♪ I'm gonna take my horse
to the old town road ♪
♪ I'm gonna ride till I can't no more ♪
(upbeat music)
- There's no other way to put it,
Lil Nas X's Old Town Road
has had an impressive run
at number one on the Billboard Hot 100,
holding the top spot for a
record-breaking 19 weeks.
So as we celebrate the astonishing run
of the unexpected hit,
here are the five things
we should take away
from Lil Nas X's Old Town
Road's historic success.
♪ Ain't nobody tell me nothin' ♪
- Number one, the time is
now for the app TikTok.
Now with millions of users,
it has become a breeding
ground for mainstream hits
and has proven a crucial role
in breaking music in 2019.
Lizzo is another strong example of this.
♪ Truth hurts needed
somethin' more exciting ♪
♪ Bom bom bi dom bi dum bum ♪
- [Chelsea] Number two,
now it's worth thinking outside the box
for remix partners.
Instead of teaming up
with various A-listers
to coast by on name recognition,
Lil Nas greatly benefited
by refusing to settle
for the obvious
when it came to recruiting
Old Town Road guest stars.
The more random, well, the more better.
♪ Ay-yo, ay-yo yippee-O ki yay ♪
- Number three, one
remix might not be enough
when a song is on top.
So deploying multi remixes
is not a new strategy
but the tactic of folding
in fans of the artist
hopping on the new versions
is what found success for Old Town Road.
And if that blueprint can
help keep an established hit
at its chart peak for a few more weeks,
well, others will embrace
it moving forward, I'm sure.
♪ Take my horse to this Old Town Road ♪
♪ I'm gonna ride till I can't no more ♪
- [Chelsea] Number four,
the event music video still exists.
Now with well over 270 million views
and an MTV VMA nod for Video of the Year,
the Old Town Road clip
proves major music videos
are still very important.
The week that the video was released,
the song scored its best
overall streaming week
since Cyrus was added.
♪ I'm like a Marlboro
Man so I kick on back ♪
- And finally, number five,
think of the children.
The song is danceable,
easy to sing, not explicit,
and essentially, a cowboy
adventure that's easily digestible
for listeners of all ages.
Old Town Road was more
than a kiddie phenomenon
but its success speaks
volumes to how the industry
should keep that demographic
in mind moving forward.
All right, I just wanna
say thank you Lil Nas X
for being wise beyond your years
and for teaching us so much.
All right, for the entire
article on this whole story,
you can head to Billboard.com,
and until next time for Billboard News,
I'm Chelsea Briggs and I'll
catch ya on the flip side.
