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“MONTERO” IS THE GAYT NO. 1 SGLE BILLBOARD HISTORY
) As cheeky—lerally—as twerkg is as a metonym for Lil Nas X’s current h, has also emerged as a symbol of gay pri and even prott.
And while he is fely leang to the LOLz, Montero also serly se “Montero, ” his purposefully self-tled sgle—paired wh a parenthetil alln to Call Me by Your Name, the gay g-of-age novel turned award-wng film—as an emblem of his uncloseted eedom. It is therefore arguable that “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” is the most openly gay song ever to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and ’s certaly the first such song to but on top. Tthfully, the vio and the marketg for “Montero” are more ostentatly gay than the song, many of whose lyrics—“Romantic talk’?
1 bee the vio was eye-poppg, sure—but a larger sense, om the gay pri angle to the sneakers stunt to the daily social gawkg, everybody wanted on the disurse. *Update, April 12: After this article went to prs a few rears, cludg Billboard senr director of charts Keh Clfield, asked me why I failed to clu, my ndown of prr gay-adjacent Hot 100 No. Lil Nas X’s “Montero, ” by ntrast, is about a specific, lived gay experience, a slice of life.