Zach Bryan - Zach Bryan (August 25th, 2023) Album • Page 6

I like this, but It felt like he was holding back and didn’t go as hard as he could’ve. He's still young and just getting started though.

 

you probably hate pop/radio country. If you like Zach check out Tyler Childers album Purgatory.

 

Sam’s review on pitchfork is very good. Similar to my notes, but it’s still gonna be one of my favorite of the year. He’s so talented, I’m excited for everything that comes next.

 

I don’t think Zach considers himself “country,” but if you define the genre broadly (which I do) he definitely slots in alongside folks like Isbell, Tyler Childers, Margo Price, Brandi Carlile, etc. There’s probably a lot of “country” out there you’d like if you enjoy this.

 

As someone who's not overly familiar with Country, I can't imagine not considering him Country.

 

He talks about it a bit in this New York Times feature from last year. Truly a bizarre collection of artists he throws out that he feels kinship with.

 

Springsteen - okay, I see it. The young, early, scruffy stuff. Kings of Leon - come again? Ed Sheeran - What the fuck?!? Haha

 

This dude also rules and is Zach Bryan adjacent

 

I’d throw Orville Peck in as well as recent greats that have disrupted the norms of mainstream country.

 

I have not listened to the radio in years, so any reference I could make is massively outdated, but the last time I was familiar with country radio even in the slightest it was a lot of what sounded to me like almost pop / R&B type stuff with click tracks and beats only the singers had southern accents and used country words and sang about country things like back roads and trucks and Friday nights.

I don't know what it sounds like nowadays, but he's a guy from Oklahoma making good music and he doesn't seem to be following many if any current trends. Unless every country artist right now is self-producing scruffy music by themselves in Philly and I'm just not aware of it.

 

I don't care what he says, he definitely makes country songs like 95% of the time lol

 

This is accurate, but that's the radio stuff, there's also a lot of country like this

 

There's a ton of Springsteen in his sound and in his whole ethos. I can even hear some of those early Kings of Leon records. But Sheeran? Not so much.

 

Yeah, in my mind any time this stuff is being debated I try to differentiate if someone is saying "country" meaning 'Country Radio' or "country" meaning this broader genre of music.

 

wasn't early Ed Sheeran a grime rapper anyway

 

Yeah, I just wanted to make that joke, but I can hear the early KoL stuff too. They just ended up so far away from what ZB is doing right now. I'm actually a fairly big KoL fan / apologist.

 

I just think there's too much anxiety around what is or is not country music. The trad-country folks bury themselves in these conversations, and the non-country fans who find they like an artist like Zach try to find ways to justify why the artists they enjoy "aren't really country." My feeling is that country music is a big tent and there's good music being made all across it, including in the mainstream/pop-country segment. A lot of that music doesn't ever get played on the radio, but some of it does!

I made a big 200-song playlist to this effect a few years ago. I should go back and update it with artists like Zach that have come along since.

 

I think a big part of that is also people that feel that they must “hate country” so something they like surely cannot be country. It’s still a big thing somehow.

 

Listening to Turnpike Troubadours for the first time. They're very good.

 

I think part of it is how country music is linked to the right wing, which is an oversimplification of reality. Another part is just hearing a lot of people say some variation of “I listen to everything but country” for literal decades. Country definitely does not scan as “cool” to most people who grew up on emo or pop punk or indie rock. But I think there have been a lot of artists in the past 10 years especially that have challenged some of that thinking for people.

 

Hell yeah. Welcome to the fold.

 

I half jokingly called The Rolling Stones a country band to one of my friends and she was so offended because she clearly hates country music but viewed herself as a huge Stones fan. But then I wondered if she had ever actually listened to the Stones.

 

This conversation is making me think of the Key & Peele skit where everyone at the Darius Rucker concert keeps calling him Hootie and just wants him to play Hootie & the Blowfish songs.

 

I’d bet a lot of twenty something dudes with guitars grew up on Sheeran’s just a guy with a guitar singing songs thing. Not too terribly different than every emo kid worshipping Dashboard. But yea, wouldn’t be my pick lol.

 

The only Ed Sheeran song I am familiar with is "Bad Habits" because my kids love it and play it in the car, and it definitely doesn't sound like Zach Bryan.