Sunnyside, WA · country

Zach Top

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The 90s-country revival in one pompadour — pure Keith Whitley-school neotraditionalism that made retro the hottest sound in Nashville.

Zach Top grew up on a ranch in Sunnyside, Washington, playing bluegrass with his siblings in a family band called Top String. He later moved to Boulder, Colorado, to study mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado, left after a year, worked to save money, and moved to Nashville to pursue country and bluegrass music full time.

His music sits in the neotraditional country mould of the late 1980s and early 1990s: fiddle and steel guitar, honky-tonk shuffles and ballads, and a clear, unmannered vocal that invites comparison to Keith Whitley, George Strait, Randy Travis and Marty Robbins. Both of his albums were produced by Carson Chamberlain, a former bandleader for Whitley who has written songs for Strait and Alan Jackson.

Before signing as a country act, Top spent his early twenties in bluegrass bands and released a string of solo bluegrass singles starting in 2019. He moved to Nashville in 2021, signed a publishing deal with Major Bob Music, and issued a self-titled bluegrass EP with RBR Entertainment in 2022. In September 2023 he became the flagship artist for the newly formed label Leo33.

He broke through in 2024 with "Sounds Like the Radio," co-written with Chamberlain and Wyatt McCubbin, which became the most-added song at country radio on release and reached the top 20 of the Billboard Country Airplay chart. It led his debut album, Cold Beer & Country Music, released that April alongside the single "I Never Lie," at a moment when traditional country was returning to mainstream radio.

His second album, Ain't in It for My Health, arrived in August 2025 preceded by the single "Good Times & Tan Lines," debuting at number 11 on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Top Country Albums chart with more than 30 million streams in its first week. Top won the Academy of Country Music's New Male Artist award and the Country Music Association's New Artist award in 2025, and the album later won the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Traditional Country Album.

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