Forcing her way into the most country-hesitant formats.
It’s hard to argue that there’s a bigger artist, not just in the genre but music as a whole, than Ella Langley in 2026. Simply put, the Alabama native has become nothing short of a phenomenon thanks to the megahit that is “Choosin’ Texas” and her sophomore album, Dandelion. And, in turn, she has captured the hearts of nearly everyone in the country and the world over the past year.
Since its release on October 17th, 2025, “Choosin’ Texas” is now the longest-running #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 with 27 weeks and counting, the only country song by a woman to triple up and go #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100, Hot Country and Country Airplay charts simultaneously. In case that wasn’t enough, thanks to the success of her sophomore album, Dandelion, which debuted at #1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 and sold 169,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week, Langley became just the second woman in history to hold the #1 album and song in the U.S. simultaneously with a country song/album.
Outside of “Choosin’ Texas” and its historic run on the Hot 100, she’s captured other chart records, such as becoming the first woman this century to score 4+ #1 hits from a single album and the fourth artist in history to score 4+ #1 hits in a calendar year on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, surpassing Post Malone as the biggest #1 hit in U.S. Spotify history, becoming the first female artist ever to chart two songs (“Lovin’ Life Again” and “Jaded” with Koe Wetzel) inside the Top 3 on Mediabase and more.
Simply put, she has been everywhere. Whether it’s selling out arenas across the country on her own Dandelion Tour and opening up for Morgan Wallen on his potentially record-breaking Still The Problem Tour or scoring collabs with major brands such as American Eagle, Shiner Bock beer, Noyz perfume, and more.
Despite this, so many pop stans (and country haters in general) have been on a crusade against Langley, calling her a “one hit wonder” and an “industry plant,” trying to smear her as “MAGA” (despite her never publicly commenting on politics) and using pretty much any other term you can think of to disparage her history-making success.
While there’s an incredible amount of data to disprove these claims, primarily the likes of “Be Her” and “I Can’t Love You Anymore” also becoming all-genre Top 5 hits, one of the biggest testaments of her crossover success was just accomplished recently.
With “Choosin’ Texas” receiving a hefty amount of airplay on Country, Pop and Adult Contemporary (AC) radio over the past year and “Be Her” recently receiving a significant amount of adds on both Pop and AC radio, Langley has officially become the first female country act since Taylor Swift to have multiple songs from one album impact all three formats. Of course, the country-turned-pop-star accomplished this with 2010’s Speak Now, thanks to her hits, “Mine” and “Back To December.”
What makes Langley’s sustained impact on pop radio so significant is the fact that her and her label, Columbia Records, are not actively sending these songs to non-country formats such as Pop and AC. Instead, it’s impacting these stations thanks solely on the fact that she and these songs are simply that popular and in-demand.
Keep in mind, pop radio, as a whole, is an incredibly country-hesitant format, with wildly popular songs in the genre from Zach Bryan, Luke Combs and other stars never receiving any play on pop stations. Hell, even female pop country acts over the years such as Maren Morris, Kelsea Ballerini and Megan Moroney or even popular crossover stars such as Carrie Underwood and Kacey Musgraves have all failed to gain this much traction outside of the genre As of now, the only artist even remotely comparable in terms of crossover success would be none other than Morgan Wallen.
Simply put, Ella Langley is currently on a career trajectory that can only be compared to the likes of select stars such as Wallen, Shania Twain and Garth Brooks, especially when viewing her current success from a crossover perspective. At this point, it’s not hyperbole to say that the sky is truly the limit for Langley if she can sustain anything close to this level of success throughout the rest of the decade.
“Choosin’ Texas”
“Be Her”
