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

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

DUa Lipa gets played on the A/C station here too. But then she gets played everywhere.

Plus there's that Argylle thing about to hit in a couple of weeks.

Speaking of which – OMG, Swifties: https://variety.com/2024/film/news/taylor-swift-argylle-author-matthew-vaughn-rumors-1235873834/

Yeah I didn't take it to be about "measuring" as much as the quality of what is right there in front of us, where it's always been (also, I mean, Duo Lipa is actually v popular)

― Wooly Bully (2005 Remaster) (morrisp), Tuesday, January 16, 2024 10:41 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

and im saying some people are just old and 'whats in front of you' is different than what was in front of you at 16

but also — and I think this point is being underestimated—I think more people than ever are *invested in* underground, mid tier, non-pop music, than might have been in the 12-CD-fan days. The 12-CD fan of the 90s now has their own Spotify playlist of stuff that might actually include some relatively obscure act—that act just happens to sound like the 12-CD popular level act they already like.

The point I'm making is that everyone's fandom has shifted, to a stage where being a 'casual music' fan by its nature includes liking some 'not that popular' shit

so when I say that what the pop charts are 'measuring' is different, its not just the pop charts ... the very meaning of obscurity or underground is different ... the entire framework of experiencing 'new music' is different..and I think suggesting this is just a continuation of how things used to be is missing how different things really are

OK but I didn't think we were talking about the "charts" here (thread title aside)

I think what's being exposed to some extent is how retro pop music *always* was ... something like the modern milwaukee rap song sounds 'brand new' to most ears, but its actually based on the 'low end' sound which existed in 2010 or earlier and was just off-board for online music fans... likewise peso pluma sounds new to ppl who don't listen to narcocorridos and its a 'new sound' in the pop space but not a new sound if you listened to popular mexican music for years ... so ppl can marshal this information to make any argument they want, ie "everything is retro now!!!" [spaceman meme] it always was

there's nothing new about the birth of hip hop ... this is just pigmeat markham all over again smh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRS62nccwmw

teenagers absolutely were listening to diane warren ballads in the 90s

did adult contemporary just kinda disappear?

as a distinctive style, yes it is basically endangered. the vast majority of songs on the ac airplay chart are songs that were on the pop airplay chart months before -- so the chart is basically the more milquetoast subset of the pop chart, which is itself boring/stagnant. this past year the exceptions were from artists like p!nk, nsync and lewis capaldi but none were particularly big in general or even at the ac format. there are also a few new christmas songs that come along every year, but during that time the audience reach of new songs at the format declines precipitously bc the playlists lean even more heavily on old songs than usual during that time -- new christmas songs take years to properly break. (there was one by david foster this year!)

anyway the way pop music operates (specifically in america!) absolutely is different now than it used to be, yes i am getting old but the differences are measurable and consistent at least if we're talking abt radio. and yes, shame on me for still paying attention to that hoary old distribution method but i do see it as unfortunate as there are aspects to the radio-listening experience that i do think are unique compared to just clicking thru social media or playlists. i legitimately enjoyed mainstream radio for at least a decade of my life and am sad that most stations in this country seem to think that those aspects simply can no longer be replicated (even tho other radio in other countries still manages it)