Hit Parade: Ride ’til I Can’t No More Edition Part 1

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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When it crash-landed on the charts in 2019, Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” felt new and old at the same time: a savvy, TikTok-fueled viral hit that summarized a century of cross-cultural collisions between R&B, rap and country. It was also unexpectedly huge—a record 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100—and controversial, as Billboard magazine pulled the song from its Hot Country Songs chart, prompting a reckoning on race and the very definition of country music. “Old Town Road” wasn’t just a reckoning—it was a culmination. As a hard-to-categorize hit, it called back to cross-genre experiments by everyone from Ray Charles and the Rappin’ Duke to Bubba Sparxxx and even Jason Aldean. As a viral smash, its antecedents date back to “The Twist,” right through “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” and “Harlem Shake.” In honor of his new book Old Town Road (now in bookstores!) join Chris Molanphy as he walks through the many predecessors to “Old Town Road” and explains why can’t nobody tell Lil Nas X nothin’. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, Hit Parade listeners, what you're about to hear is part one of this episode.
0:06.0	Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month.
0:10.0	Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops?
0:14.0	Sign up for Slate Plus.
0:16.0	It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts.
0:22.0	Just go to Slate. claimed journalism and podcasts, and podcasts,
0:22.6	just go to slate.com slash hit parade plus.
0:26.8	You'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full
0:30.0	the day it arrives.
0:31.4	Plus, hit parade, the bridge, are bonus episodes with guest interviews deeper dives on
0:37.4	our episode topics and pop chart trivia once again to join that's slate.com slash hit parade plus. Thanks and now please enjoy
0:47.7	part one of this hit parade episode. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine, about the hits from
1:06.8	Coast to Coast.
1:08.0	I'm Chris Malamphi, Chart Analysts, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song Number One series.
1:14.4	On Today's Show, four years ago, at the end of November 2019,
1:19.9	Billboard magazine announced its top hits of the year.
1:24.0	All in all, 2019 was filled with big hits
1:27.8	from fresh faces like Sway Lee, Lizzo, and Billy Eilish.
1:33.0	I'm a bad guy.
1:35.0	Duh.
1:38.0	Two relative veterans like Ariana Grande, Drake, Ed Sheerran, and Justin Beep.
1:48.0	But now I think that we should stay. Because I don't care. But there was no suspense over the year's top song.
	...

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