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

“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'

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