'This is no accident, I've been pushing this hard,' the rapper told the New York Times about his entrepreneurial hustle. By March the song's viral success had pushed it onto Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart in the US. Users on burgeoning social media app TikTok borrowed the track for the viral 'Yeehaw Challenge' meme, posts which both poked fun at honky-tonk caricatures and celebrated rural pride. Upon completing the song, he launched an all-out SEO attack online in a bid to get the track noticed, which worked. Last year Lil Nas X, real name Montero Lamar Hill, bought the slinky, Nine Inch Nails-sampling beat for $US30 from YoungKio, a bedroom producer in the Netherlands. The song's journey from independent release to global dominance has been well-documented, both unlikely and ingenuous in its scope. It's not only one of the biggest songs of the year, it is one of the biggest songs of the decade ARIA Chief Executive Dan Rosen 'It may have missed out on the top spot this week, but all eyes will be on Saturday's chart to see if it can take back the number one position.' 'It's not only one of the biggest songs of the year, it is one of the biggest songs of the decade,' says ARIA Chief Executive Dan Rosen. After 13 weeks at number one on the ARIA singles chart, where it tied the success of Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise (1995) and Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's Despacito (2017), it was finally unseated this weekend by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello's Senorita, just two weeks shy of breaking the all-time ARIA singles record – 15 non-consecutive weeks at No.1 – set by Ed Sheeran's Shape of You (2017).īut even now, with its remarkable longevity and endless evocations, only a fool would count out its record-breaking shot.

The old town road song