"Zach Bryan" by Zach Bryan

On the country star's latest album.

Zach Bryan 101

Zach Bryan is a young country artist from Oklahoma who started writing songs in the Navy five years ago, songs that quickly gained traction on social media and turned him into a budding star. Now he is just a star, all budding completed, with 25m+ monthly listeners on Spotify and the ability to sell out every arena in America. 

I don't know that there is a reference point for what has happened here - how swiftly he became famous, and how little the music industry was able to shape his work/approach. Going viral on Twitter and YouTube certainly helped- this is a guy who was playing to 5,000 fans before he had played more than a dozen shows. Whatever label machinations have gone on - Zach releases his music through Warner - they have little to no impact on the artist's decision-making. I sincerely doubt the label would have recommended a shoddily-recorded live album titled "All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster," and Zach's deeply disorganized, scattershot release strategy gives the strong impression of an artist who is doing whatever he feels like.  

If there is a reference point for his rise, it is in rap music, an industry that - especially in recent years - has been upended by the ability of artists to gain a massive following on social media, to be playing big shows before they ever sign a deal. Still, even that world of music has been excessively commodified and infiltrated by the record label system. Young rap artists these days are often signed to restrictive deals before they hit 100k followers on TikTok, which has choked off the underground rap world that used to sustain wonderful, life-affirming indie movements like SesHolloWaterBoyz or GothBoiClique. 

And even in the prime of SoundCloud rap, artists weren't blowing up at this speed, not with staying power like this. At every stage, it seems, Zach Bryan levels up and gets even bigger. How did he do it, and how does he keep doing it? 

I don't intend on answering that question, of course. Zach Bryan is an anomaly. He is a folk/country musician and an A-List celebrity and he sincerely hates the limelight, a walking contradiction. He is a black swan event, a truly inexplicable phenomenon, and our attempts to analyze his rise are doomed to fail. 

But part of the answer, part of the analysis, has to lie in the music. And the music is really fucking good. In particular, his new self-titled album “Zach Bryan” stands out as an example of how he can continue to grow as an artist, expanding his oeuvre without losing sight of the elemental stuff that makes him Zach Bryan. 

Zach Bryan has a very specific sound: stripped-back country music that leans toward confessional folk, with the occasional rockier track thrown in. Since the very, very beginning - take "Heading South" as an example - he has shown a prodigal talent for writing earworm hooks, paired with diary-like verses about his late mother, alcoholism, and the trials of love. I'm not a musician, nor am I someone who can comfortably speak the language of musicians, so my approach to music is always textual. With Zach Bryan in particular, I think that approach is warranted. It's all about the lyrics, dude. 

On The Album “Zach Bryan”

The album Zach Bryan begins with a statement of purpose, a poem titled "Fear and Fridays," on which he says that he's "never needed a music machine telling me what a good story is." 

Notice the word choice there, "story" instead of "song," a meaningful distinction for someone obsessed with Tyler Childers and Jason Isbell and the early Lumineers. This poem is mediocre, and the fact that this doesn't turn me off of the album says more about Zach Bryan than it does about me. There are times in life when cliche overcomes its essential clicheness by virtue of how hard it leans into it, and that applies here. Zach Bryan is the type of guy who starts his album with a poem, and that’s fine.

There is more sonic continuity on this album than the one before, "American Heartbreak," which had more than two dozen songs on it. The relatively trim sixteen-track "Zach Bryan" feels of a piece when I listen to it. 

Now we’re getting to the point where I feel like I'm doing some shallow impersonation of a Pitchfork review, and if you want to read that you can go to Pitchfork. They gave this album a 6.7, and thought it was just okay. 

But I don't feel that way about this album. I love this album, and I wish that everyone I knew would listen to it, really listen, and see what I see, hear what I hear. What's more, I love this album in a deeply personal way, and the idea of "reviewing" it in any objective light feels like a lie. 

So let's get into the thick of it, shall we?

I can’t stop thinking about the complex lyricism of "Ticking," which is one of the finest-written country songs in recent memory. This song is about Zach, and it's about his ex and their relationship, and the content of it is viewed through the prism of tour life, which warps time and relationships both.

I'm cutting ties with things that bind my heart to this world

I love you and I'm willing but I cannot keep you, girl

Philly by the morning and Ohio by the night

The thing about a long rope is you can't hold on too tight

As the song starts, he is in the middle of breaking up with someone, and doing so in a depressive mindset as he blames the breakup on his desire for isolation right before he implicitly admits to cheating in a brief stanza. You have to read closely, but it’s there. Zach's girlfriend gave him a long rope - she let the leash get slack - and this led to the breakup. It is breathtakingly egotistical in its portrayal of a young famous guy dumping the girl he just cheated on, but no one’s a saint.

Wooden floors and coffee cups,

Stepped on and all used up

But I reckon that's what morning are for

And everyone thinks they know me now

In these close-minded leave-me towns

But I'm too young to even know myself

There is some imagery here that evokes the tour bus hangover, but what fascinates me more is the lyric about how everyone thinks they know the narrator these "close-minded leave-me towns." 

This lyric is subtly antagonistic to Zach's own fans and the places they come from. What's more, it dovetails with a story Jon Caramanica of the NYT told about his experience profiling Zach Bryan for the newspaper. He spoke of going to the early shows, and seeing hundreds of fans lining up for autographs and pictures - and in the process, these fans spilled their guts to Zach, telling him of their sob stories and their traumas. Caramanica describes the reluctant, eventual withdrawal of Zach from this routine as he grew to find it too painful. It’s hard to blame him. As a young man who constantly sings about the pain and difficulty of his own small town trauma, it can't be fun getting constantly draped in the tragedy of your fans from "leave-me towns." 

The chorus of this song, which is good, feels like it was pulled from another session/song and repurposed here, as Zach uses an odd sort of vocal rev-up to find his way into the melody. It sounds fine, and I don't care - I wish more of our best songwriters treated their work as an ongoing, spontaneous and iterative process, as many rappers (notably Kanye) have been doing for years now. The song needed a chorus, and the verses around it are breathtaking. My favorite verse is about change, and the way that time and fame has distanced Zach from his friends.

And all my friends have moved away

Some got jobs and some got saved

They talk to me like I am still that kid

The fighting, fiendin' Okie son

The restless, reckless, hopeful one

Who once was proud of everything he did

This is such a sad fucking verse. It speaks to the narrator's belief that he has grown distant from his old life. Some of his friends got jobs, some became Jesus people, and none of them seem to realize what has happened to him. Because that’s the thing, right - he used to be an Okie son who lived with energy and hope, and was proud of his actions. Now? Think back to the earlier verse. He doesn't even know himself, but he knows what he used to be, and it doesn’t describe him anymore.

This song, and the album it's on, speaks to the theme of Zach's discomfort in the bubble of tour life and excessive fame. In the past, on the ratty folk-rock jam “Highway Boys,” or the Springsteen-lite declaration of "Open The Gates," he sounded determined and proud to be worthy of screaming fans. But on this self-titled album, the theme to me is one of withdrawal - of desire to go inwards, and escape the life he has created for himself. At times it even feels vaguely suicidal, bringing Elliott Smith to mind, although it thankfully never delves quite as deep into suicidal ideation and nihilism as the late singer-songwriter did on classics like "2:45 AM.”

Here is where I'll out myself as a total fanboy, if the above didn't do it for you. Because the most imperfect song on this album, "East Side of Sorrow," might be my favorite. The song has a delightful pace to it, a welcome respite from the occasionally dirge-like album around it. It turns truly euphoric as it builds to a soaring chorus where Zach relates words from God:

He said the sun's gonna rise tomorrow,

Somewhere on the east side of sorrow 

You better pack your bags west

Stick out your chest

And then hit the road

The sun's gonna rise tomorrow

Somewhere on the east side of sorrow

Don't give it a reason to follow

Let it be, then let it go

Let it be, then let it go

If you listen to the song, you'll notice that he packs too many syllables into the phrase "you better pack your bags west / stick out your chest / and then hit the road..." Once you hear it, you can’t not hear it. In addition to that, the "Let it be, then let it go" feels like a lazy (albeit thematically relevant) way to close out the chorus.

When you compare it to the sublime, perfect chorus on "Hey Driver," the gap in execution becomes clear. It is a rare misstep in a beautifully crafted album. But it also doesn't matter, because the song fucking slaps. It is genuinely rousing and revelatory, which is only right for a song about God talking to you. Take the verse below: 

And I lost you in a waitin' room

After sleepin' there for a week or two

Doctor said he did all he could

You were the last thing I had that was good

So I walked miles on the Tulsa streets

Light started beamin' in from the east

6 AM and fucked up again

Askin' God where the hell He'd been"

When's the last time you heard something that raw, that directly poignant? The mixture of narrative specificity, true-to-life storytelling, and ecstatic religious meaning is simply not something you hear in contemporary music these days. You can get close in some of the best rap music, or the best Isbell.

As an aside, the aforementioned Jon Caramanica - a phenomenal cross-genre pop critic who has championed Bryan from the start - has said that he doesn't care if country music is "genuine" or not, and suggested that the concept of authenticity is a meaningless construct. 

I think this is probably a useful tool for Caramanica in his approach to criticism, but thankfully I'm not a critic, and I think it's bullshit. Zach Bryan writes authentic fucking songs, and it matters. In theory, would I love these songs even if I found out that Zach had never struggled with alcohol, if I found out that his mother was alive, that he had never had a painful breakup? I can’t tell you, because he never would have written them in the first place.

Now, I don't expect Zach Bryan to always write songs about himself. His searing, personal and hopefully therapeutic approach to the craft likely has an expiration date. All artists evolve. But he can look to Jason Isbell for guidance on how to maintain the authenticity even as he grows into a calmer person. Isbell is now sober, yet still writes songs about alcoholism. He is married but writes about breakups. He has become a short story writer, in essence, but everything authentically springs from experience. Look: Townes Van Zandt may have never been to jail for robbery, but I dare you to listen to "Waitin' Around To Die" and tell me that song isn't authentic. It is, and it matters. Authenticity isn't about exact biographical detail. Authenticity is about you know when you see it, and Zach Bryan exudes it. 

The breakout hit from this album is "I Remember Everything," a depressive song about alcoholism and toxic love told through a back-and-forth with Kacey Musgraves. 

Oops! I slipped back into the faux-Pitchfork voice. My apologies. This is the biggest song on the album because it's extremely sentimental, well-performed, and Kacey is a massive star with crossover fans. But it isn't a standout to me, other than the beautiful, cutting simplicity of the following couplet that Kacey sings.

You're drinking everything just to ease your mind

But when the hell are you gonna ease mine?

(If you love the male+female singer thing, look to the more abstract, rousing song “Dawns” Zach made with Maggie Rogers.)

If you were to listen to one song on this album, I would recommend "Jake's Piano - Long Island." The song is a masterpiece, a piece of writing and music-making that somehow marries Lorde and John Prine with a splash of Billy Joel. The stripped-back sound makes the expressive range of Zach’s voice pop.

What I love about "Jake's Piano” is the way that the writing is just detailed enough to create the outline of a narrative - but vague enough to force you to color inside the lines. This turns the passive listener into a creative force of their own right, forced to approximate the meaning of the song for themselves.  

I heard your father got sick of Long Island

I'vе been tryin' like hell to call

My mind ain't well and I just can't tell you why 

When he returns to these words again, he sings them in a forceful register, and makes a small tweak on the language: 

I heard your father got sick on Long Island 

I've been tryin' like hell to call

My mind ain't well and I just can't tell you why

Suddenly the failure to call has taken on a moral urgency, because your father isn't just sick of Long Island, he's sick on Long Island, and we all know what it means when an old friend tells you that their father is sick. 

The rest of the song is moving, too. Zach sings to someone he used to drink and smoke with, and his desire to tell them about his improvement - he quit smoking cigarettes, he doesn't drink until dawn anymore - is tinged with the desperation of knowing he can only sing to them in a recording studio. For whatever reason, whether death or the deep awkwardness of estrangement, the subject of this song isn't someone he can speak to anymore.

The album ends with a solid but unremarkable song, "Oklahoman Son," a world-weary piece about his desire to return to his home state and overcome his past failures. In Zach Bryan's discography, Oklahoma holds an outsize place of importance, both a nightmarishly restrictive place to escape from and a (literally) Edenesque ideal of peace and comfort.

If you are interested in his exploration of this motif I would recommend checking out his song "Oklahoma City," which is an instant classic of his, full of catharsis and self-hate, written to Zach Bryan from the perspective of an old friend who never left their hometown.

Ending

When I was a teenager I used to avidly fantasize about writing for Pitchfork or something like it. But as I grow older, I become more and more certain that there is a fallacy inherent to the idea of objective cultural criticism. I’m not a relativist in any moral or musical sense. But I do believe that all reviews are attempts to intellectualize and justify a gut reaction to the work being criticized. You hear an album, you have a reaction, and then you build the review on top of that reaction.

It is no accident that the most popular form of music criticism on the internet is that of "reaction videos," which visually depict the exact moment of gut reaction. This content bores me and even depresses me at times. But it it makes sense: reaction videos depict the raw, elemental content of criticism, the inevitable endpoint of our pornified culture. What matters are the instant feelings, and the way one elucidates or performs those feelings is in itself the act of "critique." 

My gut reaction to this album is intense, emotional, and I am full of gratitude over Zach Bryan’s ability to express himself through music. This album is in the tradition of Elliott Smith and Leonard Cohen as much as any country musician. It is meaningfully authentic. It is beautifully written, chock-full of the type of writing that only springs from the brain of a deeply intelligent person with immediate and constant access to their emotions, someone constantly engaged in the act of metacognition. 

There was more I meant to write, about the ways that this feels like a rap album in some aspects of form and execution. And the way that Zach's massive fanbase has already started to splinter into factions of obsessive weirdos, some of whom spend their time dissecting the life of his new girlfriend. 

But this is all I got for now, and I hope that you didn't hate reading it.