Backlash after Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" removed from Billboard Hot Country chart

I couldn't find anything about this but I found the controversy interesting and was surprised that nobody mentioned it here yet. If there is existing conversation, please link to it and a moderator can close this thread. If not...

Is this a country song?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ho88VXJTBg

Billboard thought it was... For one week.

Set against a cowboy-themed game, the music video for Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" uses language of the Wild Wild West with a hip hop spin. The genre-blending tune was a breakout hit five weeks ago when it debuted on three Billboard charts at the same time: the Hot 100, Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs and Hot Country Songs.

But Billboard quietly removed the song from the country chart the following week, reports CBS News correspondent Jericka Duncan. It later issued a statement saying the song "does not embrace enough elements of today's country music to chart in its current version." Lil Nas X responded on Genius.com.

"I started to think about it, I was like, you know, why? After like listening to other songs that's actually on that chart, it's like, wait a minute, something's not right, basically," Lil Nas X said.

CBS News

it got mentioned here:

Fusion of Country and Western/Hip-Hop...the wave of the future?

everyone wants to be a cowboy

it samples a track from NIN's Ghosts, that's pretty cool for a #1 hit

Posted this on the Non-US Rap thread earlier, because of the Dutch connection:

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8504409/old-town-road-producer-youngkio-interview-lil-nas-x

i've started hearing it on the radio. it's the kind of hit that the medium has been sorely needing for a long time -- all the quibbling about whether it fits in this or that category ironically seems to be helping disparate stations that don't ordinarily see a ton of overlap work together on it simultaneously. close enough to everyone, right? tonight i heard the version w/ billy ray cyrus on the rap station's nighttime mixshow hour.

at some point you had to figure it was definitely going to go big but i can't say i imagined it would be the enormous smash it seems to be on the verge of becoming

If this isn't in the next season of Westworld, I will eat my (cowboy) hat.

instant classic

this song is stupid as hell lol

not saying it’s bad necessarily

it's obviously very stupid but it's also very good

otm

Ridin' on a tractor
Lean all in my bladder
Cheated on my baby
You can go and ask her
My life is a movie
Bull ridin' and boobies
Cowboy hat from Gucci
Wrangler on my booty

it's a very silly song, i do enjoy it tho

its annoying

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/keith-urban-covers-lil-nas-xs-old-town-road-822449/

Keith Urban covered Old Town Road--this version is gonna chart and people are gonna lose their minds.

Once again the white devil's stealing from the black man.

I learned about this song from the pitchfork headline about “Billy Ray Cyrus lends his outlaw cred to Old Town Road” last week and my first reaction was like, admittedly I have not been closely following the oeuvre of mr. Ray Cyrus over these past years, but did I miss something re:him being considered to have ‘outlaw cred’?

keith urban version isn't actually gonna chart lol

My life is a movie
Bullridin' and boobies

Around that time, I had just watched that ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ movie. I just had that scene with Matthew McConaughey in my mind, I was just thinking about his lifestyle. That’s what I did for that line.

The banjo sound makes it all work.

The creek boys remix of Old Town Road is so damn good https://youtu.be/5bXrnvt8KjU

is this the first #1 song where the artist bought the beat from the producer after hearing it on youtube?

nah, desiigner found panda on YT as well

how bout Rihanna and the Numa Numa song

lol good pt

tbf numa numa was a standalone vid, that was before youtube was a colossal force

yeah, and that was also a sample of the original song--desiigner and nas x literally purchased the backing track they heard on YT.

isn't the backing track just "Ghosts 34"? is it really that simple?

no--a dutch producer named youngkio sampled the very beginning of ghosts 34, looped it, and added trap drums

I think I like this. Is it ok to like this?

its not ok to like anything you fool

no--a dutch producer named youngkio sampled the very beginning of ghosts 34, looped it, and added trap drums

Wonder if Goldenvoice will bring this guy/song out at Stagecoach this weekend.

i sing the cupcakke remix to myself all day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90aQaAfXeGs

the creek boyz remix is def worth hearing too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bXrnvt8KjU

this song is good i dont like any of these covers though

Love how a completely non-commercial Nine Inch Nails project can give Reznor/Ross an insane payday.

c'mon the cupcakke remix is great

Love how a completely non-commercial Nine Inch Nails project can give Reznor/Ross an insane payday.

― ... (Eazy), Thursday, April 25, 2019 8:38 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, "non-commercial" in that it wasn't an album with hits, but it did establish those two as like THE voice of modern ambient and they've been recruited for movie soundtrack projects that I would guess pay exponentially more than publishing on a streaming hit

lol the opening lines of the cupcakke remix are classic

Whatever happened to the Young Thug remix?

I'm obsessed with this choreography

https://www.facebook.com/PorschaColemanOfficial/videos/10156130072335770/

That is fuckin rad

IF OLD TOWN ROAD WAS A UK DRILL SONG pic.twitter.com/tCzqnp8Bp9

— TMC Tré (@iamTresor) May 2, 2019

video is here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Ov5jzm3j8

i love it

Missing one cameo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUUytUkMGO0

Much of the contemporary pop country that I've heard seems to only be country on the basis of having been marketed as country and doesn't actually sound a goddamn thing like country to my ears so it seems like if we start challenging the designation a whole lotta 'country' folks could be unhappy about what side of the divide they'll ultimately wind up on.

i was a little disappointed they couldn't get this dude

https://cdn1-www.musicfeeds.com.au/assets/uploads/Jimmy-Barnes-Scream-671x377.png

OL --

That's an argument made since at least the 1970s, as Charles Hughes has written about. No genre is policed for genuineness than country, and no genre has been most expansive about what belongs.

I'll refrain just this once from talking too much about a thing I know very little about (modern-day pop country, in this instance), but I'm talking more about discovering after the fact that a song without any identifiable country elements is being marketed as a country song rather than a traditionalist refusal to accept as country any song that doesn't strictly adhere to the genre's conventions.

is modern country "country"? maybe. do i like it? no.

old town road is fine tho

the distinction is that for at least the past several years, "country" has been defined as "pop radio if rap didn't exist." take something like "The Fighter" by Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood, or Jordan Davis' "Singles You Up" (ugh, the title)

(and I know people will come in here and say "oh but Sam Hunt likes Drake" or whatever, but he isn't Drake, which is the whole point)

Oh, that's interesting. Given my lack of engagement with pop music for...longer than I can remember, I hadn't even considered that the genre was becoming the musical equivalent of white flight. But it makes sense.

the distinction is that for at least the past several years, "country" has been defined as "pop radio if rap didn't exist."

The biggest country hit of the decade had Nelly on it.

Country radio sounds like "country made by people who listen to hip hop" quite often

one song with Nelly on it does not disprove it

(it goes both ways, too -- there are a lot of reasons you see so much Zedd ft. Maren Morris or whatever lately. reason one is "Meant to Be" was a hit and now everyone wants to copy it; reason two is that the country radio audience is, if not overtaking Top 40 (I forget what it is now, streaming has obviously muddied it), then coming very close in size; reason three is that given tomatogate and the like, female country artists probably find it more lucrative to gravitate toward pop; but I suspect another reason is that it gives Top 40 another stream of artists that aren't rap. not all stations, obviously, but given that there are plenty of stations that cut the rap verses from things like Kevin Rudolf songs, there is a demand for it.)

Yeah, the hip-hop influence is becoming pervasive, and – yes, country purists are upset by it – but they're losing the battle

I'm just gonna leave this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsNwDjUjbfs

A lot of Country songs, especially after "Dirt Road Anthem," have rap breakdowns. No need for Nelly even.

lol, I thought that Diplo playing the washboard was Kid Rock for a second

This is the number one country song right now...

I imagine whoever wrote the prechorus has probably heard Migos and Future

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjBp30kjzTc

this is exactly what I was talking about with "oh, but they clearly heard Drake," good to know I predicted it exactly.

the other thing is that when people talk about hip-hop influence in country it's generally in terms of sound -- spoken-word sections, percussion, etc. -- but the sticking point for the sort of people outraged about Old Town Road is content. country lyrics aren't rap lyrics, and something like "Old Town Road" gets parsed as the latter. and obviously this is the source of endless hypocrisy -- if it were Toby Keith saying "bull ridin' and boobies" I'm sure people would be fine with it -- and if not outright racism then certainly influenced by race, but it's the motivation.

Can't believe a genre-music built on nearly 100 years of well-established tropes isn't embracing the content of another one whole hog

The other thing is that when people talk about hip-hop influence in country it's generally in terms of sound -- spoken-word sections, percussion, etc. -- but the sticking point for the sort of people outraged about Old Town Road is content.

He calls himself "Keith Urban" but in fact...

you're welcome to talk to someone who is outraged about Old Town Road and ask them why

afaict the people chapshurt about "Old Town Road" are Brothers Osbourne who is upset that Lil Nas X is poking fun of country (he is) and Luke Bryan who's upset that he didn't pay his dues running the gauntlet of Nashville (he didn't)

I’m annoyed by it bc otherwise intelligent music critic ppl are treating genre as if it’s merely a collection of top down marketing tics instead of a feedback loop between audience and artist. It was only on the country chart in the first place bc Lil Nas X said it was country, not bc country audiences were responding to it w any kind of enthusiasm. It was a tik tok phenomenon where teens drank “yeehaw juice,” jumped in the air, and landed wearing flannel and a cowboy hat — which to be clear wasn’t even about country music in the first place, it’s about Lil Nas X being a red dead redemption video game cosplay artist

music critic ppl are treating genre as if it’s merely a collection of top down marketing tics instead of a feedback loop between audience and artist.

It can't be both?

Anyway, worth a read (and so is Jewly Hight's Twitter feed):

At the Pop Conference, NPR journalist Jewly Hight’s paper traced the history of the narrative that country music is the creation and property of whites only, from the earliest divisions between “hillbilly” and “race” records to the present-day example of Billboard axing Li Nas X from the country charts. She spoke to how country has struggled with this narrative and showed some of the engines of change that are pushing country toward more diverse artists. Part of that change comes from redefining the American West, and I’d argue that Red Dead Redemption 2 is key to that by virtue of its intensely immersive experience. Lil Nas X’s song clocks in at less than two minutes, but via the game you can live in a version of what Lil Nas X had in mind in a fully fleshed-out world for days and days. Watching “yeehaw challenges” on YouTube or TikTok, which involve people changing into crazy Western gear, makes me think of all the time I spent in Red Dead Redemption 2 changing Arthur into fancy new Western clothes, or fighting over a new cowboy hat I wanted for him.

Musically, Red Dead Redemption 2 breaks new ground by showcasing time-period-appropriate folk music being played by multiple artists of color. Known as “non-player characters” in video game lingo, these minor characters are sprinkled throughout the world. Walking the streets of the large city Saint Denis, you may hear a fiddle coming from a back alley, and heading behind a building you’ll see an African American woman fiddling while her neighbors dance. Riding by some row houses, you might find an African American man playing the banjo. When so few artists of color are present in American roots music today, embodying them frequently in a video game has a normalizing effect and doubles as historically accurate as well, since artists of color have always carried the lion’s share of the influence in early American music.

plus a bunch of people who say things like "I don't listen to (c)rap" -- which is usually verbatim what they, say, post on facebook

why do you follow those people on facebook?

It can't be both?

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, May 17, 2019 1:04 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Alfred, a feedback loop implies both already

I don't, I'm googling site:facebook.com "old town road" news

I mean, some rap fans on social media think pop/EDM/R&B is anathema to the culture, but that didn't stop "Super Bass" from being a huge hit

sure, which is why I specified people who are outraged about old town road, who are obviously not in the majority, but exist

this debate is abt genre solely as marketing cliches rather than genre as a feedback loop between artist & audience (including marketing cliches). This is a v top down way of looking at popular music but I get it, the popular conversation is superificial and dumb

the real unpopular opinion is that billy ray cyrus ruined the song

The biggest country hit of the decade had Nelly on it.

― dragged across concrète (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, May 17, 2019 10:30 AM (seven hours ago)

very bad revisionist history. the "cruise" remix w/ nelly didn't come out until three months after the song had already fallen off the country radio charts -- it was specifically released for the song's crossover to pop radio. florida georgia line were literally three singles deep on their first album on the country airwaves at the time that the remix was going big at top 40, and the version of "cruise" in recurrent rotation at country was not the nelly remix! (on a related note, some of the hot ac stations that also eventually put the song into heavy rotation opted for a version with the updated/remixed production, but not nelly's vocals. nice, huh?)

meanwhile the saving country music crowd was scowling the entire time the song remained atop billboard's hot country songs chart, which had had its methodology revised the previous year, on the strength of that remix. i guess if you really want you can count nelly performing at the cmt music awards with fgl (and being upstaged by taylor swift dancing in the audience) as evidence that a nelly song was beloved by the country audience.

Ah, i should have posted that, thanks for clarifying

it's all in my head i think about it over and over again

that is what I should have posted, yeah

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/arts/music/country-music-opens-its-ears.html

this seems like max saturation to me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vWg5yJuWfs

This is the best thing I have ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yvxqwlENxU

4:15 if you wanna see a bunch of elementary school kids screaming about lean hahahahahaha

lil nas x is a truly great american

that Lander Elementary video really is the best thing ever.

btw if you didn't know this guy is an A+ twitter follow

the year is 2050, stuart little is president, the 10 year world war led by shrek & thanos has ended. old town road has reached its 1,615th week at number one and brother nature has stopped global warming. the world is at peace.

— nope (@LilNasX) May 28, 2019

lil nas x is a truly great american

― be the 2 chainz you want 2 see in the world (m bison), Thursday, May 30, 2019 9:49 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he's one of the best celebs hands down it's crazy lol

i like that him being funny & good at twitter is directly related to the organic social engineering of his song becoming a huge hit! he actually gets the internet in a real way that no marketing team could replicate

He also has that affability of a guy who won the lottery and knows it and is enjoying the ride.

When you can’t sleep so you write an emo-version of old town road pic.twitter.com/smds9fbXoD

— Beach Bunny (@BeachBunnyMusic) May 30, 2019

this song is starting to sell. i imagine it will be a goldmine for mememakers before long. (+ possibly another headache for billboard -- might as well just leave it off all the genre charts)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN8vY8qkgVs

the artist's other material (on his ep) is less gimmicky but not necessarily better. literally one song sounds like a poorly produced 'trapified' ryan tedder ballad from last decade. and uh his singing voice is not always pleasant. but the last track from the ep is pretty good/interesting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i8C3uEJBvc

yeah, for better and worse, that sounds suspiciously like a well calculated hit

a most palpable hit!

possibly poisoned with POPULISM!

that blanco brown song reminds me of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvTvEQjyDWw

lol @ stupid youtube thumbnail graphics

it is the kinda song i would have enjoyed awkwardly trying to follow along to at a dance in the gym or cafeteria during the elementary school years

The EP is not bad!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx0Z0B8Xox0

At 2.39, that's the longest track on the EP, whole thing lasts 18 minutes with OTRx2 taking up about 5 minutes of that.

The Cardi song rules. So "Panini," "Bring U Down," and "C7osure."

Cardi verse on this is gas

The hook on 'Panini' sounds like to me like it was based on 'In Bloom'

nas x admitted as much, and kurt is a credited writer on the song with frances bean's approval

Oh cool, what a mensch

bring u down sounds hella grungy as well, 90's revival hanging out a lot longer than i expected

Pitchfork's Alphonse Pierre doesn't like it, wants to remind you that the true soundtrack of 2019 middle school dances is still Blueface:
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/lil-nas-x-7-ep/

Carl Wilson takes an uncharacteristic swat at that review.

The EP is not bad!

counterpoint: the EP is bad

nas x admitted as much

nas x said he'd never heard Nirvana but he knew the album cover from t-shirts

an answer alone that guarantees I'll award the EP an A.

nas x said he'd never heard Nirvana but he knew the album cover from t-shirts

― quelle sprocket damage (sic), Friday, June 21, 2019 4:10 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

panini interpolates parts of nirvana’s “in bloom”. special thank you to frances bean cobain for this!! 🖤

— nope (@LilNasX) June 20, 2019

"People was like, 'Wow, he sampled Nirvana.' I was like, 'No.' It's like, I didn't realize I was using almost the exact same melody," Nas X told Beats 1's Zane Lowe in an interview on June 20.

The rapper credits this coincidence for introducing him to the band's music. "The craziest things about 'Panini' is it introduced me to Nirvana's album Nevermind," he said. "It's like, I always seen the cover, but I never actually listened to it."

We are both right, settle down

not understanding the hype for "panini", pretty forgettable track imo

don’t you be a meanie.

some of this stuff isn't awful but he's a meme maker who happened to turn a meme into a hit song... i don't get the sense from this EP that he has much future in music per se, which is prob fine anyway

love "c7osure"

rip lil nash ex 12/2018–6/2019

Then, there’s the sloppy finale “C7osure (You Like),” which sounds like B.o.B. got hired to make a J.C. Penney commercial in 2010.

kudos for going for "jc penny commercial" over "overheard at h&m" i guess

where are all these funky jc penny commercials tho

1993 i think

i had never even heard of "chowder" but i'm going to continue believing LNX has written a love song to a sandwich

Part of its minor charm is that it sounds like an EP a regular person of above average taste and some talent would cut.

he seems like a pretty classical one hit wonder

EP is actually entirely tasteless in a way that also feels completely refreshing right now.

yep

The greatest thing about Lil Nas X was always that he clearly never overthinks his songs. This ep confirms that.

Only caught up with this a couple of days ago--I'm that disengaged. (Two kids danced to it at the school talent show.) As someone who found Big & Rich's cowboy song somewhat more horrifying than Sha Na Na, I'm surprised to say I like it. (Which doesn't mean I won't be sick of it soon.) As those two kids danced, pretty much the whole student body sang along, and then same thing yesterday when it got played a couple of times at our outdoor playday. I'm intrigued by their clear connection to the song...and kind of nice that not one of them has any awareness at all of all the back-and-forth such a song triggers.

I don't think I've heard the song yet! Maybe I'll ask my kids. I really hate trap.

"rodeo" sounds like a big hit tbh. like he's not gonna serve even soulja boy-esque longevity in music obviously but he's using his remaining minutes quite well no?

that and "c7osure" are the highlights for me. like most of the rest of the ep that one sounds a bit tossed off but i love the tentative-sounding, imprecise piano loop.

rest of the ep is not bad but i wouldn't call it good either. "f9mily" sounds cute when laid over an rt'd video of the opening to a disney channel/nickelodeon show but as an aging millennial that's not really my preferred mode of #engagement w/ music yet.

i don't understand what the various digits mean. oh actually he has dogs named 7 and 9 but idk why he chose those

EP is terrible, the sound of A&R & I don’t know how someone reads authorial intent of any kind into it

Will probably be fondly remembered just bc good will towards him is so high (see all the ppl giving the mediocre knockoff of the makonnen/peep song props or the posts itt) but ultimately just not good

*sighs and adds LNX to his list of musicians who are better at social media than they are at music*

(see all the ppl giving the mediocre knockoff of the makonnen/peep song props or the posts itt)

lol fair

i wonder what it would have been like if the current media landscape was around when vanilla ice came out

it would be a combination of thinkpieces about his appropriations of black and gay culture and affiliate linked consumer guides to his hair products of choice

Vanilla Ice an amazing example of someone who never recorded even one worthwhile track after (the b-side of) his first single

(guest spots on Bloodhound Gang's Boom and Betty Blowtorch's Size Queen notwithstanding)

deej otm, this is a too many cooks situation which is the opposite of old town road. but the people who cashed a good check meditating on the ~meaning~ of Billy Ray Cyrus on the remix will manage to find something to love

'cashed a good check'?

That “mediating on the meaning of Billy Ray Cyrus on the remix” dollar is a good dollar

To Lil Nas X’s benefit, it never mattered whether “Old Town Road” was good or bad. It’s so good it’s bad; it’s so bad it’s good. It’s a critical hall of mirrors from which there is no escape. Criticizing “Old Town Road” is like trying to fight the sun. From the start, the song was completely aware that it was essentially a meme. Everyone was in on the joke, and if you tried to criticize the joke, you were now the joke who was trying to ruin everyone’s fun. ... “Old Town Road” was a spectacle and everyone loved being a part of the ride.

haven’t heard the ep yet but i want to say that i disagree with this from the p4k review. Old town road is obviously a good song. not so bad it’s good or so good it’s bad; just good. i don’t know what it means for the song to be ‘aware it’s a meme’; it only became a meme because it is very good. i wasn’t ‘in on the joke’ and i don’t really think there is or was a ‘joke’

If I took you everywhere, then well, you wouldn't know how to walk
If I spoke on your behalf, then well, you wouldn't know how to talk

That's deep though!

you've missed the "ahma take you from this party/we might go and have some sex" lyric, which i believe is original to ovid

lnx has put out, at the least, some three or four quite enjoyable songs on an ep pumped out at record speed following his near unprecedented ascendency to being one of the best known and most popular young artists in the world not three months ago and he's done it without feeling the need to dip (much) into the easily accessible troughs of misogyny, self-pity, or tough guy bullshit. my money would've been on 7 being an unredeemable pile instead of extending his fifteen minutes with a clear follow up single. as i say, not bad.

i don't consider it patronizing to either him or the more haughtily discerning among you to suggest that complaining this kid's work lacks artistry or authorship is to bitch that the bear isn't riding the bicycle well.

a clear and satisfying distinction between a 'meme' and a 'hit' in pop music has yet to come into focus for me. virtually all pop songs are aspiring memes.

I haven’t listened to the EP but it sucks that he and the label didn’t just go all in on “country trap” and throw him in a room with Nashville songwriters and big name beatmakers

Like an album of “ft. Pistol Annies, prod. MikeWillMadeIt” would obviously have a shelflife of like 12 months, but what a great 12 months it would be

Otm

totally

Def a missed opp

I don't particularly like "Old Town Road" so I didn't expect much from the EP and... it's meh imo.
I agree that it would have been more fun to go all the way with the country/hiphop trend and I was a bit surprised by the 90s rock style of some songs.
My main issue with him in general is that he seems bright and nice but he's a really mediocre singer/rapper and has no charisma whatsoever.

LNX with Maren Morris + Musgraves over an "In Bloom" simulation would've killed.

Where's Bubba Sparxxx now that clearly we need him more than ever?

haven’t heard the ep yet but i want to say that i disagree with this from the p4k review. Old town road is obviously a good song. not so bad it’s good or so good it’s bad; just good. i don’t know what it means for the song to be ‘aware it’s a meme’; it only became a meme because it is very good. i wasn’t ‘in on the joke’ and i don’t really think there is or was a ‘joke’

― flopson, Sunday, June 23, 2019 9:51 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

??? its clearly a parody of country music from a guy who played a lot of red dead redemption i think its obvi that theres a joke element to it

that paragraph to me is simply describing the intense alienation that comes from a song you dislike becoming absurdly popular; I felt an even stronger dislike of "Fuck You" by Cee Lo which was also one of those songs that felt pretty intensely "popular" in both the charts & critically (& on ILX) in a way that felt "critic proof" (ie it was a success and lots of ppl liked it & its effective therefor it is good)

i "lost" the argument abt this song (that it was in essence a parody rap) but I cant imagine ppl looking back on this the way we look back on like, crystal waters or "cmon ride the train." the last line of his review captures it for me ... "you had to be there"

it's hard to divine his intentions. flopson otm about it being a good song anyway

does that matter? xpost

the fact that it isn't serious doesn't disqualify OTR from being a good or even great song

no one is complaining that it isn't 'serious.' i compared it to 'cmon ride the train'

does that matter? xpost

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 24, 2019 11:05 AM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean... yes? what is this question

Unless I'm misreading you, why worry about posterity?

I dunno, posterity is a relatively good metric for quality.

yeah, when it's 2027, sure. But to speculate now on whether it will still get played/remembered like "Gypsy Woman" or "C'mon Ride the Train" is fruitless to me idk.

Also: some songs become such phenomena that liking or disliking them is irrelevant (e.g. "Macarena").

But I do understand the "intense alienation" of horrible songs becoming inescapable; we all do.

I like "Rodeo" as a sequel to "Old Town Road," but I wish Cardi would cut the swears for what is essentially children's music

Old Town Road went over huge at the bat mitzvah i went to this weekend, the kids were into it more than any other song. one woman at our table was asking loudly "why is he saying, going to take my horse to the old hotel, what's this song about?"

ITS ABOUT EQUINE PROSTITUTION GRAMMA ITS AN OLD COUTRY SONG YOU REMEMBER IT?

I mean as far as intention he is on record as saying he's trolling so ????

a lot of ppl on this supposedly forward-thinking rockist-critical forum would probably legit be turning their noses up at "c'mon and ride it" today, including those who actually liked it as kids. like do some of you ever get tired of being surly every time something goes big that betrays the general public's ignorance about the types of music that you enjoy, + pointing at other major-label artists who 'should' actually be receiving the attention and such

so much country music is self-parodic to the extent that it is seldom even remarked upon. nearly all the tropes of the idiom going back decades are mostly-fictional constructions stemming from the western-film conception of the cowboy

omg, this exists!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8gUKEGuS20

it's the pomplamoose old town road/pony mash up america deserves!

PomplamooseMusic
Last night I had a dream that we were playing the Fillmore and half the room was singing “If you’re horny” and the other half was singing “I’m gonna take my horse,” and it was the greatest thing I’ve ever witnessed. Can we make this dream a reality? CAN WE????

oh my god i thought you were joking but it's actually fucking pomplamoose. amazing that all these years later they still haven't fucked off even after making their patreon(?) money

Supposedly the only Patreon money Pomplamoose guy gets and keeps is from his own account and the band's.

a lot of ppl on this supposedly forward-thinking rockist-critical forum would probably legit be turning their noses up at "c'mon and ride it" today, including those who actually liked it as kids. like do some of you ever get tired of being surly every time something goes big that betrays the general public's ignorance about the types of music that you enjoy, + pointing at other major-label artists who 'should' actually be receiving the attention and such

― dyl, Monday, 24 June 2019 20:43 (one hour ago) Permalink

you act like it was all "cmon ride the train" and not also rednex "cotton eyed joe"

also tbf my first exposure to this song was on tiktok & as ive said before if the song had first broken through those memes instead of billboard being dumb the popular response to this song would have been different imo

yes this song is popular because kids are bristling at the racism of billboard

my students hurled their phones across the room when they heard about Billboard's perfidy

hahahahahahahaha

the song *did* initially break thru those memes! it was #51, up from 86, on the hot 100 (and flying up the streaming charts -- it had virtually no airplay at this point) the week that billboard dropped it from the country chart. the billboard goof story, which went big after elias leight's rolling stone coverage not long after, did become a galvanizing point and part of its mythos, but the song was already broken wide open.

Had my kid play me this today. Not bad! She said it was a pretty fun song, but also good. Me, it reminded me of Everlast's "What It's Like," but that's fine, there are worse things.

that's a low blow

LOL, I figured I was not the first to make that comparison, but googling got next to nothing! Except this cat, who is actually pretty good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wFt0uALc24

believe it or not, it is possible to like "old town road" while acknowledging that it is basically a meme

gonna come out of the closet as someone who actually enjoyed "what it's like". and "cotton-eye joe". i'm a lemming.

Pete Buttigieg is a noted fan of "What It's Like." I wonder what he thinks of "Old Town Road."

Oh boy:

Guys, Tim Ryan’s walk-up music is Old Town Road pic.twitter.com/xfNGnOmTLg

— Andy Burnstein (@thatburnstein) June 11, 2019

what little i know of pete buttigieg's music tastes seems so respectable-milquetoast-centrist so i take it back, i hate "what it's like"

yes this song is popular because kids are bristling at the racism of billboard

― VAR me to the end of yawn (jim in vancouver), Monday, June 24, 2019 5:09 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my students hurled their phones across the room when they heard about Billboard's perfidy

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 24, 2019 5:26 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hahahahahahahaha

― space invaders are smokin penises!!!! (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, June 24, 2019 5:28 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the song *did* initially break thru those memes! it was #51, up from 86, on the hot 100 (and flying up the streaming charts -- it had virtually no airplay at this point) the week that billboard dropped it from the country chart. the billboard goof story, which went big after elias leight's rolling stone coverage not long after, did become a galvanizing point and part of its mythos, but the song was already broken wide open.

― dyl, Monday, June 24, 2019 5:31 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

These posts are dumb as fuck. It was in the hot 100 like literally 99 other songs at any given time but it was not a straight shot number one cross format smash that keeps legitimate stars off the number one for weeks at a time until it received blanket media coverage in the wake of a widespread report of curatorial injustice.

Like it wasn’t even top 40 off tiktok? There are probably 60 songs on the hot 100 right now a plurality if ilxors haven’t even heard

billy ray cyrus was more important than billboard

Billy Ray Cyrus doesn’t happen without billboard !!

Literally every media platform covered that story. It was like on local tv stations and shit

Billy Ray Cyrus doesn’t happen without billboard !!

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 2:38 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark

sure but what you describe -- a song so big that it keeps artists like drake and taylor swift from no 1 -- is solely bcuz of the decision to put billy ray cyrus on the remix

billboard doesn't even appear to be charting the original at this point

legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars

When it’s not a legitimate star the Billboard has a way of shutting that whole thing down

Like it wasn’t even top 40 off tiktok? There are probably 60 songs on the hot 100 right now a plurality if ilxors haven’t even heard

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 2:17 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

exactly how popular is this song among the kids? let's see if generation X and some older millennials have ever heard of it

my 4yo son has been singing it constantly. He went into school yesterday and sang it to his 30-ish teacher. She said she was singing that song at karaoke on Friday. This is total saturation, folks.

Conclusion: the song is crazy popular, you don't have to like it, and it may not get play in 2032, especially if the polar ice shelves melt and wreak havoc on coastal cities.

my eight year old just asked me "Have you heard of a song called 'Old Town Road' it's a very good song" they played it at their dance time during daycare

I feel like it will get play 20 years from now, like Baby Got Back or Push It

yeah I don't think it's going away

Reznor finally has a crossover for the pre-teens.

Would love it if the NIN "Ghosts" album becomes this sort of Violent Femmes-esque entry/talisman for this generation.

haven’t heard the ep yet but i want to say that i disagree with this from the p4k review. Old town road is obviously a good song. not so bad it’s good or so good it’s bad; just good. i don’t know what it means for the song to be ‘aware it’s a meme’; it only became a meme because it is very good. i wasn’t ‘in on the joke’ and i don’t really think there is or was a ‘joke’

― flopson, Sunday, June 23, 2019 9:51 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

??? its clearly a parody of country music from a guy who played a lot of red dead redemption i think its obvi that theres a joke element to it

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Monday, June 24, 2019 12:02 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that paragraph to me is simply describing the intense alienation that comes from a song you dislike becoming absurdly popular; I felt an even stronger dislike of "Fuck You" by Cee Lo which was also one of those songs that felt pretty intensely "popular" in both the charts & critically (& on ILX) in a way that felt "critic proof" (ie it was a success and lots of ppl liked it & its effective therefor it is good)

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Monday, June 24, 2019 12:03 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah my interpretation was that the author didn't like the song as music (wrong but fair) but instead of just coming out and saying that tried to over-intellectualize others' enjoyment to pretend that he understood its appeal

you refer to deej, right

I was meh on Old Town Road at first, now I love it, haven’t heard the EP but A. Pierre’s trashing of it was one of the most entertaining reviews I’ve read in a while. The only weak/lazy writing in the whole piece is the passage cited above.

Old Town Road >>>>>>> Fuck You

Old Town Road="fuck you"

exactly how popular is this song among the kids? let's see if generation X and some older millennials have ever heard of it

― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 9:18 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my 4yo son has been singing it constantly. He went into school yesterday and sang it to his 30-ish teacher. She said she was singing that song at karaoke on Friday. This is total saturation, folks.

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 9:43 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Conclusion: the song is crazy popular, you don't have to like it, and it may not get play in 2032, especially if the polar ice shelves melt and wreak havoc on coastal cities.

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 9:47 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

are you guys incapable of reading? we're talking about how popular it was BEFORE the billboard snafu

it was a random tiktok song like tons of others that chart & no one here talks about

The Billboard thing happens, which isn't what catapults it

the RESPONSE to the Billboard thing is what catapults it. It becomes a major news story so awareness of it completely saturates

"Bottoms Up (We Was A the Club)" was in like the same area as this at the time & now it's completely forgotten

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YwAaNFJwRA

Old Town Road >>>>>>> Fuck You

― flopson, Tuesday, June 25, 2019 10:31 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm though i've also been always allergic to Fuck You (and Crazy)

egitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars
legitimate stars

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 2:13 AM (twelve hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

When it’s not a legitimate star the Billboard has a way of shutting that whole thing down

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 7:49 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

u can tell its a deej pile on when ppl start purposefully misreading things that are not hard to understand...obviously i like plenty of one hit wonders & dont think "legitimate star" is a real thing but there's also obviously a clear difference between IE Drake & Lil Nas X at the current moment in terms of their nature to stardom, stop being willfully stupid

Old Town Road >>>>>>> Fuck You

― flopson, Tuesday, June 25, 2019 10:31 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm though i've also been always allergic to Fuck You (and Crazy)

― omar little, Tuesday, June 25, 2019 2:18 PM (fifty-three seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wonder if I meant "Crazy" instead of "Fuck You"? I think I did. "Crazy" was more acclaimed. "Fuck You" was probably slightly more divisive

But "Crazy" Definitely got the exact same "You lost, this song is popular and good and arguing about it means you're wrong" treatment at the time

Deej, I don't think anyone disputes that the Billboard fuckery literally occurred right before the song exploded, but I think everyone but you agrees that correlation is not causation

old town road is better than anything chief keef ever released

laughing at these lames like yee haw haw haw

"Bottoms Up (We Was A the Club)" was in like the same area as this at the time & now it's completely forgotten

I will NEVER forget the BoyBoy Westcoast

Deej, I don't think anyone disputes that the Billboard fuckery literally occurred right before the song exploded, but I think everyone but you agrees that correlation is not causation

― space invaders are smokin penises!!!! (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 2:20 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

everyone does not agree with that!

both things can be true--the song very well may have faded away had Billboard not f'ed up AND many of the people who were exposed it to it and liked it after it's profile was raised don't know or care much about the Billboard thing

i never implied that everyone who likes it cares about the billboard thing ... just that something becoming insanely popular can absolutely come about from extra contextual shit like that ... the charts are not some organic reward system of song quality

Crazy and Fuck You are both really nothing tracks for me, the first one i find p annoying and the second one i've heard a lot and yet can barely remember a single thing about it.

awareness of the song exploded bc of the billboard thing, but i don't think its popular bc people somehow dont like the song or something

Damn, this is exactly why the Red Scare podcast is more popular than NPR's Fresh Air this week!

if you guys didnt have ppl here hating on this song you'd probably like the song less. i feel like this song almost needs an antagonist to feel this strongly about

Damn, this is exactly why the Red Scare podcast is more popular than NPR's Fresh Air this week!

― space invaders are smokin penises!!!! (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 2:29 PM (twenty-eight seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just bc one is better made than the other doesn't mean the fact that one is on a major platform with brand recognition doesn't also effect its level of popularity

More data: my just about 12-year old described the song exactly the same way as my older daughter - "it's good, it's funny" - but then added "it's a meme song." So I asked her, but is it a good song or good because of the memes? She admitted it's catchy, but what she liked most about it was that it was really simple and repetitive, so it was easy to learn dances to it. She knew about it from TikTok and that was about it, but her friend in the car was very well aware of the Billboard controversy.

old town road is better than anything chief keef ever released

― VAR me to the end of yawn (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 3:21 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Better rapping.

are you guys incapable of reading? we're talking about how popular it was BEFORE the billboard snafu

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Who cares, and why are you rude about it?

the family seal iirc

old town road is better than anything chief keef ever released
― VAR me to the end of yawn (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 3:21 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Better rapping.

― Mazzy Tsar (PBKR), Tuesday, June 25, 2019 1:44 PM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark

more in the pocket certainly

anybody who thinks the billboard snafu didn't contribute somewhat to the song's increasing popularity is kidding themselves, I mean y'all know how bad it pains me to say "deej otm" but the massive outpouring of press coverage from people excited to wax lyrical with their theories about "subverting country music" et al meant people who wouldn't have heard about the song otherwise did hear about & checked it out

those people loved it because it's a fuckin jam no doubt, and under-12 kids love the shit out of it automatically, so when this song got into the hands of moms & dads it was destined for total cultural saturation. but those moms and dads heard it because some mainstream outlets were writing about it

thank you for subscribing to my newsletter

if there's anything I know about working moms and dads, it's the incredibly common experience of hearing about something, remembering it for the duration of the work day, putting their kids to bed, finally getting some alone time with the internet around 10pm and then using that time to stream a viral rap song they heard about

lol this is exactly how I heard it the first time

Yeah you know nothing about working parents

anybody who thinks the billboard snafu didn't contribute somewhat to the song's increasing popularity is kidding themselves

this is the actual position that no one has argued itt!

I don't think anyone disputes that the Billboard fuckery literally occurred right before the song exploded

actually yes, i will cop to being the one who disputes that particular narrative. the song was already exploding before the billboard snafu, and no number of posts saying it's fucking stupid or moving the goalposts is going to change the plain facts pointing clearly to that conclusion!

"old town road" was already #3 on spotify (up from #11 the prior week) and #5 on youtube w/ its red dead redemption clip alone (up from #20), comfortably the top streaming gainer on the entire hot 100, at the time leight's article was published -- like, by that time it was already clear it was least going to be a "juju on that beat" or "watch me (whip/nae nae)". like... at the very least! it was not just chilling, stabilized outside the top 40 ('not even top 40 off tiktok' -- i laughed) until the story broke and the remix happened... there has been literally no point between its chart debut and its peak when it has not had significant momentum. it jumped from #15 to #1 on the hot 100 before the billy ray cyrus remix had even come out. i would add that the remix is what really took the story from the pages of scattered music sites and twitter #discourse to your local evening news and its own dedicated ilm thread (i was literally apologizing about being the only person posting about the song in this thread as the developments unfolded).

again, there's no denying that the billboard fiasco lit a whole new flame under the song. but the initial contention that the song broke because of and after that story's emergence, and had not already broken thru as a tiktok phenom, is blatantly false.

on another note, the moment i knew it had connected cross-generationally was when i saw a big crowd of drunk ppl screaming along to it at a bar

I knew it had connected when Whiney and deej popped up here.

lol

I hope it’s number one all summer!

If it’s Number One next week it becomes one of only *12* songs to log 13 weeks at Number One

literally every 6-year-old kid in my son's kindergarten class is obsessed with this song and the teachers are all sick of it. i love the idea that this happened even a tiny little bit because of something Billboard did.

“She admitted it's catchy, but what she liked most about it was that it was really simple and repetitive, so it was easy to learn dances to it.“

15,000 years later mankind catches up with the voice of this child

Why does man start memes?

Taken at our writing center:

https://i.imgur.com/F9RausL.jpg

officially into “who let the dogs out” territory now

I like "Rodeo" as a sequel to "Old Town Road," but I wish Cardi would cut the swears for what is essentially children's music

― space invaders are smokin penises!!!! (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, June 24, 2019 5:10 PM (two days ago)

This is really true.

dont think "legitimate star is a real thing "

massive outpouring of press coverage from people excited to wax lyrical with their theories about "subverting country music"

I think that the song appeared on Billboard charts because it started blowing up and a song blowing up is not contingent on a chart to catalog that rise. Songs that are blowing up sometimes do stall and die, but in other cases they continue to rise and while there are a lot of factors as to what that might happen, I have never thought that internet think-pieces about the validity of Billboard chart designations were the culprit.

But hey, there's a first time for everything. I just wish the internet was around when Fishbone got fucked over by Soundscan (which ironically showed the commercial validity of country music; link for young'uns who don't remember this.)

Oh my god you guys have fucking brain damage

“Kids I know like this song therefore it becoming page news across the country had no or negligible effect on its rise” = “if I like a song it becomes impossible for me to acknowledge that it didn’t attain its position on the charts through the purity of the people’s love”

This is pop Stan logic

*front page news

This was the point that I made which people initially took issue with, which is not the same as saying "no one would listen to this if billboard hadn't happened:

also tbf my first exposure to this song was on tiktok & as ive said before if the song had first broken through those memes instead of billboard being dumb the popular response to this song would have been different imo

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Monday, June 24, 2019 5:07 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, it was charting, much like cotton eyed joe, whip/nae nae, and the macarena, none of which I remember being specific ILX cause celebres. .. how many of you have actually *seen* the memes that were on tiktok driving its popularity at this point?

the narrative attached to it via the Billboard snafu is absolutely part of the story of what's driven its success; that it gets blanket algorithmic press attention is 100% a result of the story of its rise being about Billboard & not teens drinking "yeehaw juice" on tiktok. the latter drove the numbers but the former is what drove it to where it stands today, to a cultural behemoth that ilxors argue someone disliking is somehow being disingenuous

So internet think-pieces suddenly help songs blow up? That's a novel thought.

"internet thinkpieces" do you think regular people somehow stopped consuming news in 2011?

Oh. Well, you sure showed me how I misunderstood things.

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Wednesday, June 26, 2019 9:43 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i showed how you're incapable of reading me in good faith when you disagree w me sure

literally every 6-year-old kid in my son's kindergarten class is obsessed with this song and the teachers are all sick of it. i love the idea that this happened even a tiny little bit because of something Billboard did.

― alpine static, Wednesday, June 26, 2019 1:03 AM (eleven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i love that you're arguing with a strawman

"old town road" was already #3 on spotify (up from #11 the prior week) and #5 on youtube w/ its red dead redemption clip alone (up from #20), comfortably the top streaming gainer on the entire hot 100, at the time leight's article was published -- like, by that time it was already clear it was least going to be a "juju on that beat" or "watch me (whip/nae nae)". like... at the very least! it was not just chilling, stabilized outside the top 40 ('not even top 40 off tiktok' -- i laughed) until the story broke and the remix happened... there has been literally no point between its chart debut and its peak when it has not had significant momentum. it jumped from #15 to #1 on the hot 100 before the billy ray cyrus remix had even come out. i would add that the remix is what really took the story from the pages of scattered music sites and twitter #discourse to your local evening news and its own dedicated ilm thread (i was literally apologizing about being the only person posting about the song in this thread as the developments unfolded).

again, there's no denying that the billboard fiasco lit a whole new flame under the song. but the initial contention that the song broke because of and after that story's emergence, and had not already broken thru as a tiktok phenom, is blatantly false.

― dyl, Tuesday, June 25, 2019 9:46 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how many people on ILX can honestly tell me they've heard Sech's Otro Trago, the current #7 song on the Spotify charts? Are the kids dancing to that one in kindergartens too? Do you know? Are you posting anecdotally about it in your music critic facebook threads? What about DDG's "Hold Up," currently in the YouTube top ten? Do you think this will be the next song to dominate the Hot 100 for 13 weeks?

Do you guys know who DDG is? Have you heard the name before?

sorry i have to go to the dentist today so im being extra testy & had some free time

at any rate its fine that people like this song, i dont think there's anything wrong for the pitchfork piece to argue that ppl are alienated by its popularity which seems to make liking it or disliking it beside the point (I don't even dislike it to the extent ppl probably think, as usual im more annoyed by how ppl respond to it than the the song itself), if anything i feel like ive been cornered into "hating" the song bc I skeptical of the story we're telling ourselves abt it

lmao you don't say

p sure alpine wasn't arguing with anyone

it seemed like he's saying, "i love the idea" as a reference to an idea that was being articulated on this thread but maybe he was just loving an idea from thin air

happy bday brad

hey i could be wrong, that post can be read in a lot of ways. and thank you deej!

I wasn't really trying to argue, but it's also entirely possible I sounded like I was arguing against a strawman. If so, sorry. Regardless, I can't go back and read carefully (sorry) to get totally oriented in this discussion.

But I will say that I don't really buy that the Billboard thing contributed in any truly meaningful way to this song's ubiquity. If it did, it's a *tiny* percentage of how big the song is now. The song was well on its way, imo.

Was the Billboard thing really front page news across the country? I mean, it generated an ILM thread and it was on my Twitter feed, but I honestly believe that of the, say, 500 ppl I know IRL who know/love this song, I would guess that 1 or 2 of them (at most) know about the Billboard controversy.

I don't know why I even jumped in, really. I just know that the song has taken over my kid's school in such a way that when that video came out a few weeks ago of LNX doing the song for a gym full of kids, my true first reax was "Most people don't realize how lit elementary schools are these days."

The teachers, helpers, after-school attendants, etc., all play pop music all the time. My kids know all this shit way before me, and they're both under 10.

i was first acquainted with this song from an ~8 year old in the park doing wheelies on his bike going, "you can't tell me nothing". Little young for Kanye, I thought to myself

Again, my 12-year-old daughter's 12-year-old friend knew about the Billboard controversy. In enough depth and with enough sophistication to recognize that the reason he was probably kicked off the country charts was because he was black.

elementary is lit
junior high is woke

xpost that's awesome. good for her. i could be way off, idk

i don't think anyone has mentioned that the tiktok memes around this song were HILARIOUS and basically the same as for harlem shuffle except that instead of everybody suddenly wilding out on the drop it was kids suddenly attired in cowboy gear for the verse, in a delicious reflection of the song's dual identity as urban and rural. it really was amazing and endlessly repeatable. and also feels a million years ago now. but the song itself, bridgeless, under 3 minutes ("a great pop song should be 2:50!!" - p townshend), is somehow sturdy enough to sustain it, to hold up to all those replays. it's impressive. of course a bit of coverage by the intelligentsia helps, all coverage helps.

I think people are conflating ubiquity among adults and ubiquity among kids, and it is resulting in a lot of talking past one another

in other words, if you want to know whether any given viral/tiktok/streaming sensation has traction among the kids, then ask a kid whether he's heard of them and not a 30-year-old

also maybe a bit of confusing adult-mediated spaces (the people deciding which songs are OK to play in elementary school are... not kids, nobody is a goofy movie-ing the kindergarten assembly) with ones that aren't

how many people on ILX can honestly tell me they've heard Sech's Otro Trago, the current #7 song on the Spotify charts?

that's #7 on the global charts. currently number 7 on the us spotify chart is...old town road remix by lil nas x ft. billy ray cyrus

can't nobody tell an ilxor nothing

how many of you have actually *seen* the memes that were on tiktok driving its popularity at this point?

I was there . . . on TikTok . . . when the memes were pushing “Old Town Road” to #1. I waaaaaas there . . .

a relatively minor example of this is if you play that one yoshi's island level song for equally online 30-year-olds and 13-year-olds and ask them what they think of first, playing yoshi's island or watching the meme that goes with it now

My kids have been listening to "9 to 5" a lot lately, I assume that is a Tik Tok meme as well.

Man, I loved “9 to 5” when I was in fifth grade (really). Fixated on the image/non-image of “pour myself a cup of ambition.”

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...

Attack ships taking the yeehaw challenge off the shoulder of Orion...

https://www.academia.edu/9528618/The_Social_World_of_Young_People

In enough depth and with enough sophistication to recognize that the reason he was probably kicked off the country charts was because he was black.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, June 26, 2019 2:14 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark

there are black artists on the country charts.....

12 year olds... not that sophisticated

Its really funny because if Lil Nas was really because of Billboard outcry, that means this guy's other Twitter thread is responsible for the biggest song in America

https://www.thedailybeast.com/viral-twitter-hoax-creator-shane-morris-starts-gofundme-to-hide-from-ms-13

For a bunch of ostensibly smart ppl who read writing you guys have a very strangely dismissive attitude towards the power NARRATIVES have to propel a story. It’s not just that the song got blanket coverage (yes it really did) but that it did so w a narrative that resonated w a vast number of people (including, yes, children)

i don't think anyone has mentioned that the tiktok memes around this song were HILARIOUS and basically the same as for harlem shuffle except that instead of everybody suddenly wilding out on the drop it was kids suddenly attired in cowboy gear for the verse, in a delicious reflection of the song's dual identity as urban and rural. it really was amazing and endlessly repeatable. and also feels a million years ago now. but the song itself, bridgeless, under 3 minutes ("a great pop song should be 2:50!!" - p townshend), is somehow sturdy enough to sustain it, to hold up to all those replays. it's impressive. of course a bit of coverage by the intelligentsia helps, all coverage helps.

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:25 (two hours ago) Permalink

There’s been a lot of preposterous shit written in this thread but nothing quite so ridiculous as a contention that the old town road yee haw juice memes were not insanely lame and uncool

hahahahahahaha

There’s been a lot of preposterous shit written in this thread but nothing quite so ridiculous as an expectation that most of a bunch of adults are fully aware of what old town road yee haw juice memes were let alone whether they were cool or insanely lame and uncool

Lol I questioned that adults knew those memes up thread & got clowned for that you guys need to get on the same page

What is more powerful than a story? I give you your new king Old Town Road the Broken first of his name

is this a good time to say we should probably admit that deej was right about Chief Keef super influential on the direction rap was headed?

Guys, he dropped Panini. Why are you still arguing about how Old Town Road went viral?

Played "Panini" at dinner tonight (appropriately enough). My kids and wife hadn't heard it yet, or even heard of it, and immediately put on Old Town Road instead. I asked my 12-year old if she thought Old Town Road was more of a good song or more of a Who Let the Dogs Out type song, and she immediately lit up and said "oh, Who Let the Dogs Out, for sure!" And my wife added that the song has been a thing at work for a month. I just only time will tell if it has the staying power of Who Let the Dogs Out. The more immediate question is how long until it shows up in the trailer for an animated kids movie.

It's in the trailer for the new Rambo movie, it's well on the way.

very very few songs get to 12 weeks at number one--it's gonna stick around, and it's gonna make a comeback when those elementary school students grow capable of nostalgia.

i'd say it's less a 'who let the dogs out' and more an 'all star'

opening on miley's 2043 comeback tour

Get reading for Homecoming 2020!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O14xb3cJ6rw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b07-yKnKRMQ

Every generation gets the Wanted: Dead or Alive it deserves

It’s not just that the song got blanket coverage (yes it really did) but that it did so w a narrative that resonated w a vast number of people (including, yes, children)

I'm skeptical about the first part of this, but understand that it depends on how you define "blanket" and the media you consume. Obviously, it was covered by a lot of big outlets.

But I just don't believe the second part of this is true. I live in a very regular-ass, medium-sized American town, and I think if you walked around and asked 10,000 people here if (a) they know the song, and (b) they know the Billboard narrative, most would answer yes to (a) and 95+% would answer no to (b).

I’m loath to defend the viewpoint of someone who can’t see value in Yee Haw Juice memes, but I think it’s entirely possible to believe that the Billboard Thinkpiece Debate aspect of “Old Town Road” is a minor plank in its current massive platform while also acknowledging that it played a sizable role in reaching the more bottlenecked audience who picked it up while it was still breaking beyond the initial Tiktok crowd (who were largely the ones to get it on the charts in the first place).
I mean it’s clear from the title of this thread that that was where ILX, at least, got onboard, and I too recall my local news (who by no means default to being plugged-in on The Hot News Trends In Music) first covering it when the controversy broke. As someone who admires LNX as much for his Extremely Online algorithm-mancer talents as his canny ear for a hook I don’t see any shame in the fact that he successfully leveraged that narrative to kick his career into third gear.

Anyway “C7osure” is a really sweet song and I look forward to the Lil Nas X hype train having at least enough momentum to get us to a full-length album, which will hopefully also be good

To be clear I don’t see any shame in it either ... I’m kind of fascinated by his canniness tbh, he’s also pretty much the only artist who seems comfortable / fluent in Online.

Still no matter how talented someone is there’s always elements of chance in success like this & I just think the billboard narrative made for something to root for whereas the tiktok narrative — had that been the one a label ran with to help “break” him with a crossover audience — be much more divisive and less effective

how many people on ILX can honestly tell me they've heard Sech's Otro Trago, the current #7 song on the Spotify charts? Are the kids dancing to that one in kindergartens too? Do you know? Are you posting anecdotally about it in your music critic facebook threads? What about DDG's "Hold Up," currently in the YouTube top ten? Do you think this will be the next song to dominate the Hot 100 for 13 weeks?

"otro traco": #74 spotify us (weekly, up 14) (#70 daily); #30 youtube us (weekly, up 1)
"hold up": n/a spotify us (weekly or daily); #60 youtube us (weekly, debut) currently trending sharply downward since music video premiere one week ago (song features popular youtuber queen naija)

so no it's evident neither of these songs are even close to being on that level, lol (altho i expect "otro traco" could end up bouncing around the lower tiers of the hot 100 if its gains continue; ddg song will spend one week on the hot 100 at most if even that).

i'm well aware that songs routinely perform well on one service or another for a brief period of time, meaning exactly nothing in the long run. everything i've said in defense of my position has been not only about how well "old town road" was ranking, but also the sheer amount of upward momentum it was exhibiting at essentially every point of its (at that point) weeks-long ascent, especially for an artist who was basically unknown before this song. the only song currently in a comparable situation (new artist's breakout, strong upward momentum as exhibited on *multiple* streaming platforms) is lil tecca's "ransom", which, whaddya know, is currently bounding up the hot 100 with strong gains every week and will probably go top 20 if not top 10 (similar to what polo g's song just recently did). i guess you'd say the jury's still out on whether that song's going to be a hit, that it's too soon to say that it's broken out? (oh but adults don't know it yet! goalposts.) "old town road" was doing even better, by some distance, than that at the time the billboard snafu story was posted; it was obviously headed straight for the top 10 at least -- again, with at-the-time virtually no airplay, no billboard ballyhoo, and no exposure beyond its performance on the streaming services that was catalyzed by the tiktok thing.

like, by this point it's fairly clear that no amount of data points is going to budge you from your position, which is fine. but there's no really no need to try to suggest that the facts i acknowledge in support my (correct) position are misread or not placed in their proper context, especially when your own rebuttal pulls numbers from, as pointed out above, the wrong damn chart. at least you are now being direct about your frustration re: ppl being dumb/wrong online about something popular -- like, i too groaned at that one twitter opportunist's brazenly inaccurate but very viral thread about the country charts.

thank u for coming to my tiktok ted talk! it is actually really dumb that i have even bothered spilling this much e-ink over this shite but i did want to raise my hand as an objector after whiney said no one was arguing that the song didn't break (shortly) after the billboard thing. because it didn't.

the fuck is tiktok

fun / interesting discussion, btw.

i'm pretty sure i like "Panini" more than "Old Town Road" but it's really hard to measure that because the latter is like wallpaper in my house at this point

xp tiktok is the musical.ly app, if you've ever seen that, rebranded/relaunched. its current niche is somewhere between the former musical.ly and vine apps -- short/amusing clips of teens dancing/lp syncing to songs, often looped

I’m not clear on how pointing out that it was more successful than the songs i pulled arbitrarily from those charts is relevant if we’re talking about the narrative that took hold as the song broke. My point of contention was that if that narrative had been about the tik tok memes instead of a narrative about billboard, it would be a much more divisive hit, of which there are many (no one is having these impassioned discussions about the massive success of polo g); certainly you could argue it’s much less likely the remix (which unquestionably enhanced its rise) would have been turned around as quickly; it was a major PR slam dunk. And I still maintain that if the broader perception had been that this hit was a result of annoying tiktok memes rather than country music crossover history, the mainstream awareness of this unquestionable hit song would have been interpreted entirely differently. No this does not mean that I’m saying it wouldn’t have been a hit, or even that it would have gone number one. I specially said it would have been received much differently! The massive Sueco song is a good example of this, if you’re looking for a better example of tiktok driven fame.

If you’re asking if I think the song would have been as big without the billboard meme I would say definitely not; but I never argued it wasn’t really a hit or it wasn’t doing well off tik tok streams, I’m talking about how it is received by today show hosts and elementary music school classes, which aren’t performing polo g’s “pop out”

Like this is a song fucking ken burns is weighing in on in pitchfork interviews, he has literally never been asked about a rap song before unless there’s something from the end of the jazz doc I’ve forgotten. That level of crossover success didn’t come solely bc there was a viral novelty song on tik tok, it came bc the big narrative about it involved country industry gatekeepers trying to draw lines around genre in a way that suggest racism

honestly...Ken Burns being asked about Old Town Road, that's some shit right there

okay that all makes sense to me and i would agree there. looking back upthread i definitely misinterpreted what you meant when you wrote "the popular response to this song would have been different imo" -- i thought you were actually arguing that the song was not on the course to being a big hit, lol, especially when subsequent responses continued to reference the charts and numbers and such. thank you for clarifying and sorry if i was a dick.

Tried to find Griel’s take (haven’t seen one) but Xgau weighs in on his website’s blog:

Q: Do you like "Old Town Road"? -- Alexander Robertson, Wilton, Connecticut

A: I like "Old Town Road" in the Billy Ray Cyrus remix. But I don't love it. As a song I think it tops Childish Gambino's "This Is America" but not Cardi B's "Bodak Yellow," two previous must-hear this-is-a-phenomenon singles I got on late because I'm so album-oriented in this phase of my life, but found none of the three as culturally or aesthetically compelling as I was supposed to. This may be because I'm 77 and may be because most current "memes," if that's what these are, are less intrinsically compelling than must-hears should be. More than, let us say, "Beat It" or "Hound Dog" (but maybe not the overrated "Heartbreak Hotel"), they are pure functions of an information system less universal than such information systems are credited with being. This is why so many "memes" would once just have been called "hypes." On the other hand, taking "Old Town Road" off the country chart strikes me as racist pure and simple, because country radio remains racist regardless of the Darius Ruckers and Kane Browns it makes room for. And of course, it's also sexist in an era when so many of the edgiest country singers are women: Miranda Lambert, Angaleena Presley, Becky Warren, Margo Price, Ashley Monroe, Mary Gauthier, even Kacey Musgraves, can I mention Lori McKenna, and I know I'm forgetting people.

Not gonna dunk on that take overall but find it amusing that he takes a different Elvis song down a peg seemingly out of (rightful) nervousness about the optics of his saying “but it’s no [Elvis song]” in the first place

There’s been a lot of preposterous shit written in this thread but nothing quite so ridiculous as a contention that the old town road yee haw juice memes were not insanely lame and uncool

the uncoolness was part of the point iirc. 'cool' is not cool anymore, granddad!

I love watching people wrestle with whether they should like this semi-novelty song and what it means about them

the struggle is real

When your favorite song comes on...wait for it!🤠 @LilNasX pic.twitter.com/Zdxd8QgdSt

— Aussies Doing Things (@aussiesdointhgs) June 28, 2019

No matter how you feel about the song, dog ... otm?

This was our clap-out song on the last day of school. If you hate it, hearing it in the context of 250 kids aged 5-14 singing along...might make you hate it even more. Or not.

apparently there is a version of "old town road" with lil nas x edited out

Is it called “34 Ghosts IV”

Rodeo and panini are in the top ten 🙄

idk man, I recently Shazamed Post Malone’s “Sunflower,” Dan & Shay’s “Tequila,” A Boogie Wit The Hoodie’s brap bap da doodap MJ song and the DJ Khaled song with SZA and ... I’m fine with ending contemporary popism and electing a novelty song creator our new mayor

The difference between panini and sunflower is barely perceptible

sunflower is a lot better than panini

correct

Hey panini don’t you be meany is a lyric that understands its true audience

People who are intimidated by sandwiches?

It’s a good concept in the sense that distinctive words make for good concepts ... ws always a fan of basswood lane’s MySpace era rap jam “ciabatta bread”

People who are intimidated by sandwiches?

It’s about some anime character, not a sandwich. but that doesn’t mean it won’t make me hungry

I don't buy sandwiches, I make my own #Publix

Lol anime ... of course

he has just come out on his twitter page

many figured he was not hetero given his past running a stan twitter/tweetdecker account but still cool

Yeah good for him

By true audience I meant 4 year olds but please continue to be perplexed by his success

his label was trying to cover up his past as a nicki minaj stan account because it obviously signaled that he's gay, i'm glad that for his sake that the farce can end

Seven years ago first week of July, Frank Ocean went public with his yearnings ftr

I still don't know who this is, but good for him!

wow, christgau truly is the dean wormer of music criticism

It’s about some anime character, not a sandwich. but that doesn’t mean it won’t make me hungry

― mott the hoopleheads (voodoo chili), Sunday, June 30, 2019 2:06 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ahh not anime its a character from the cartoon "Chowder" (?) which lasted from 2007-2010 and there's a character in it named Panini

https://pitchfork.com/news/lil-nas-x-releases-new-old-town-road-remix-with-young-thug-and-mason-ramsey-listen/

Dude just bought himself another week at Number 1

Mason Ramsey ethers Thugger on this

Kinda reminds me ZTT Records in the 80’s releasing multiple versions of a single with different mixes over the course of several months to goose its chart longevity
Not complaining, ofc, we got some good remixes - and chart placements - out of that practice

i honestly thought the bieber remix of “bad guy” would vault it to no. 1 but now....

billie’s remix is more akin to early 10s trends in chart goosing — missy on katy perry’s “last friday night,” kesha and nicki on “til the world ends” etc

that, plus someone probably figured "it worked for despacito"

young thug's voice sounds so good on this lol

to add to ppl's case studies about what normies irl think abt this song: apparently one of my cow*rkers (in her 50s) thought that it was a billy ray cyrus song that simply featured 'a rap guy'. when the original version played on the radio and ended w/o cyrus's vocals she thought the station must have decided to edit him out/fade the song out early

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/arts/music/blanco-brown-the-git-up-old-town-road.html

The country-rap song they did let on the country charts is dreadful.

I like it!

“The Git Up,” he’s said in interviews, is part of a sound he calls “trailertrap” — “country music with 808s, hi-hat snares, kick drums and beatboxing.”

i'm sure elementary school gym classes have been needing new material for a while

i assume it will be on top of billboard's country chart for ages, regardless of how much (little) country airplay it ends up scoring

i find it odd that the 'country-trap' label is being used for that tune tho, and apparently accepted/repeated. if that song is 'country-trap', then so is "body like a back road"

and "meant to be" etc etc

lil nas x is a commie, hope you're all pleased, I know I am

it’s ok to steal from rich people

— nope (@LilNasX) January 18, 2019

two weeks away from the longest lived number one in chart history
https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8520176/lil-nas-x-old-town-road-history-five-burning-questions

and likely to make it there in the homestretch on the back of area 51 memedom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA7xDP9sQzk

i got y’all for free!
let’s do this shit! https://t.co/l09PRGGMQj pic.twitter.com/LEMR4CSesg

— nope (@LilNasX) July 14, 2019

mason ramsey and lil nas x proving the existence of extraterrestrial life would maybe justify our life inside the simulation

Big look for Anthony fantano

The next level approaches.

y’all think i can get dolly parton and megan thee stallion on a old town road remix?

— nope (@LilNasX) July 15, 2019

🐴🦄 @LilNasX https://t.co/jD8WgNNNPI pic.twitter.com/WQWwW7sbi2

— Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) July 17, 2019

i'm all for him keeping this at number one through the end of the year if only for the novelty

can't wait for Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Drake's appearances

maybe just start going through the alphabet
feat. björk, blueface and asha bhosle

Burna Boy for Billy Ray, Busiswa for Dolly P = African remix

Been waiting for Dolly and Willie to do it.

speaking of the alphabet you know zz top's version would rule

I like to think that was the product of you making 26 alliterative lists of feature artists

Been waiting for Dolly and Willie to do it.

lads

zz top and bun b

peep and xxx

Feat. Y2K, YG, E-40, EMF, AOC and AC/DC (PDQ Bach "Alphabet Soup" Remix) - sponsored by KFC

LFO remix:
"Cowboy hat from Gucci
Wrangler on my booty
Itchy and Scratchy had a dog named Poochie"

zz top and bun b

didn’t mean for that to sound catty!

LFO remix:

idgi (and also a little late to get them/him, at least there’s a few broken husks of men being propped up in a studio to make a final AC/DC album over another husk’s tapes)

now that you mention it, i bet axl would totally be down for this

ZZ Top actually did a “cover” of Houston rap classic “25 lighters” but you probably already know this
― brimstead, Thursday, July 18, 2019 12:22 PM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

didn’t mean for that to sound catty!

― brimstead, Thursday, July 18, 2019 12:23 PM (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

didn't sound catty! but i did know that....i saw an article once that billy gibbon's studio was popular with a lot of houston rappers

xpost well-adjusted, semi-woke axl rose is one of the weirdest developments in music of the last decade

idgi (and also a little late to get them/him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHuGG_FsC20

No.

what are you guys doing to this thread

riding it till we can't no mo

You'd have to like the song to really like these words; I do, and I do.

As the late great Hunter S. Thompson would say, it’s a savage journey to the heart of the American dream. It defines the yeehaw state of mind. At a moment of nationwide apocalypse, it’s a love letter to everything that used to be cool about this once-proud land, the final stand of the last great American jukebox hero.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/old-town-road-lil-nas-x-yeehaw-manifesto-859566/

Wait, so who is this Blanco Brown cat? My kids were just dancing to it. I guess country-rap is a thing (again)?

yep, kinda.

In other news, I saw on Instagram that Blondie did "Old Town Road" live at Forest Hills last night

weird

new remix with bts

https://www.spin.com/2019/07/watch-blondie-cover-lil-nas-xs-old-town-road/

saw that last night, came right after rapture. wasn't a very good version, but was fun to see all the olds try to figure out what song it was.

i saw blondie do "old town road" at bethel woods upstate on saturday! it is my daughter's favorite song and she was fucking thrilled. they also did "groove is in the heart" and "love to love you"

the sub-two minute "Seoul Town Road" BTS remix feels like it should carry this for two more weeks at #1 and then (maybe?) he can lean into rodeo/panini with a video or something? both those tracks are slipping and i dunno if he missed his window to transition into the next hit or not.

also: we called the alphabet soup stuff a week ago!

Can't help seeing that as Bind Torture Strangle

they also did "groove is in the heart" and "love to love you"

How was Harry's falsetto?

I hope they did "Old Town Road" in falsetto.

she sounded great for 74!

there's a version of the video without the "plot" that comes in at a cool 2:37, enough for a toddler to get her OTR fix and move on.

Is this going to be number one for eternity now. Will it still be number one in 2055 or during Futurama years?

the year is 2050, stuart little is president, the 10 year world war led by shrek & thanos has ended. old town road has reached its 1,615th week at number one and brother nature has stopped global warming. the world is at peace.

— nope (@LilNasX) May 28, 2019

BTS is the first one with diminishing returns for me

I think of it like a marriage between royal families where the primary function (beyond aforementioned ZTT-esque chart goosing) is making it clear to concerned parties on stan twitter that this alliance has been forged, and on that level I think it's pretty unimpeachable.

And it's hit 17 weeks. Chris Molanphy on it all:

https://slate.com/culture/2019/07/lil-nas-x-old-town-road-billboard-chart-record-longest-number-1.html

Lil Wayne REMIX Old Town Road @LilTunechi #Lollapalooza pic.twitter.com/DkCmNy67bj

— TheNew1043JAMS (@1043JAMS) August 4, 2019

weezy's no mason ramsey

Waiting for the Neil Diamond remix

idg this song or its durability

My godson was singing it this weekend; he didn't sing "Despacito."

no one should sing "Despacito"

this song's gonna be dead as the floss in about a week

It will outlive us all.

This song will be played in weddings decades from now.

yep

i wouldn't be mad if so (i sure do hope society will still exist decades from now!) but it's possible it won't be. predictions about the encroaching ubiquity of "i gotta feeling" for instance seemed completely reasonable at the time but didn't quite come true? idk maybe you would disagree w/ that assessment

that said, i feel like mainstream pop music is finally starting to push through its growing pains from the past few years to usher in something of a sea change for how it'll largely sound going forward, and i find it hard to believe that this song won't be seen as foundational & catalytic on some level

not to say it's especially novel or that its sonic elements haven't been scattered elsewhere thruout the pop landscape for the past decade+, but the way its seemingly irreverent combination of elements so strongly associated w/ (recently) very narrowly targeted lanes in broadcast media was embraced so wholeheartedly and so broadly was quite unique and probably served as something of a wakeup call to the industry + gatekeepers.

like, above all others that have slowly chipped away at the mold, this is the song that has exposed the normative media strategy over the past five years of radio for the sham that it was. like, hello, okay, so crossover DOES still exist! -- members of the public DO indeed still want to feel like they exist in the same fucking world as their neighbors! now it's time to get with the program, and keep it moving.

YES

Has anyone done this at karaoke yet?

My company is getting a karaoke machine and I predict it will be one of the first songs performed (not by me)

i still hear i gotta feeling at weddings

Has anyone done this at karaoke yet?

Mid-May of this year, I was putting together a karaoke list with my students* and they all agreed on this song. No one actually chose it come time for us to actually do the karaoke but it was unanimously chosen as a good option.

*young adults mostly of hispanic heritage, one Nigerian lady

i don't think it'd be fun to sing but the crowd reaction would prob make up for that

My friend just did it at karaoke this weekend. At least it's a short song

seems like one of those songs where before you're done singing the first line you'll know you either nailed it or you're in for a long 2:04

otm, so much rests on where you choose to place the YEAAAAAAAAAAH

interesting with this chart record also is that billie eilish must have been sat doggedly at number 2 now for quite a significant amount of weeks also

Eilish: the new CCR?

the specific word/note where everything would go wrong, if it went wrong, is probably the first "road," that or not knowing the horse tack verse

or forgetting that that the correct pronunciation of "matte" is "matty"

http://vm.tiktok.com/8hDvUD/

lmao

hahaha

otm

v good

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/blake-shelton-trace-adkins-take-shot-at-lil-nas-x-old-town-road-1203304986/

blake shelton and trace adkins have created zero good music between the two of them

had to go back and listen to "this ain't no thinkin' thing" again to verify - like a poor singer's version of "seminole wind" with dumb lyrics. '96 is when country really started to suck

Ugh, of all bs they had to pick Hank Jr. to big-up?

To some listeners, that’s just Shelton and Adkins pitting real country, as represented by Williams Jr., against fake country, in the form of Lil Nas X’s country-trap hybrid. Others have wondered about the optics of bringing up Lil Nas X, one of the few black stars in history to have a substantial hit with a country (or at least country-adjacent) song, in an unfavorable comparison to, of all people, Williams Jr., who for decades has been practically a poster boy for the Confederate flag and pro-Confederacy sentiments.

Among those expressing concern over the juxtaposition was David Cantwell, a country music author and historian whose books include an acclaimed Merle Haggard biography (and who wrote about Hank Jr.’s complicated legacy for the New Yorker). “On the new Blake Shelton single, saying ‘Hell Right’ to someone taking off ‘Old Town Road’ and putting on something else is, in this moment, a dick move,” Cantwell tweeted. “OK, whatever. But taking off Lil Nas in favor of Hank Jr. will be predictably, understandably read as a racist dick move. WTF Blake?” Other country music journalists and observers chimed in in agreement with Cantwell’s take.

A spokesperson for Shelton insists no disrespect toward Lil Nas X was intended in the new song: “It’s absolutely not throwing any kind of shade at Lil Nas X at all. Blake says this literally has nothing to do with anything at all except how much the song is played. It could have been ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ or any other (overplayed) song.” Speaking of Billy Ray Cyrus, who did a duet with Lil Nas X on a remix of “Old Town Road”: “Blake talked to Billy Ray,” said the spokesperson, “and he thought it was funny.”

https://yahoo.com/entertainment/blake-shelton-takes-shot-old-003320704.html

all my racist friends are coming over tonight

Pretty sure Webster's uses a photo of Shelton for one of the definitions of "Dick Move"

Oh, I didn't realize Billy Ray thought it was funny, nm.

according to a Shelton publicist

I asked another white guy my age and he didn't think it was racist

was he Shelton's publicist

haha I meant the fact the publicist asked Billy Ray if it was cool instead of Lil Nas X

lol i love that. we talked to billy ray and he said we were cool. ????

Glad they're getting called out for this. It drove me crazy when Tim McGraw released an album called Sundown Heaven Town 5 years ago and nobody said anything.

ha -- that McGraw album has a couple of his best tunes (and McGraw's the Dem).

sundown town yikes

wow, I've never heard that term before.

"hell right" is also not a term

hell right fucking yeah

maybe they are trying to make hell right a thing.

the song appears to be about the correct way to party ("raise hell right"), which appears to be:

- get twice as drunk as you initially planned
- be a football fan
- play hank williams junior (??) instead of the most popular song in America

so far so fuckheaded, but I'm confused by "a bottle to burn and a fire to light". what does that refer to? molotov cocktails??

It’s def NAGL but I’m inclined to believe Blake in that he HAS made very awkward inroads at genre-crossing and racial harmony (I’ve said this before but this video is a great example of when someone is trying to woke but ends up lowkey racist)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JXAgv665J14

I mean, it could be a Miley sitch of abandoning black culture when it’s not convinient or profitable, but Blake was obv on that country-rap ish six years ago and could probably be milking it idk.

fuck bro country

there's absolutely nothing about the 'genre-crossing' nashville-approved country hits that's in any way supportive of racial harmony

^ otm

except "Old Town Road."

I thought OTR wasn’t Nashville approved!

once you get Cyrus it's a chef's kiss

there's absolutely nothing about the 'genre-crossing' nashville-approved country hits that's in any way supportive of racial harmony

I'm reluctant to give Shelton the benefit of the doubt because he sucks.

Hank Jr. is explicitly right wing, explicitly racist, explicitly a piece of shit so saying they turned him on when they could have said Johnny Cash or Willie or whoever is absolutely code

In April 2012, Trace Adkins announced that he was backing Mitt Romney in the presidential election. Part of the reason is that he's a proud supporter of the NRA, and feels Republicans better represent his ideology. “I don’t like the direction that Democrats want to take this country,” he said. “I’ve been a Republican since I registered to vote in 1980.”

In August, Adkins performed a new song called 'Tough People Do' that many wanted to call the "GOP anthem." He sang it at the Republican National Convention, but said it was a song for all people, no matter their political affiliation.

Trace Adkins Set to Perform at Fundraiser Where Donald Trump Will Headline

If racists get triggered by OTR does that mean I have to like it

i think whiney is right these civil rights activists definitely deserve the benefit of the doubt

https://www.thedailybeast.com/in-trumps-america-homophobe-blake-shelton-is-the-sexiest-man-alive

Hank Jr. is explicitly right wing, explicitly racist, explicitly a piece of shit so saying they turned him on when they could have said Johnny Cash or Willie or whoever is absolutely code

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, August 17, 2019 2:21 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hank is pretty much who every country song uses as a signifier though (see "My Church," "How I'll Always Be," "Redneck Crazy," you could really do this forever) -- it's code, but code for "REAL country music, none of that pop crap," which obviously has certain implications baked in, but one step removed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oWe5sh2ljw

Bullshit that Trace Adkins hasn’t made any good music. The Stubborn One is an all time song.

As posted above, there are a whole bunch of "real" country artists, depending on your taste. George Jones, Merle, Willie, Johnny Cash, Hank Sr., Waylon. They just happened to pick the one best known these days for being a reactionary racist.

he's he's beenike, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine) at 4:26 17 Aug 19

Hank Jr. is explicitly right wing, explicitly racist, explicitly a piece of shit so saying they turned him on when they could have said Johnny Cash or Willie or whoever is absolutely code

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, August 17, 2019 2:21 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hank is pretty much who every country song uses as a signifier though (see "My Church," "How I'll Always Be," "Redneck Crazy," you could really do this forever) -- it's code, but code for "REAL country music, none of that pop crap," which obviously has certain implications baked in, but one step removed.

understood, also I believe the relationship between my post and your post is no coincidence

I remember reading this Tape Op interview with Roy Orbison's producer and he's been doing Roy records in Nashville, he gets called into a meeting with Fred Rose from Acuff Rose and a bunch of the founders of Nashville saying quit making n-word music in this town or you're done. to his credit he said fuck you and left

but they tolerated David Allen Coe's racist stuff, dudes like Johnny Rebel existed....parts of country music culture aren't deeply racist, including the Country Boy Can Survive shit everyone loved in my farm town high school

I will defend some of Hank, Jr.'s eighties music too -- tougher than that slushy period allowed.

whisky bent and hellbound is great

I just think it's so weird how ilx forever glosses over this stuff with country while ferreting out every way everything else is problematic

You’re ridiculous bringing up David Allen Coe and Johnny Rebel’s dumbass private press mail order underground albums “existing” as an example of anything that has to do with Nashville.

There’s like exponentially more outwardly racist/fascist punk and metal bands

I just think it's so weird how ilx forever glosses over this stuff with country while ferreting out every way everything else is problematic

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

"Gloss over" is doing a lot of work in this sentence.

I heard a Charlie Daniels verse about how drug dealers should be lynched ("Simple Man") on a radio station in Chattanooga last year.

What, like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMzADAzipow

yes Whiney no shit do you really think there's any possible way I didn't know that?

also feel free to address the articles I posted about yr boy Blake

"You're ridiculous for bringing up David Allen Coe in a conversation about race and country"

*brings up whaddabout Burzum in a conversation about race and country*

also feel free to address the articles I posted about yr boy Blake

So anyway, are some of you happy now

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/chart-beat/8527749/billie-eilish-bad-guy-number-one-hot-100

Duh!

Expect several good tweets from both camps are forthcoming

Next OTR remix should feature Eilish.

xpost Well yes

congratulations to billie eilish!! u deserve this!!

— nope (@LilNasX) August 19, 2019

http://i.ibb.co/94wMYGF/Lil-Nas-x-Time.jpg

i'm scared

me too. of the meacham and mcgraw article.

.@KatyPerry, @LilNasX and @JeffBezos pose together in new photo. pic.twitter.com/wwtt4K8Yt0

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) August 21, 2019

Bezos has a real Matthew Lesko vibe in that one

My son asked me tonight if I’ve ever heard of the song “Old Town Road.”

Well, HAVE YOU, you oldster?

Bezos has a real Matthew Lesko vibe in that one

― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Wednesday, August 21, 2019 4:46 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I learned within the past month that Wall Street floor traders dress in goofy ass clown suits like this

pic.twitter.com/qxcowYhtMx

— |L I Z Z O| (@lizzo) August 27, 2019

giving old town road a good ol' second line march
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_cLDU9yt9k

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=85v_vtFhKUw

New Impressionz ( dc bouncebeat go-go version) . Have heard other DC go-go groups do it too, but this was first one that popped up on YouTube

just heard this for the first time

envy my hermit game?

what did you think?

i got the morbses in the back

and here we go full circle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T-gwyR7ugE

I quite like his deal musically even though it's an amalgamation of several awful things

Well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6swmTBVI83k

decent song, awesome video

goodness me

wow that song and video are very gay

good thing Lil Nas is too

<3

holy cannoli

lol at literally giving the devil a lapdance

So good

Not since the “Allentown” video...

This is a journey

the kid knows how to get attention

“lemme pop this booty and the this devil’s neck”

being gay rules

he's one of my fav social media personalities/celebs but his music does nothing for me at all. there's been no real aesthetic sense post "old town road"... this song is just annoying, his vocals are really grating. the "holiday" song was also pretty bad to me

I hadn't seen this 2019 clip until last night:

.@lilnasx speaks the truth about his choice to come out while at the top. More of The Shop on @HBO now! pic.twitter.com/wETNaPUU5t

— UNINTERRUPTED (@uninterrupted) September 4, 2019

Or as a bottom.

he’s cute

man kevin hart's squeaky voice going "HE SAID HE WAS GAY SO WHAT?!?!!?" is such a buzzkill

I really like how all of his singles post-"Old Town Road" have been teased in brief "snippets" that become legendary among his fanbase long before being officially released. But yeah I agree J0rdan re: the lack of aesthetic sense since OTR. I still like "Panini" a lot.

The aesthetic sense of "Old Town Road" was godawful so I'm glad he didn't continue with it; it's okay that dude is a reliable 5.5-6/10 with his music

The tweet is good

pic.twitter.com/F8EE7pGVS8

— nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) March 26, 2021

Am I missing something

Well you know

i was expecting the song to be dull and dated-sounding based on the clip that somehow amassed some level of hype on his twitter. honestly the full song is better than i expected but it's nothing great. well done on the vid. overall certainly better than "holiday" which was a mess

he really has no style beyond the obviousness of his intention to ensure that everything he puts out, for better and worse, is memeable #content

yeah he strikes me as a preview of what the stars of 2023 are gonna look like

Idk, I just thought his music's aesthetic was just simple pop-rap, if that makes any sense. He's obviously not the best musician/rapper out there, but his music has a certain sense of lightness and accessibility that feels refreshing at times (think: cardi b's invasion of privacy, though nas don't have nearly as much personality)

but yeah, decent song, incredible video

feel like FOX News is about to make this go megaviral

the song is his best since "old town road" but that's not really saying much

this is my fav lil nas x, appropriately i know it bcuz he used to post it all the time soundtracking good memes... the vocals tease out the melody in a way that's more engaging than he can personally. he does know good content when he sees it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwiqc6H6U2k

i wholeheartedly love this video. 80s-present controversial videos quickly distilled to even out-gaga lady gaga. song is eh.

the word that kept floating back to me watching this video was..... seapunk

I can def see seapunk revival in it, yeah! I like the song more than it sounds like a lot of you lot do, but I'm still only on "like" rather than "love".

satanpunk

I can’t really think of the song as an artefact separate to the video clip. Someone should do a list of video clips intentionally shot to be repurposed by the internet. “Countdown” is the best example of this obv - and the difference between that video clip and this one seems effectively to document the shift of meme energy from tumblr and chat sites to Instagram / TikTok.

I like him more than his songs.

He probably has a future as a tv host or something

i'm not like immediately floored by the song but it's not unpleasant and i can see it growing on me. i don't have thoughts on its meme-ness or whatever but he has a good voice and persona, he probably has a future as a pop star or something imo.

i think one of the reasons why this song is a grower is it tells a complicated story about sexual evolution. nothing is really pat about it. trying to think of pop stars who told that story and only george michael comes to mind.

the melody lines of the thing could be construed as bland but i think they work here as counterpoint to the song's subject matter. like, i recognize that kind of generic masculine intonation that bespeaks some complicated feelings about gender and sexual pleasure.

I personally don't see or hear anything that suggests he'll be able to build a long career off the success of his signature song. He certainly has enough cash to try tho.

god you people are grim. lol i'm outta here.

I mean I'm not suggesting that would be a bad thing. I wish there were more Old Town Roads these days.

He probably has a future as a tv host or something

You could easily fill a Hollywood Squares grid with nothing but these living-meme sort of pop musicians.

This video is great although the CGI movement is scaring me.

I watched the video yesterday and remember literally nothing about the song, but lap-dancing the devil is fucking brilliant. And the whole shoe thing he's got going on right now is kind of funny too.

i’m sampling this https://t.co/H2mlZs9YkW

— nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) March 28, 2021

This guy rules. I sincerely hope Lil Nas X is responsible for bringing back the satanic panic.

I like him more than his songs.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

it isn't, though

This video is great although the CGI movement is scaring me.

yea it's kind of nauseating in the way some of the more graphic Tim & Eric videos are

still "if all gay people are going to hell you might as well try to fuck the devil" is a pretty great concept, I must admit

one striking thing about the reaction to this is just how many people believe the devil is like, an actual physical entity

xp it is tho

also here's the shoe story
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/28/style/nike-satan-shoes-lil-Nas-x.html

the full-length version is now streamable as "satan's extended version" lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIlz3g3DgCU

satan's uncut version too iirc

I interviewed Lil Nas X about "Montero," the twigs connection and his own journey with Christianity: "I want kids [who know] they’re a part of the LGBTQ community to feel like they’re O.K. and that they don’t have to hate themselves” https://t.co/MFvLTzua61

— Andrew Chow (@andrewrchow) March 29, 2021

The Logitech ads that have been running since the Super Bowl (emphasizing him as a creative figure etc.) seem brilliantly timed now.

Ok he pretty much guaranteed himself a lawsuit with the shoe though that’s kinda dumb

Legal fees vs exposure seems pretty worth it imo. Shoes sold for about 700k so that offsets the marketing that’s likely to go on for months if Nike sues.

Nike is suing the shoe designer.

Nike is suing the shoe designer.

On what grounds? He bought the sneakers and customized them, and is now reselling them. Right? So what's the problem?

On the grounds that the shoes are likely to confuse consumers and dilute Nike's trademarks. "In fact, there is already evidence of significant confusion and delusion occurring in the marketplace, including calls to boycott Nike in response to the launch of MSCHF's Satan Shoes based on the mistaken belief that Nike has authorized or approved this product," Nike says.

(They also claim safety concerns - ""According to media reports, the red ink and drop of literal human blood is incorporated into the sole of each shoe (...) Making changes to the midsole may pose safety risks for consumers.")

Gonna sue Disney bcz KISS put their blood in that Marvel comic seven ownerships ago.

(fwiw, Nike didn't misspell "dilution" as "delusion" in the actual complaint – I just checked – somehow the legal news service introduced that typo.)

brb gonna go make some careful changes to my midsole

If that designer did it to one pair of shoes, Nike has no case. Since he did it to 600 pairs, we'll see . . .

Lil Nas X is the best at twitter and he's really calling attention to the fact that the world is currently in the middle of huge moral panic (qanon, etc) and has been for quite some time now.

He's not bringing the Satantic Panic back because spoiler, it's been here the whole time.

https://bogleech.tumblr.com/post/625261181150609408/parts-of-the-internet-are-completely-freaking-out

This is Trump's hydroxychloroquine doctor!

Anyway I am love him, not only does he know how to make the statement but he knows how to defend himself from the relentlessness of the conservative backlash, publicly, on twitter, where his fans can see him doing it and draw some strength to make their own controversial art.

Looks like he handled this well (and/or was in a position to receive the benefit of the doubt):

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-03-31/lil-nas-x-praises-fka-twigs-after-montero-video-accused-of-copying-her-ideas

i do wish he was as good at music as he is at social media

number one in the UK

How to live

me after getting a song about gay sex to the top of the billboard charts pic.twitter.com/UJK5HpDCOA

— nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) April 5, 2021

i hope my haters are sad. i hope they are crying. i want your tears to fill my grammy cup. 🏹🤍

— nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) April 5, 2021

all jokes aside, we get to control our own destiny, never let the world decide it for you. no matter how dark it may look keep fucking going!

— nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) April 6, 2021

hard not to root for him

true, but then I listen to his music

then I'm like "find your audience, young man, for it is not me" and do a deep, formal bow

hard pic.twitter.com/Wx8LLKFJwH

— nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) April 3, 2021

much improved imo

lmao

international fans thinking “lil” is my first name is favorite thing ever lmao https://t.co/5azuXaBSW6

— nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) April 9, 2021

Lillian Nas X
Lillian Yachty
Lillian Uzi Vert
Lillian Wayne

Lilian Kleine
Lilian Marijnissen
Lilianne Ploumen

(sorry, one for the Dutchies)

I salute Lil Nas X for having the number one song in the UK when Prince Philip died, therefore meaning it is now the new national anthem.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/9555748/lil-nas-x-montero-not-removed-streaming-services

What was this about?

Either way the song is super catchy. I get that little hum he does before the hook stuck in my head all the time.

Lol my kids believed him.

the stupid logitech commercial with this song makes me not want to listen to the full track

uhhh Lil Nas X dropped an a capella version of Montero (Call Me By Your Name) with a video consisting entirely of even more amazing looks and makeup moments?https://t.co/j8L4vPE5Wu

— Alexander (@purplechrain) April 24, 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXz55yQWADk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQrCD-g8oHc

Raf Naz X

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85G5SI5Nu3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a46FDCGluv0

Lil Nas - The Prequel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3BVFY9wnTw

this song is terrific

very moving video

he is performing on snl tonight

that was a hell of a performance on SNL. wonder how many complaints NBC got? Maybe none because no old people watch TV anymore.

they watch OAN iirc

What did he do, pretend to smash an amp?