‘Old Town Road’ Just Became Billboard’s Most Popular Song Ever

Every so often, a song comes along that’s such a bop people just can’t stop listening to it. You know, like the way Psy’s it ‘Gangnam Style’ was everywhere for a few months when it came out.

Man, that was such a fun summer. Psy probably brought K-Pop to America, too, without this ode to Korea’s most expensive neighborhood we wouldn’t even know who BTS even are.

Which brings us to this summer’s biggest hit, Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’. You may remember the initial drama of the hit being dropped by the Billboard country chart because it “didn’t fit the country genre” despite having Billy Ray Cyrus on it. I’m still convinced that rule there is “Hootie is the only black guy allowed on the country charts.”

Well, Lil Nas had the last laugh because ‘Old Town Road’ just became the first song to top the Billboard Top 100 for 17 weeks, breaking the previous record of 16 weeks. It accomplished this by releasing endless remixes which Billboard counts as one song. The latest remix was ‘Seoul Town Road’ featuring RM from BTS.

Hey, that’s actually pretty good, isn’t it?

You might say that releasing five different versions of a song to get people to keep listening to it week after week is cheating, but I think it’s smart. If the rules allow it, then why not?

‘Old Town Road’ also currently has the distinction of being the only song to top the Rolling Stone Top 100 chart, which has only existed for a few weeks.