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

that is the first song of his I haven't wanted to turn off

so has anyone listened to his album or are we just going to listen to it eventually through tweets, videos, and memes

haven't listened yet (will do so after work) but uh it's got a 90 on metacritic so far??? only 7 reviews in but still

https://www.metacritic.com/music/montero/lil-nas-x/critic-reviews

video brought back sad memories :( but it's nice that he is putting this stuff front and center, being super casual about it and actually being seen as rly cool for it

ok on first impression this album's a lot darker than his meme-filled antics would suggest. it's also quite good

are ppl itt still lukewarm on ‘montero’ (the song)? i had a similar initial reaction but it’s really grown on me to the point it’s now prob one of my fav singles of the year. ‘that’s what i want’ otoh way more immediate. feels like it’ll be a big hit. love the chorus

I vastly preferred, the first thing he's done that registered as music first.

This has a few slinky jams. I'm glad M@ura's review pointed out the abundant use of guitars.

*vastly preferred "Sun Goes Down."

ya that ones great

I’m not lukewarm on the song Montero; it’s bad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWjnC8HSRdU

lol of course it's fucking jolene

hostile

it's ok. i think he's getting better as a singer maybe. i'm still not sure if it's refreshing or disappointing that he's like an above-average karoake singer.

That's what I concluded too.

I have more of an issue with the slow buildup of the backing band than I do with his performance; it's not like he's this amazing vocal or even idiosyncratic talent you want to hear isolated, let the band support him plz

lol that was supposed to read "amazing or even idiosyncratic vocal talent", I would like to help fund an edit button

really lackluster jolene there. i suppose i should try the new album.

No one should be allowed to cover "Jolene" anymore. It's reached the status of "Hallelujah" or "Heroes" - it's completely wrung out.

going on Maury is just another viral stunt from him, right

impressively, Old Town Road Remix is apparently no longer his most streamed track

My 7-year-old sang most of Old Town Road in the car last week, no idea how/where he learned the lyrics.

It was included in the kids vaccine

The man is an icon

the prophecy has been fulfilled. pic.twitter.com/lC2PPb5l6W

— ✟ (@LilNasX) January 12, 2024

sure the pop industry has always been about incremental reiterations of past successes but the absolute rut we are stuck in right now is so sad to see. dua fucking lipa the queen of barely passable 6/10 'bops' that all reheat whatever the least-boring aspect of her last hit was is considered an exciting top-tier artist, the biggest hits of the past several years all make an effort to remind listeners of the exact same #1 hit from the 80s and those that don't do so either are built around some corny classic hits safelist sample or interpolate aspects of multiple past hits so the sort of person who likes looking for taylor swift 'easter eggs' can feel clever (speaking of that artist, no wonder her current imperial phase is bolstered in large part by rerecordings of her old albums)

i hate this timeline, i'm embarrassed for these artists and i am not mad when they fall flat on their faces commercially as they seem to do about 50% of the time bc no one in this industry has any clue anymore

Sir this is a Wendy’s

huh

Enjoyed Chris Molanphy's "Old Town Road" book--very good on how Billboard's Top 100 works (and how it's evolved over the years), if that interests you.

dyl, I don’t know which country you live in, but my take on big hits on the UK pop chart over the last couple of years is the exact opposite - ten years ago, I’d have been broadly making your criticisms, but it feels like something has shifted over here, such that pop feels a lot more diverse and creative and surprising. I’m more excited about the UK pop chart now than at any time since 2010.

I’m assuming you haven’t had the same Morgan Wallen song in the top ten for nearly a year

yeah i'm in the formerly culturally influential united states

And it's not even one of the good Morgan Wallen songs xpost

I feel roughly the same as you, dyl, tho i have just gone seeking my “pop” music elsewhere.

sorry, can we rewind here, and this is probably something super obvious that I'll feel dumb for asking but dyl, what does the state of pop in 2024 have to do w/ Lil Nas X?

I think this thread started more as a critique of Billboard rules than a dedicated Lil Nas X thread.

did you hear the song/watch the video? i'm sry my post was a bit deranged but it was very much a response to the latest offering from alleged marketing genius lil nas x

lol ok

I thought the take on Lil Nas X was that here was finally a superstar who didn’t debut two decades ago

Sir this is a Wendy’s

you misspelled "booming post"

Pop music is still better now than it was in the 00s, maybe I just hated myself more then

I enjoy when dyl goes off, but I also feel like pop music – or at least the sliver of it that I love & choose to engage with – is better than at any other point in my lifetime. Granted, I don’t listen to Top 40 radio or anything; I’m sure that’s pretty tedious… but then it always kind of has been, no?

Morrisp, I don't think Top 40 radio was tedious in the years 1977 through 1986.

I am certain that it's a total coincidence that my own personal tween/teen years happened to be the precise era in which radio was good. Surely no one else ever has had this phenomenon occur. Sometimes I gaze wistfully into the middle distance, feeling mild pity for those poor unfortunate souls whose youths did not coincide with good music.

It's funny - when I think back to the mid-'80s (grade school), the time I probably listened to Top 40 radio the most, these are the only songs that specifically survive in my memory (in terms of, "I can recall the radio playing them at a particular time/place"):

Eddie Murphy - Party all the Time
John Waite - Missing You
Falco - Rock Me Amadeus
Sly Fox - Let's Go All The Way

(Apparently these are all from 1985... may be something there about neurons firing at a specific childhood age)

Anyway, I know I heard, uh, lots of other stuff as well... but imagine that adult culture mavens of the day weren't enthusiastic about this particular slice of pop music!

Oh, “La Isla Bonita” is another (that one’s ’86)

"Missing You" did get a lot of positive attention from older people, I remember. Like I recall a high school teacher of mine saying, "now that's a good song." Andy Warhol even mentions it approvingly in his Diaries.

The others you listed, not so much

my middle school years were 97-99, and what I loved about pop radio was how much of a grab bag it was - you had a swing revival, huge Latin pop stars, boy bands, alt rock, country, "Mambo No. 5", whatever the hell Chumbawamba and the Barenaked Ladies were, stuff that heavily sampled disco like "Steal My Sunshine", and it all had this crossover appeal too. I mean sure some of it sucked but there sure as hell was a lot more variety than you've got now. which is why I loved Old Town Road, like its not something I'd want to own the record of but I appreciate such a weird crossover tune where nobody can quite explain what makes it so catchy. it reminds me of being a teenager.

not crazy about any of the tunes he's done since, or more accurately I just don't remember any of them. I appreciate the way he unapologetically keeps poking at conservatives - hell even I think his desecration of religious imagery goes a bit far, but I still respect him for doing it

I'm sorry wait do we not like "Rock Me Amadeus" now????

always got the impression that people mocked "Rock Me Amadeus" a lot at the time but the song was so hooky that it ultimately won out in the end. sort of an "Ice Ice Baby" situation.

kind of disappointed the American copies of Falco 3 didn't have the original radio mix on it, but rather some 9 minute remix, which at least hilarious has a section listing off all of Wolfgang's major accomplishments and the years they occurred, ending with "1985: Austrian rock star Falco records ROCK ME AMADEUS!!"

Yep! I remember that section playing specifically, on the car radio… Lol

https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres86.php