Y.O.G.A. (You’re Only Great Always) has made a name for himself turning country classics into late-night dancefloor weapons, but his latest — a boot-stomping, synth-kicked flip of Dolly Parton’s ‘9 to 5’ — has become a phenomenon even by his standards.
After soundtracking almost 300,000 Instagram Reels and clocking more than two billion views across the platform, the remix finally arrives today as an official release, re-recorded from scratch and fronted by ARIA-nominated country star Taylor Moss.
The whole thing, Y.O.G.A. — aka Peking Duk’s Reuben Styles — says, started as a road-trip fever dream on the way to Stagecoach in California.
“It started off when I was on the road to Stagecoach festival in California, and I just wanted a version of ‘9 to 5’ to get the crowd going,” he recalls. “I had two red hot drag queens, Kyra from LA and Jimmy the Queen from Melbourne… and Kyra was like, ‘If you could make a club version of 9 to 5,’ and I was like, that’s actually the best idea ever.”
He threw together a playable edit before the car even hit Indio. “I should’ve spent way more time on it… it wasn’t a remix; it was an edit at best, but it felt playable. And we’d just found out that right after me at Stagecoach was gonna be the Chainsmokers, so we’re like, fuck, we’re gonna have a packed tent — let’s get it going.”
It worked. The crowd lost it. Then came a run of WA shows, and a dusty roadside dance promo filmed on the way to the Mullewa Muster & Rodeo. He uploaded it, went to play the rodeo, and forgot about it entirely — until his phone lit up days later while he was on holiday in Greece.
“I got a call from my manager Tommy, and he goes, ‘Dude, have you, have you been online yet?’… The sound had been used 6,000 times in two days. And I was like, ‘Holy dooly!’” Styles explains. “Then the next day it was at 20,000 videos, then the next day it was 50,000 people that had used this sound, going fully viral around the world.”
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
That momentum sparked an unexpected email: Dolly Parton’s manager. Publishing cleared quickly, but the master didn’t, leaving Y.O.G.A. with one option.
“At a certain point we were like, alright, what’s in our control? Recording every single instrument on the damn song from scratch.”
So he rebuilt the whole thing — pianos, guitars, bass, horns, backing vocals — and then began the hunt for the right lead vocal. Ten singers tried. None landed it.
Until Taylor Moss.
“She was like, ‘Hey, I’m definitely your person for this… just bear with me,’ and I believed her,” Styles says. “Literally within two hours she had nailed that lead vocal and we were like, here we go.”
He doesn’t hold back on what she brought to the track. “Taylor Moss is the magic of this song; what a queen. She’s an absolutely incredible artist, and I’ve been a big fan of hers for ages.”
Moss, who heads into next week’s ARIA Awards as one of the favourites in the Best Country Album category, didn’t hesitate when the call came in.
“It was an absolute no-brainer when YOGA asked me to sing on a Dolly track,” she says. “Dolly is one of the many strong country women who’ve raised me in life and in song. I’ve been performing ‘9 to 5’ in my live set for about three years now… Getting to bring this song to life again with Y.O.G.A. feels like a full circle moment.”
And Styles is cheering her on. “She has been nominated for an ARIA Award this year and, you know, unless Keith Urban gets it, she’s gonna get it,” he laughs.
For Styles, the collaboration represents more than a viral moment. It ties into a bigger shift in how he operates as an artist.
“She’s the reason I actually first decided to take this solo project from a label to the independent space,” he says. “I’ve asked Taylor for so much advice over the years, and she really gave me the confidence to take that leap into independent music releases. Since then… it’s been monumental.”
He’s not exaggerating: Y.O.G.A.’s following has ballooned from 10,000 to 83,000 on Instagram since the Dolly clip went viral; Spotify listeners have jumped from 40,000 to 280,000. Snow Machine even built him his own stage — Yoga’s Cowtech — in New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Moss continues to cement herself as one of the leading voices in Australia’s country boom. Her debut album Firecracker hit No. 1 and scored her that ARIA nod, plus three Golden Guitar nominations. This year she’s taken on CMC Rocks, Gympie Muster, the UK, Nashville’s CMA Fest, and a national arena run supporting LeAnn Rimes. It’s the kind of momentum that makes her pairing with Y.O.G.A. feel both inevitable and perfectly timed.
With ‘9 to 5’ finally out in the world — months after fans first flooded his inbox begging for the official release — Styles is both relieved and thrilled.
“People have been wanting this on streaming for ages. I’m pretty damn stoked it’s finally happening,” he says.
