What is 'Old Town Road' and how did it first catch on? Put your horses in the back, slip on a pair of Wranglers, hop on the tractor, and giddy up - sorry, sorry - to read more ahead. It's also a complicated story about a tech-savvy, meme-aware artist gaming the complicated modern streaming music ecosystem. How exactly did 'Old Town Road' get so big so fast? From one vantage point, it's a tale as old as time: A Star is Born, but starring a teen in Atlanta with a dream and a SoundCloud account. As the lyrics go, he'll probably ride this until he can't no more. It's impossible to know what the future holds for 19-year-old Montero Lamar Hill, who goes by the stage name Lil Nas X, but he's already signed to Columbia Records, met one of his heroes, released an EP, and made some really great tweets. Like Bauuer's 'Harlem Shake,' the first track to really benefit from the addition of streaming data to the Billboard chart formula, 'Old Town Road' initially caught fire because of a popular video dance trend. As Billboard noted at the time, Lil Nas X was the first artist to grab the number one spot with his first Hot 100 charting song since Cardi B's 'Bodak Yellow' in October 2017. The song's path to ubiquity was not totally without precedent. Powered by a potent combination of social media excitement, genre-labeling chart controversy, and a remix featuring an assist from the king of the 'Achy Breaky Heart' himself, 'Old Town Road' made the precarious leap from viral internet oddity to genuine pop-culture phenomenon.

15 on its Hot 100 Chart, where it was the previous week, to the top spot, knocking Ariana Grande's hit '7 Rings' from its perch. On April 8, Billboard announced that the track had moved from No. 'Old Town Road' is now one of the biggest chart hits of all time.įrom a charting perspective, the song had a relatively humble beginning. In fact, this week 'Old Town Road' was the number one song on Billboard's Hot 100 Chart for the 17th week in a row, breaking the record for longest chart reign previously held by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's 'One Sweet Day' in 1995-96 and Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's 'Despacito' in 2017.

Lil Nas X's 'Old Town Road,' a country-inflected rap song celebrating the act of taking your horses down to the 'old town road' of the title, is currently the number one song in America.

Old town road youtube