Lil Nas X’s viral sensation “Old Town Road” is not going away anytime soon. The track continues to hold the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 list for the 12th consecutive week, becoming only the 20th single to top the charts for three months.
While the single continues to hold on to the No. 1 spot and bring joy to everyone, it has also been a godsend to the music industry by preventing yet another Taylor Swift track from topping the charts.
Since “Old Town Road” reached No. 1, it has blocked the Taylor Swift singles “ME!” and “You Need to Calm Down” from moving from the No. 2 spot.
The Taylor Swift singles are just two of the six singles to be blocked from No. 1 thanks to the Lil Nas X hit — which found even more success after a remix with Billy Ray Cyrus, who joined Lil Nas X on stage at the 2019 BET Awards.
The track has 91.6 million U.S. streams and could receive yet another boost thanks to Lil Nas X’s EP 7 which will hit the album charts next week.
After its initial breakout success, which landed the track on the Billboard Country Music Charts, the song was removed for not being “country enough,” according to the experts.
“Upon further review, it was determined that ‘Old Town Road’ by Lil Nas X does not currently merit inclusion on Billboard‘s country charts,” Billboard told Rolling Stone. “When determining genres, a few factors are examined, but first and foremost is musical composition. While ‘Old Town Road’ incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.”
However, since then, listeners have continued to rally behind Lil Nas X and the track is now more popular than ever with its No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
