully, there’s not much delineation from his last album, 2024’s Cold Beer & Country Music—which featured a song called “Sounds Like the Radio”—but there doesn’t need to be. He’s not trying to reinvent the wheel; quite the opposite. While the added emphasis on pianos and vocal harmonies makes this album’s production more elaborate, Top, with the help of producer Carson Chamberlain (a former bandleader for Keith Whitley), knows what he’s doing. He came up in the bluegrass scene, joining a family band at age 7, which helps explain his technical proficiency and consistency as a songwriter. This isn’t an album of highs and lows—Top is too grounded and set in his sound to fluctuate. It’s more of a relaxing tube ride down a creek.

To his credit, certain moments on the record demonstrate real growth as a songwriter. “South of Sanity” is particularly touching, as Top grapples with the sacrifices that come with success: “I’m somewhere outside of Missoula/They just called my name from the stage/When we hung up she was talkin’ leavin’/Now how am I supposed to sing and play?” Then there’s the fiddle-led “Livin’ a Lie”—a nod to his biggest hit to date, “I Never Lie”—where he admits that his tendency to laugh things off conceals a deep displeasure in life.

There is nothing surprising about Ain’t In It for My Health: no crossover features, drum machines, or overarching statements about what the genre is or shouldn’t be. It’s nice to have an emerging star who keeps his head down and honors the strain of country music he first fell in love with. More important, it’s exactly the type of music Zach Top wishes he’d heard on that disappointing Friday night in Nashville. One can only hope they have the sense to play it.