Country Flub

Lil Nas X follows “Old Town Road” with a new EP.

- Craig Jenkins

AS “OLD TOWN ROAD” closes out its third month on top of the Bill board “Hot 100” chart, it enters the company of the most successful hit singles of the past 20 years. It has already enjoyed a longer stay than event records like Pharrell’s “Happy,” Adele’s “Hello,” and Destiny’s Child’s “Independent Women, Pt. I.” Those songs still get burn today; they’re etched into the history of popular culture. Maybe, in the future, we’ll remember “Old Town Road” as a bright spot in strange times.

This feat is doubly impressive because “Old Town Road” is Atlanta rapper Lil Nas X’s first official single. The last time a solo artist got this much distance on the first at bat, Jimmy Carter was president: In 1977, vocalist Debby Boone, daughter of the wholesome film and pop star Pat Boone and a member of his Christian family band, cut a cover of “You Light Up My Life,” the Oscar winning theme song to the forgettable low budget romance of the same name. Boone’s ballad broke big—her reign on the top lasted ten weeks—and her team rushed an album out to capitalize on the momentum. That album, also called You Light Up My Life, was a mess that not even Beatles and Abba covers could save. Boone got lost in the shuffle trying to juggle pop, rock, country, and sentimental ballads. She didn’t have the range. Light went platinum, but in three years Boone’s pop career dried up and she returned to the Christian-music circuit.

Lil Nas X’s major-label debut, 7, also faces the unenviable task of creating a marketable sound for a new artist in short order. A 19-minute EP,