Most winners walk up nervous and serious. Zach Top stepped onto the CMA stage in 2025, cracked a beer joke, and still walked away with New Artist of the Year. If you have never heard his name before, this is the perfect place to start.
His thank you list was pure country. He thanked God for the gift to sing and play. He thanked his parents for backing him when it became clear he was not going to be a cowboy or a ballplayer. So he did the next best thing. He started singing about cowboys instead.
If you already love “I Never Lie” or “There’s the Sun,” you know this was not some lucky break. His August 2025 album, “Ain’t In It For My Health,” has been winning over people who miss real country and steel guitars.
What makes this win even bigger is the competition. Ella Langley. Shaboozey. Tucker Wetmore. Stephen Wilson Jr. Any one of them could have taken it.
But the guy who almost forgot to put his beer down is the one who went home ready to “celebrate all night.”
Zach Top Forgot to Put Down His Beer When Winning the CMA Award for New Artist of the Year.
If that beer-in-hand speech was your first time seeing Zach Top, the real story starts a few minutes earlier. Before he ever held that trophy, he walked onto a guitar-shaped stage at the CMAs and let his music do the talking. In a sharp suit, singing his song “Guitar” from Ain’t In It For My Health, he showed exactly why voters saw him as the future of country. Warm vocals, twangy riffs, and a steady beat turned nervous energy into a breakout moment you could feel through the screen.
Zach Top | 2025 CMA Awards
“I Never Lie” at the Ryman Auditorium shows the heart of who he is as an artist. The room is historic, quiet, and hanging on every word as he smiles through a song that is funny, sad, and clever all at once.