--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today, Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Noel King: And I'm Noel King.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Before we get to the show, the show is brought to you with support from Quip electric toothbrushes. Your first refill pack is free right now. When you buy an electric toothbrush at getquip.com slash explained, they start at just $25.
--:-- Noel King: That website, one more time, is getquip.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, I'm going to take my horse to the old town road. I'm going to ride till I can't no more.
--:-- Noel King: Okay, so there's a song. It's called Old Town Road. It's by a guy named Lil Nas X. No relation to Nasty Nas from NYC.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Old Town Road hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 today. It is the most popular song in America, and it's also the most controversial.
--:-- Noel King: So Old Town Road is in the center of an interesting conversation now about who and what gets to count as country music.
--:-- Allegra Frank: I'm Allegra Frank, a culture editor for Vox.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But as country continues to absorb other genres, like there's country rap, a lot of country music artists are collaborating with pop stars.
--:-- Allegra Frank: The traditionalists, the purists who think of country as the old town road, literally, they start to question who gets to be in it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Allegra, before we really get into the song, who is this guy? Who is Lil Nas X?
--:-- Allegra Frank: He is a 20-year-old rapper. It's his birthday today. Today? Yeah, today, April 9th. It's his birthday.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So happy birthday, Lil Nas. Happy birthday, Lil Nas X.
--:-- Noel King: One more year and you can taste alcohol for the first time. Yes, and that will be very exciting, I think, for his career.
--:-- Allegra Frank: He is from Atlanta. Technically, his birth name is Montero Hill, but he has been calling himself Lil Nas X for several years now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And last year, he joined SoundCloud, as many people do. And by the end of the year in December, he released a song called Old Town Road.
--:-- Allegra Frank: He bought a beat that had this sort of country-sounding instrumental to it. And he said he was living at home, feeling very lonely, feeling like a lonely cowboy.
--:-- Noel King: And he decided to pair that feeling with this sort of twangy beat that he bought.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Old Town Road starts off very much as this, you know, deep voiced ode to the simple life in the, you know, dirt road path with your horse.
--:-- Allegra Frank: And then it breaks into what he calls country trap.
--:-- Noel King: Got the horses in the back. Horse like is attached. Head is mad at black. Got the boosters black to match.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Riding on a horse.
--:-- Allegra Frank: So he uploads the song to SoundCloud back in December.
--:-- Noel King: Why is it just making waves in like recent weeks and even months?
--:-- Allegra Frank: He basically timed it well for this thing that's called the Yeehaw Agenda.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The what? The Yeehaw Agenda?
--:-- Noel King: The Yeehaw Agenda.
--:-- Allegra Frank: So this woman, Brie Milandro, she tweeted about how a lot of black artists are getting interested in sort of the country aesthetic.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the way that Lil Nas X factored into that is while people were picking up on the good old cowboy cowgirl aesthetic, his song was circulating on Twitter.
--:-- Noel King: And he made it available for free on TikTok, which is this huge platform kind of akin to Vine, where people can lip sync to songs and record themselves doing dance moves.
--:-- Allegra Frank: And people who already were kind of feeling this kind of ironic cowboy vibe turned Old Town Road into the Yeehaw Challenge.
--:-- Noel King: It became this new TikTok phenomenon where people would try and outdo each other dancing to Old Town Road.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So the way the song starts is it's very classic country and then the beat drops.
--:-- Allegra Frank: And that's where all these videos get their comedy from.
--:-- Noel King: It's like what happens when the beat drops, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Exactly.
--:-- Noel King: So people are kind of just like standing around and then they jump right time to the beat dropping and it cuts to them wearing cowboy outfits and doing like square dancing.
--:-- Allegra Frank: Oh, yeah, bro. Dude, watch this horse flung him off, bro.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Lil Nas X continues to argue on Twitter like, oh, I'm so happy to see all these people, you know, making memes and listening to the song.
--:-- Noel King: But I'm serious about it. Like, just because it's it can be funny and I'm funny doesn't mean it's a parody.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What happens after this song becomes such a huge meme on TikTok?
--:-- Allegra Frank: In mid-March, the Billboard charts come out.
--:-- Noel King: And the song had become so much of a viral hit that it actually appeared on the Billboard charts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It appeared on the Hot Rap Hip Hop Songs chart and the Hot Country Songs chart.
--:-- Noel King: And this is because a song like Old Town Road is getting streamed a ton on places like Spotify and YouTube and SoundCloud.
--:-- Allegra Frank: And those streams now count a fair amount on Billboard, right?
--:-- Noel King: Yes, exactly.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That was exciting for a lot of people. I mean, we don't often see black artists on the country charts in general.
--:-- Noel King: And we don't often see SoundCloud-born rap-adjacent songs charting so highly, especially ones that really are just circulated through memes and the internet.
--:-- Allegra Frank: Okay, so what happens next?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The song is starting to chart and it's rising on Billboard.
--:-- Noel King: Where does it go from there?
--:-- Allegra Frank: Five staffers from Billboard released an article in the publication.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the majority of them wrote it off as, oh, it's sort of a fluke hit, it's a joke.
--:-- Noel King: The following week, it was gone from the country chart.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It was on the Hot 100 and the rap chart, but Old Town Road was not on the country chart.
--:-- Noel King: Where was it on the Billboard charts when it got removed?
--:-- Allegra Frank: So it was only on the chart for one week, so when it debuted, it was already at number 19.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Which is to suggest that it would have kept climbing had they not removed it.
--:-- Noel King: Exactly.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How often does Billboard remove songs that are climbing up its charts?
--:-- Allegra Frank: Very rarely
--:-- Noel King: I mean people were starting to report on hey Billboard has quietly stricken Old Town Road from the record
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What did Billboard say?
--:-- Allegra Frank: They said, while it incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today's country music to chart in its current version.
--:-- Noel King: How does Lil Nas respond to that?
--:-- Allegra Frank: He said he was extremely disappointed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When I found out Billboard took it off the country charts, like before, like it was even taken off the country charts, I was just happy to be on Billboard at all.
--:-- Noel King: But then it was like I started to think about I was like after like listening to other songs that's actually on that chart, it's like, wait a minute.
--:-- Allegra Frank: Something is not right, basically.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is the point in this story where this becomes about something bigger than country trap and TikTok and fun internet memes.
--:-- Noel King: Because you've got a black artist in America who's charting in a very white music space.
--:-- Allegra Frank: And his song gets quietly removed by a very powerful, influential organization.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How much of this is about race or how much does the conversation then shift to race?
--:-- Noel King: So Genius reached out and of course Billboard said, oh no, it has nothing to do with his race.
--:-- Allegra Frank: It has everything to do with the song and the lack thereof of country elements in it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It immediately set off conversation, especially in the black Twitter community.
--:-- Noel King: Country has often been very much protected.
--:-- Allegra Frank: There's a big gatekeeping sort of vibe in country music that prevents black artists from really penetrating the scene.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There are some exceptions.
--:-- Noel King: Hootie. Hootie, yes, exactly.
--:-- Allegra Frank: Darius Rucker. He's the big one of Hootie and the Blowfish fame.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He sort of spawned off from that band into a solo career that has been very successful.
--:-- Noel King: But he has said, yes, I do receive hate mail from people who say you don't belong here.
--:-- Allegra Frank: You're not real country, you know, which essentially is people saying you don't look like us and you're not white.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But he has been an exception in the genre.
--:-- Noel King: But Lil Nas X clearly subscribes to the if you can't beat him, join him school of thought because late last week he drops a remix that totally changes the trajectory of this song again.
--:-- Allegra Frank: So Lil Nas X has a huge Twitter following and the news spread so far out that people like Achy Reiki Heart Sensation and father of Miley, Billy Ray Cyrus, publicly tweeted at Lil Nas X saying, I think this is wrong and I'm a fan of your song and like your country, you're an outlaw just like me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Really Ray Cyrus coming out so publicly with his support.
--:-- Noel King: Lil Nas X, of course, retweeted that.
--:-- Allegra Frank: They talked on the DL and they announced that they actually went in the studio together to remix the song.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So what does that mean for the song? Is it going to get back on the country charts?
--:-- Noel King: So that's sort of the question now.
--:-- Allegra Frank: The only difference is Billy Ray Cyrus really just singing the main hook of the song and then singing a few more verses.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It otherwise is the exact same song.
--:-- Noel King: But because there's a vaunted legend of country music, the question is, will Billboard consider this country now?
--:-- Allegra Frank: So Billboard has responded to that saying we're investigating the matter and we're paying attention to see if we should reinstate Old Town Road onto the chart.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I personally don't have a lot of hope because I think the optics of allowing a Billy Ray Cyrus featured version that is otherwise exactly the same are not great.
--:-- Noel King: But it's interesting to hear billboards say, we are thinking about this one more time.
--:-- [Theme music starts]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Allegra Frank covers culture at Vox. Our trip down the Old Town Road ain't over yet.
--:-- Noel King: Next, we're going to try and figure out what even is country music anymore.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: As I said on the show yesterday, once in a while now, I get like a tweet about someone's toothbrushing habits.
--:-- Noel King: It's one of the upshots of making toothbrush ads on the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: El Infame Desalmado tweeted at me and said, My brother at G underscore Daval bought his quip at getquip.com slash explained.
--:-- Noel King: And we were talking on the phone and I didn't notice he was brushing his teeth until he spit and ruined it all.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think what El Infame is trying to say is that the quip is quiet.
--:-- Noel King: It also doesn't require a clunky charger.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And apparently it runs for three months on one charge.
--:-- Noel King: You can find out for yourself at getquip.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The quip is backed by over 20,000 dental professionals.
--:-- Noel King: And right now you get your first refill pack for free when you buy a Quip electric toothbrush.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They start at just $25.
--:-- Noel King: That site, one more time, getquip.com slash explained.
--:-- Charlie Harding: I'm Charlie Harding, you're one of the hosts of Vox's Switched On Pop podcast.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: As well as a producer and songwriter yourself.
--:-- Charlie Harding: A big part of the controversy over Old Town Road is about genre.
--:-- Noel King: How does one figure out the lines between genres, between country and pop and hip hop?
--:-- Charlie Harding: When I think about genre I typically think about three main components.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There a musical component there a commercial component and there a cultural component.
--:-- Charlie Harding: Well let start with the music.
--:-- Noel King: What should we be thinking about when we think about this song and how it fits into the musical genre of country or hip hop?
--:-- Charlie Harding: I feel like the controversy right now is, is this thing actually country?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so we have to define, well, what is country music?
--:-- Charlie Harding: And if we look at the sort of musical components, we can think about what are the instruments that you use?
--:-- Noel King: What are the timbres, the twang, the sounds, and what are the lyrical components?
--:-- Charlie Harding: So is Old Town Road a country song by those three metrics?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Let's take them one by one.
--:-- Charlie Harding: So instrumentation, country music is going to have a lot of acoustic instruments, but traditionally we're going to hear maybe some banjo, maybe some mandolin.
--:-- Noel King: And here there's banjo.
--:-- Charlie Harding: So instruments, check.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Timbre, that vocal twang that we expect in country music, it's in there.
--:-- Noel King: Like Lil Nas X has got a vocal twang, that real nasal sound.
--:-- Charlie Harding: When, of course, Billy Ray Cyrus has done the track, you get that twang as well from someone who is a classic country artist.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He even says guitar.
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, totally, exactly.
--:-- Charlie Harding: And then finally, if we look at the lyrics, this is just full of country music lyrical tropes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You gotta be on a road.
--:-- Noel King: You gotta have a cowboy hat, right?
--:-- Charlie Harding: You gotta be wearing Wrangler jeans in this case, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You gotta be kind of sad.
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, totally.
--:-- Charlie Harding: Lyrically, I think it has all of those essential components.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When I hear that vocal twang and when I hear banjo, I through and through, I'm like, yeah, this is a country song.
--:-- Noel King: So what I'm hearing is, yes.
--:-- Charlie Harding: Yeah.
--:-- Noel King: But how about the rest of it? How about that second metric you had, commercial?
--:-- Charlie Harding: When we look at the history of where genre and pop music comes from, we'll see that there are some not-so-pretty histories.
--:-- Noel King: The short of it is that what is now known as R&B, so progenitor hip-hop, was at one point called race music.
--:-- Charlie Harding: It was specifically for people that were of a specific race.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Whereas country music was called hillbilly music for people of another race.
--:-- Charlie Harding: And basically, we had black and white music segregated along those lines with marketing definitions so that labels would produce music for a specific racial audience.
--:-- Noel King: It was that explicit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And we live with that history today.
--:-- Charlie Harding: I guess that sort of leads us into this conversation about the culture.
--:-- Noel King: You know, Lil Nas X posted this on SoundCloud.
--:-- Charlie Harding: Like he actually in the metadata said it was a country song.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So there's a question about who gets to be the gatekeeper of declaring what genre you are.
--:-- Charlie Harding: Really, I think we're just seeing some casual or not so casual racism about who is and what isn't country.
--:-- Noel King: I think that this gets much more complicated when we actually look at the sounds of contemporary country music, which doesn't conform to that original classification of you have to have like banjos and a certain sound or a certain twang because there's lots of contemporary music, which is actually equally pulling from hip hop sounds, trap beats, 808s, all this and that.
--:-- Charlie Harding: And this is from very conventional white country Nashville artists.
--:-- Noel King: That's right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The song that everyone's pointing to is Florida Georgia Line meant to be with Bebarexa.
--:-- Charlie Harding: And when you go into the chorus, The Thing is a trap song.
--:-- Noel King: It's got an 808 beat it's got stuttering high hats the thing is a wild and successful crossover.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So today actually it was like i thought wouldn't it be interesting if i just like went down the country charts and see if there were other songs that were doing this or it's like bevorexia and florida georgia line is this like a one-off and i just found over and over all sorts of songs which didn't conform to the musical categories of country music.
--:-- Charlie Harding: So I found Phil Moore's Love That About You, which is another song which has a straight-ahead trap beat in it.
--:-- Noel King: I then went off and looked at Dan and Shay. Their song, All To Myself, doesn't really feature any standard country music instrumentation, and there's really no vocal twang to it.
--:-- Charlie Harding: And so when things on the country charts are bleeding into other generic qualities musically, it definitely feels like it's not appropriate to call out Lil Nas X for having a country sound, which includes trap beats and sort of saying, well, that's not country.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So what you're saying is there's already hip hop all over the country charts right now.
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, I mean, hip hop is the dominant musical force everywhere, and it has wildly influenced country music, as have other genres.
--:-- Charlie Harding: I hear EDM in country music. I hear pop in country music.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is not old school banjo, mandolin, that kind of upright bass sound from decades past.
--:-- Noel King: It is contemporary popular music with subtle, nuanced sounds that maybe make things sound country.
--:-- Charlie Harding: And oftentimes it feels like it's more about gatekeeping than it is necessarily about the actual quality of sound.
--:-- Noel King: But all the songs and artists you're talking about are white.
--:-- Charlie Harding: Right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then this black teenager came along who's a creature of the internet and he sort of just exposed the whole world of hypocrisy.
--:-- Noel King: Absolutely.
--:-- Charlie Harding: And there is a history of country artists actually inviting black artists to perform with them, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So like Louis Armstrong has performed with Jimmy Rogers and they had a hit, Blue Yodel No. 9.
--:-- Charlie Harding: Glenn Campbell invited Stevie Wonder to sing Blowing in the Wind.
--:-- Noel King: I must have made you all die Willie Nelson worked with Snoop Dogg on a track called My Medicine
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's all these examples of sort of like white artists bringing black artists into the country charts, which is accepted.
--:-- Charlie Harding: I think there's also examples of black artists making country music.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think Ray Charles' Modern Sounds and Country Music is one of the most essential country albums of all time, in which he really is demonstrating the historical crossover of these musics.
--:-- Noel King: Oh, you are my sunshine. You are my sunshine. Oh, my only sunshine. My only sunshine.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, Sean, like, I played in a country band.
--:-- Noel King: I love country music.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I just picked up the mandolin, and I played in a country band with my buddy Nate, who I do the show with.
--:-- Noel King: He was playing banjo.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I promise you, nobody was concerned about whether or not we had put in our time to become a country band, whereas people are really concerned about Lil Nas X playing country music.
--:-- Noel King: I wonder why that is.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, you hear so many stories about how streaming is killing the music industry, how Spotify is destroying album sales for artists.
--:-- Noel King: But is this Old Town Road story an example of how Spotify and SoundCloud and YouTube streams being considered in this sort of bigger picture of success in the music industry being an overall good thing because it's destroying some of these gatekeepers and some of these norms in the industry that were kind of garbage to begin with?
--:-- Charlie Harding: I think that this is the essential question about who gets to be a gatekeeper and that institutions like Billboard might seem uneasy by the fact that there are other folks deciding whether or not something is or is not a certain genre.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I went on Spotify today and I was scrolling through just kind of like browsing in their search section and the category country was next to the category focus, which was I think maybe even below the category podcasts.
--:-- Noel King: These are not mutually exclusive and completely exhaustive categories.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's a lot of overlap.
--:-- Noel King: And I think that today people listen as much by mood as they do by genre, upending an entire way of thinking about the importance of these generic categories that pump up and chill are equally as important as country or hip hop in how people might approach going to listening to their music.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It is changing the way things chart where they end up.
--:-- Noel King: And there is some uneasy cultural negotiation that needs to be done in order to decide who gets to claim what kind of music they're making.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And in that regard, Lil Nas X is thus far the most unlikely hero of American culture in 2019.
--:-- Noel King: Absolutely.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We have to also point out how amazing it is that this thing, which was a meme that was commentary on cowboy culture and black identity that became an immediate overnight think piece, which a aging country star then remixes.
--:-- Noel King: Like this thing is entirely of our moment.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is not old country music of a rural community.
--:-- Noel King: This is the internet generation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Before we go, one last amazing thing about this song.
--:-- Noel King: It samples the song you're hearing right now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This song is called 34 Ghosts 4.
--:-- Noel King: And it is by Nine Inch Nails.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Which is to say, Trent Reznor and his songwriting partner Atticus Ross Share credit with Montero Hill, aka Lil Nas X, on Old Town Road.
--:-- Noel King: Which is to say, Lil Nas X and Nine Inch Nails have the number one song in America right now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it's been remixed by Billy Ray Cyrus.
--:-- Noel King: What a world.
--:-- Charlie Harding: Charlie Harding hosts Switched On Pop.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's a very good podcast about popular music, and there are too few of those.
--:-- Noel King: It's also the newest member of the Vox Media Podcast Network, so hit subscribe, sit back, and wait for the bangers to drop every Tuesday.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained is also a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
--:-- Noel King: The show's produced in association with Stitcher.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram for a my favorite country song is The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by The Band.
--:-- Noel King: Irene Noguchi's Really Into Whatever You Do by Brandi Carlile right now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Noam Hassenfeld has Johnny Cash's Cocaine Blues.
--:-- Noel King: Bridget McCarthy thinks about her heartbreak-y 20s whenever Here You Come Again by Dolly Parton comes on.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Afim Shapiro has a soft spot for the Sundance head version of Love Can Build a Bridge.
--:-- Noel King: Specifically his performance on The Voice from 2016.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hannah Bolaños likes Rockstar by Nickelback because there's just no telling for taste, folks.
--:-- Noel King: The mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder can't wait to climb the country charts himself.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Siona Petros, her favorite country song is Old Town Road by Lil Nas X.
--:-- Noel King: Porsche. I've been in a valley. You ain't been up off that Porsche now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Can't nobody tell me nothing.
--:-- Noel King: You can't tell me nothing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Can't nobody tell me nothing.
--:-- Noel King: You can't tell me nothing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Let's do this like fill in the blank.
--:-- Noel King: This episode was brought to you by Like, Quip electric toothbrushes nailed it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Quip starts at just $25.
--:-- Noel King: You knew it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And if you go to...
--:-- Noel King: You're really crushing this.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Get Quip.com slash Explained right now.
--:-- Noel King: You get your first 10 out of 10, your first refills.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's right.
--:-- Noel King: For free with your purchase of a Quip electric toothbrush.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That website one more time is...
--:-- Noel King: G-E-T-Q-U-I-P.com slash Explained.
--:-- [Theme music continues to play]
