This month on Twitter, @sotachetan hosts #BrandedInSongs – which is a head-on collision of my personal world of music and my professional world of branding and advertising. The challenge is to simply pick a song with a brand name in its lyrics or title. I added one more criteria to my picks, which is this: the songs themselves must be as iconic as the brands they mention. No filler here.
Hard to think of another song that got as much airplay as this one back in 2019. It had an unusually high universal appeal, attracting rap fans and country fans alike. Not exactly the most common of genre mash-ups. Generation-wise, there was also tons of appeal from a wide range of ages. Seemed like the elderly loved this one just as much as the kids. Not many songs can pull off that level of acclaim.
I have a love-hate relationship with this song. I find it extremely irritating at times. But I also find it incredibly catchy. It’s inventiveness through its combination of rap and country elements is inspiring. But the song also feels somewhat contrived in its pop-ness. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know what to do with it. Part of me wants to stop listening, the other part of me can’t stop listening. “Old Town Road” is just that kind of song.
“Ridin' down Rodeo in my Maserati sports car. Got no stress, I've been through all that.”