What makes a song country it's got to have a guitar a drum set
Maybe even a banjo what if it has a drum machine an electronic bass
This is the problem we get with a song like Old Town Road
it's made by a little nas ex who has almost no music out and what he does have would place him almost squarely as a
Rapper. Yeah, it was climbing up the country Billboard charts until it got removed because it didn't have enough features of a country song
Whatever that means the song starts and it sounds country enough
We hear a guitar and maybe a banjo and a bass the problem happens when we get to the beach
Lil nas ex definitely sounds country even through on a Southern drawl
But the drums they don't sound like they came off of an old-time country drum set the hi-hat
Sounds robotic in the bases in 808 all of the sounds like the percussion from any standard trap hip-hop song out today
So is Old Town Road a country song?
The words country music probably bring to mind some idealized vision of a man with a guitar
Seeing his heart out in the back of a bar somewhere in Nashville
but if we look at the country Billboard charts
we just don't see this just take the song on top of the country charts almost all of
2018 meant to be by Florida Georgia line the kick snare and hi-hat don't sound like they came off a drum kit
They sound like they were programmed in
It is mental
Dieeee hats hit identically every time the snare hits on beat 3 and goes into an offbeat pattern
Identical to anything you'd find in a hip-hop song and then there's the kick in the 808 if it weren't for these Southern drawl
This would be a beat you could find any number of rappers on and I suppose it should disqualify them from being authentic country
But there they are on top of the country charts
Maybe Florida Georgia line is an easy target
But this kind of hip hopper cushon is all over country music these days
we can go to sam hunts body like a backroad on top of the country charts pretty much all of
2017 it's a little better with some acoustic drums, but it still has a lot of sounds perfectly at home in hip-hop
There's the clap on 2 and 4 and this chant in the background
That's so common. I can find it in any number of hip-hop sample packs
That's just two examples
But they're two of the biggest country songs from the past couple of years looking at the percussion sounds and the rhythms
There's really no difference between what we heard and Old Town Road
So if the percussion is not the problem then maybe we should look at the melody
All of these country songs have a guitar tucked away somewhere and Old Town Road is no different
Although this guitar isn't some country session player pouring his heart out. It's taken from a nine-inch nail song ghost for
It just has all the lower frequencies cut out so the electronic base is harder to hear
After a high passing if you just take a list of the sounds you hear a bass
That could be an upright bass as far as we can tell a guitar, maybe two guitars or a banjo
It could be a list from any country song and before anyone tries to say that sampling Nine Inch Nails
Somehow it makes it not a country song. Don't forget that Johnny Cash's hurt is the Nine Inch Nails cover
I hurt myself
today
And to make things even more complicated that cover of hurt was put together by Rick Rubin who is one of the most important hip
Hop producers doing work with Beastie Boys Kanye jay-z. So between old town roads melodies and the percussion
There's nothing that sets it apart from any other big country song out today
There's no reason that it's not a country song and it's not the first time a rappers tried to branch out into the country
Genre, like Nelly in Florida Georgia line on the remix of cruise
Young thug incorporated some country themes on his beautiful thugger girls
And honestly Flo Rida's music is a guitar lick and a country accent away from topping the country charts
When little nods ex-maid Old Town Road, he was experimenting in different genres just to see what would work
This is the idea you get if you look at the music he has made there's almost nothing on a Spotify
But we can go over to YouTube and SoundCloud there's this attempt to top the Latin charts in Rio de Janeiro
In a couple attempts to merge vaporwave and hip hop sampling 80's jazzy
Elevator music and putting a hip-hop rhythm underneath it. You can hear it in carrion
It's apparent lil nas ex was making music in all kinds of different genres
Just seeing what would work out the best and ended up picking in the right selection of sounds and ideas to make a country hit
It's pretty safe to say this song is definitely
Country even Billy Ray Cyrus would agree so much so that he hopped on the remix of the song which was pretty much identical
except for the addition of Billy Ray Cyrus and some mixing touch-ups the changes they made are subtle but provide a good look into how
Some professional mixing can improve a song the most noticeable difference is what they did with lil nas X's chorus
It's subtle but they duplicated his vocal take a couple times. So it sounds like his vocal is more surrounding
Here's the original and remix backed back
They duplicated lil nas X's, vocal three or four times and panned them to various spots
giving even more of an impact to a chorus in a song that between the percussion and the melodies is
No different than any other country song
That's all I have on little nas X and Old Town Road, let me know what you think country
Music is what you think a little nas X and anything else you think sounds good?
You can find some selection on YouTube Instagram or iTunes
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