Lil Nas X lies, promises “Seoul Town Road” with RM of BTS is the last "Old Town Road" remix
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Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” has been the Billboard Hot 100's number one song for 16 straight weeks, tied for the most all time with “One Sweet Day” and “Despacito,” a record it will no doubt break. In that time, the viral hit has gotten an official music video, a baffling unofficial parody version, a version with horse sounds, a screamo cover, and of course, remixes. So many remixes. Today, as all parched cowboys must, Lil Nas X has taken a trip back to the well with yet another remix.
This remix sees Lil Nas X joining forces with RM (née Rap Monster), the resident rapper of singing, dancing boy conglomerate BTS. The new version is called “Seoul Town Road” and is the absolute definition of mailing it in. This version is musically the exact same as the original, pre-Billy Ray Cyrus edition of “Old Town Road,” and clocks in under two minutes. RM gives his version of the chorus, and then shows up near the end to deliver a verse that is 14 seconds long. Here are, via Genius, the lyrics to RM’s contribution in its entirety:
I got the homis in my bag (Yeah)
Have you heard of that? (Yeah)
Homis made of steel, from Korea, they the be-e-est
Ridin’ to the farm (Huh)
Grabbin’ all the corn (Huh)
We gon’ get yo’ money with my homi in your backyard
On Twitter, Lil Nas X claimed that this will be the last “Old Town Road” remix. That is, surely, a lie.
If you find all of this frustrating, perhaps you can take solace in the fact that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are getting goddamn paid off this thing.
29 Comments
Has any musical artist ever gotten more mileage out of a single song than Lil Nas X has gotten out of this song? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for the guy because he seems like a good dude, and the song is catchy and good, but man it’s crazy how much has come from a single pop song.
Gangnam Style?
That’s definitely up there, but I don’t really think it ever reached this level. There weren’t remixes of that song dropping every other day. It may just be recency bias but it seems like the Old Town Road phenomena is on a whole other level.
I know middle schoolers are obsessed with the song. I think it hit just as tools to remix songs and create videos hit a critical ease level (and TikTok is largely built on such things).
While the song is the right song for this treatment, I think the technology is the X factor here.
It’s weird because, anecdotally, I’d argue that Gangnam Style had a *much* bigger cultural impact than Old Town Road (ie. your aunt knew what Gangnam Style was, but probably not Old Town Road.)Since YouTube views didn’t count back then, believe it or not Gangnam Style never actually reached #1 on the Hot 100. It would be interesting to see how the two would have compared with that factored in. It’s honestly kind of astounding to me that Old Town Road has had the legs it’s had on the charts since, again anecdotally, I feel like the zeitgeist has pretty well moved on.(Also, as others have noted, in no way do I begrudge the dude milking it for all it’s worth. I’m just very surprised at how well it’s worked.)
IIRC, Gangnam Style was basically the big push to get youtube views included in the Hot 100 calculations. Was crazy that it never hit #1.
I don’t think so. Maybe it depends on where, but I knew a ton of people who didn’t know anything about “Gangnam Style.” My parents though it was just a dance, tbh. The only reason this song doesn’t have more YouTube views is because there is no “official video.”
Gangnam Style was just the most recent track of a ten year musical career at that point. It really marks the first time Americans became aware of a planet beyond their borders.
His seemingly self-aware attitude about the absurdity of its popularity makes it cool with me.
Chubby Checker would like a word.** That word? “Twist”. Also the word “The”, if you can spare one.
You’re absolutely right. That’s the ultimate. Decades of mileage off of the Twist.
William Hung maybe?
For those, like me, who didn’t know what a homi was (as opposed to “homie”), it’s a Korean hand-plow.
(Which, yes, sounds like slang for finger-banging, but it is what it is.)
Korean Hand Plow now needs an Urban Dictionary entry.
That’s fucking hilarious, and I love it.
This made me stop actively hating RM’s “verse”, because it’s actually a double entendre and country music appropriate subject matter. I didn’t know what a homi was or that he wasn’t just saying “homie”.
Fun Fact: I have heard neither Old Town Road nor any of it’s apparently numerous remixes.
Yeah, I’m that guy.
Typical that guy m.o.
COMPLETE BULLSH*T ALERT!!! This is neither FUN nor a FACT. You’re one of the first comments on this article and replied on the very first. My guess is this is actually one of your most played songs right now. Why would you search this out and comment that if you have never heard it??? “That guy” doesn’t do that. He would say “Country/Rap???”, laugh, and walk away.On a more serious note though…why would you bring up CC’s version of the twist??? He’s not the original artist and his song was number 1 for TWO weeks in DIFFERENT YEARS!!!! Gangnam Style is a much better comparison. LNX is the original here and owns every one of these remixes. CC’s “ The Twist” was a cover, not a remix AT ALL.
Keep fucking milking it my man. I stopped listening to these remixes long ago but I would do the exact same thing if I was in his position.
I hope it makes Billboard and record label execs’ blood pressure go through the roof.
Haha, I bet we’re way past that point by now.
Whoa! Is Gabe an OG BTS fan? I literally only ever hear people call Rap Monster that if they’ve been fans since the first album. To moderately old fans, he’s RapMon, and to new fans he’s RM or even Namjoon.
Not speaking on behalf of Gabe, but I find a few people love to snigger at the idea of a boy band leader calling himself “Rap Monster” and use the name somewhat mockingly.
Of course, those people have never heard “Joke”, which is not only fucking RIDICULOUS in how many flow change-ups it offers, but also has the benefit of being laid down over Run the Jewels’ “Oh My Darling Don’t Cry” which automatically makes it 200% better than the majority of mixtape efforts.
Was that supposed to be coherent sentences, or are you having a stroke?
Any ARMY members want to weigh in on whether RM is usually this trash in English? Like, I know he’s a fantastic English speaker, and he can rap well in Korean, but this was just not a good feature.
It really seems to depend on how invested he is. He’s a bit lazy with the linguistics on Fall Out Boy’s “Champion” remix. Sloppy English he wouldn’t do in an interview, ya know?But then, his collab with Wale (“Change”) is pretty much impeccable English, if not overtly challenging lyrics. The guy can go (there’s a switch to English in his Cypher Pt2 verse that is GLORIOUS), but like anyone else it all depends on how much of a shit he gives.
RM’s English verses are usually pretty good. Personally I prefer when he sprinkles some English lines in songs that are mostly in Korean because he tries a little too hard to keep pace with the English rappers on his English language collaborations. His word play in English is actually really good, but his diction suffers a bit when he’s rapping in English. I’d almost agree that he phoned in his verse for the remix but, once again, his wordplay was pretty good in his verse (Korean homi vs. American homie). It went very well with the theme of the song and even gave a shoutout to the other members of BTS. He think a lot about the message that he’s trying to get across in his music.
One hit wonder of this generation. Cant wait until its dead and buried