Lil Nas X's 'Old Town Road' Is The Most Streamed Song Of 2019 By A Landslide
Lil Nas X's reign doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon. The Atlanta native has had his boots on our necks since taking over the charts with his country-trap hybrid, “Old Town Road.” Nielsen Music just released its mid-year report, and to no one’s surprise, the 20-year-old’s viral breakout song is the most streamed song of the year. It beat out Post Malone, Ariana Grande, Travis Scott and other big names for the top spot.
From January to June, the music industry overall clocked in a record 507 billion streams. Of those, “Old Town Road” is the only song to hit over one billion steams, notching a staggering 1.3 billion audio and video streams — which includes every version of the song. It is also the highest-selling digital song, moving nearly a million units.
Lil Nas X released his first version of the song on SoundCloud last December, when it shot up Billboard’s Hot 100, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Country Songs charts before it was controversially taken off the country chart after Billboard deemed it not country enough. That was followed by his official remix with Billy Ray Cyrus, which dropped in April.
It's also shaping up to be the song of summer. On Monday (July 7), the hit single reached another milestone: it hit 13 weeks atop the Hot 100 chart. It overtook Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again" 12-week reign to become the longest-running hip-hop song of all time.
It doesn't seem like anyone else will be overtaking "Old Town Road" anytime soon either.
The second most streamed song of 2019 was Post Malone and Swae Lee’s joint record, “Sunflower,” for the recent animated Spiderman, at 850 million streams, followed by Ariana Grande’s chart-topping single, “7 Rings,” off her fifth album, Thank U, Next, with 776 million streams.
See which artists locked in the most-streamed songs and highest-selling digital songs for 2019 below. The full report can be read at Billboard.
2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 On-Demand Song Streams (Audio and Video Combined)
1. Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road” (1,337,995,000)
2. Post Malone & Swae Lee, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” (850,194,000)
3. Ariana Grande, “7 Rings” (776,696,000)
4. Travis Scott, “Sicko Mode” (623,498,000)
5. Halsey, “Without Me” (599,335,000)
6. J. Cole, “Middle Child” (582,748,000)
7. Post Malone, “Wow.” (582,633,000)
8. Blueface, “Thotiana” (588,277,000)
9. Marshmello & Bastille, “Happier” (528,640,000)
10. YNW Melly, “Murder On My Mind” (498,806,000)
2019’s Mid-Year Top 10 Selling Digital Songs
1. Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road” (958,000)
2. Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper, “Shallow” (684,000)
3. Post Malone & Swae Lee, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” (488,000)
4. Ariana Grande, “7 Rings” (420,000)
5. Halsey, “Without Me” (388,000)
6. Post Malone, “Wow.” (381,000)
7. Jonas Brothers, “Sucker” (357,000)
8. Lauren Daigle, “You Say” (322,000)
9. Taylor Swift featuring Brendon Urie, “Me!” (322,000)
10. Ava Max, “Sweet But Psycho” (321,000)
