Lil Nas X's improbable leap to superstardom was riddled with unexpected turns along the way. In the process of garnering top honors on Billboard's country chart on a technicality, then losing that distinction over another bogan technicality, Lil Nas X could have easily folded and set up shop on hip-hop's Klondike Trail, but he persisted anyway.
While a social media regarding "Old Town Road" preached the need for socio-cultural change (lol, yes), Lil Nas X kept with his steady incline on the other more generalized Billboard charts. Best of all, Nas X, a signed artist at this point, kept the Billy Ray Cyrus ace card out of view until he was ready to go live with it.
Sure, Billy Ray crushes the remix, arguably even steals the show, (no Miley that's not how ownership privileges works). But the real treat here is the manner in which Lil Nas retook the ground he'd lost when the bureaucrats started yapping for reforms. Besides the fact the "Old Town Road" remix is a masterclass troll, it's legitimately more "country" than anything else in the current Top 10.
But who am I to blow against the wind... such a prognosis is outside of my realm of expertise. What I do know however is that "Old Town Road" is about to smash the single-week streaming record garnered by Drake for "God's Plan." The record stands at 127,000 spins. As of Friday, Lil Nas X's remix + original were sitting at 125k collectively. You do the math.