Billy Ray Cyrus Lands First No. 1 Hot 100 Hit After 27 Years
billy ray cyrus reached his first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2019 through Lil Nas X’s remix of “Old Town Road.” The collaboration gave Cyrus an all-genre chart breakthrough 27 years after he launched his career with Some Gave All, and it pushed the song into a 19-week run at No. 1.
April 5 Remix, April 13 No. 1
The remix arrived on April 5, 2019, and “Old Town Road” hit No. 1 on April 13. For Cyrus, the placement was the first time his name sat at the top of the Hot 100, even though he had already built a country chart resume before that crossover.
“Achy Breaky Heart” had peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, while Some Gave All debuted at No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and Top Country Albums charts and sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. The new No. 1 came from a feature role, not a solo push, which makes the credit split part of the story: Lil Nas X owned the original release, and Cyrus supplied the remix that widened the record’s reach.
Old Town Road’s Chart Run
“Old Town Road” was first released independently by Lil Nas X in December 2018, before the Cyrus version landed in April. The song then stayed at No. 1 for 19 consecutive weeks, a run that turned one viral track into a long chart monopoly and extended the value of the remix far beyond one week at the summit.
The single also topped charts in the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom, then became the fastest song to receive Diamond certification from the RIAA after selling 10 million units in the U.S. It has since passed 17-times Platinum in America and sold more than 18 million copies worldwide, so the chart win was never just a country-crossover footnote.
Billboard’s Country Chart Dispute
Billboard removed “Old Town Road” from the Hot Country Songs chart during a controversy over whether it contained enough elements of today’s country music. That decision left the remix with a bigger pop-stage payoff than a country-chart home, and it gave Cyrus a rare lane where the commercial result outpaced the format debate around the record.
For Cyrus, the clean takeaway is simple: the first Hot 100 No. 1 of his career came from a feature on a song that broke every pace marker around it. The milestone belongs to 2019, but the practical lesson for artists is older — a collaboration can move a legacy name into a bigger market than a solo hit sometimes can.
