Billy Ray Cyrus on Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’ is the pop opportunist we’ve always known
LA TimesPop Music Critic Only a rube would look at this new remix of “Old Town Road” — in which Billy Ray Cyrus jumps on the controversial country-trap hit by Lil Nas X — as an act of pure altruism. “Old Town Road,” with its sampled banjo lick and Lil Nas X’s rhymes about horses and boots, is no less a country song than Billboard-approved hits by Sam Hunt and Florida Georgia Line; indeed, it’s far more of a country song than Taylor Swift’s mechanized “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” which topped the country chart in 2012. On Wednesday afternoon, the “Achy Breaky Heart” singer wrote to Lil Nas X on Twitter, telling him he’d been watching the hubbub over “Old Town Road.” “When I got thrown off the charts,” he said, presumably referring to some age-old shake-up related to his own pop crossover, “Waylon Jennings said to me, ‘Take this a compliment.’” Being shunned by the country establishment, Cyrus suggested, “means you’re doing something great!” “Only Outlaws are outlawed,” he concluded. “Welcome to the club!” A day later, he was rhyming with Lil Nas X on the “Old Town Road” remix, which by Friday morning had reached No.