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<\/p>\nElla Langley\u2019s Choosin\u2019 Texas, a simmering, midtempo, country-and-then-some heartbreak song released last October, is indisputably 2026\u2019s biggest hit.<\/p>\n
Choosin’ Texas is also the longest-running No. 1 hit in the US, having spent 23 weeks at the top spot on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, it was announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n
That means the track has surpassed various records set by Shaboozey\u2019s A Bar Song (Tipsy), Lil Nas X\u2019s Old Town Road, Whitney Houston\u2019s I Will Always Love You and most impressively, Mariah Carey\u2019s All I Want For Christmas Is You. Her holiday classic held the previous record, with 22 weeks at No. 1.<\/p>\n
The song\u2019s laid-back sound, cross-genre appeal and heartache narrative are a few reasons why. But its dominance still comes as a surprise.<\/p>\n
Here’s how huge Choosin’ Texas has become<\/p>\n
Luminate, the industry data and analytics company, found that Choosin\u2019 Texas brought in 911 million on-demand streams in the US and 1.26 billion globally as of mid-August. <\/p>\n
Considering that Langley started 2023, around the time she made her Grand Ole Opry debut, with under 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify \u2014 and now boasts of over 32 million \u2014 her rise has been meteoric.<\/p>\n
Historically, country listenership has centred on radio play. That has changed somewhat as the genre grows in popularity, solidifying around what Luminate\u2019s Jaime Marconette describes as a “younger, streaming-forward listener”. He says it is a “multiyear narrative accelerated” by hits like Choosin\u2019 Texas.<\/p>\n
Claire Heinichen, a senior editor at Spotify, says the song\u2019s growth has been both explosive and consistent. Choosin\u2019 Texas “started big”, she says, moving from the platform\u2019s leading country playlist, ‘Hot Country’, to its larger, generic offerings because it works across audiences.<\/p>\n
“It made its way into ‘Today\u2019s Top Hits’, which is our biggest global flagship playlist, but it\u2019s also showing up in ‘Mood’ and ‘Moments’ playlists because it fits so well in ‘driving’ or ‘chill’ or ‘cookout’,” Heinichen says. “It really can work everywhere.”<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just country music fans who are connecting with Choosin\u2019 Texas.<\/p>\n
“The song\u2019s success on a playlist like ‘Today\u2019s Top Hits’ is an indication that this is working for audiences who are not seeking out one specific genre,” Heinichen says. “It\u2019s definitely growing in every direction.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ella Langley arrives at the IHeartRadio Music Awards in Los Angeles on March 26, 2026. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
The specific sound of Choosin\u2019 Texas speaks to its staying power<\/p>\n
Go straight to Langley\u2019s voice for another explanation for the song\u2019s success. It\u2019s “like syrup”, says Nate Sloan, a musicologist, assistant professor at the University of Southern California and co-host of the podcast Switched On Pop.<\/p>\n
She sings in long phrases that lull the listener into the song\u2019s rhythm, from its opening guitar line to its coda. “It\u2019s almost like a trance,” Sloan says.<\/p>\n
It also pulls from other genres; a cross-pollination found in much modern country. Langley\u2019s Choosin\u2019 Texas features shimmery disco grooves, not unlike Kacey Musgraves.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s a little more rock or even kind of soul-inflected,” Sloan says. “Part of the reason songs like Choosin\u2019 Texas are able to resonate with such a wide audience is because, musically, they\u2019re bringing in a lot of diverse influences.”<\/p>\n
Charles L. Hughes, a Rhodes College professor and author of Country Soul, says the song sounds like many different eras of country music and, simultaneously, contemporary.<\/p>\n
To his ears, Choosin\u2019 Texas pulls from a late 1970s, early \u201980s era of country musicians who pulled R&B and pop into their sound \u2014 think Ronnie Milsap, Barbara Mandrell and Charlie Rich \u2014 but it isn\u2019t stuck in that period. <\/p>\n
Those sounds are filtered through a post-Musgraves, post-Miranda Lambert songwriting style, with Langley\u2019s idiosyncratic charms. (Lambert and Langley are two of the song\u2019s four co-writers.)<\/p>\n
“The best country music has one foot in the past and one foot into the present, if not the future,” Hughes says. “And that\u2019s what she\u2019s doing.”<\/p>\n
Even for its light, bright musicality, Choosin\u2019 Texas is an unusual hit, because it doesn\u2019t possess the features that historically make up a No. 1 smash. It\u2019s super specific \u2014 with its detailed descriptions of characters and geography in the lyrics \u2014 which is “antithetical to what you usually expect from a big, hit pop song that\u2019s supposed to appeal to everyone”, says Sloan. It\u2019s also “chill”, Sloan says. “It\u2019s not bombastic or anthemic.”<\/p>\n
“It has no big moments,” says Hughes. But it has both a subtle dance pulse and steel guitar, so “it sounds country, but it doesn\u2019t automatically turn off people who are allergic to certain kinds of country sounds”.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a sparkle that transgresses genre lines, but it does so while sounding mellow \u2014 the kind of track that inspires repeat listens.<\/p>\n
![\"Ella](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/9th-annual-nashville-songwriter-awards-YYO4TVMO4NBEHGMINH6FSIJIQY.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Ella Langley performs onstage at the 9th Annual Nashville Songwriter Awards at Ryman Auditorium on September 22, 2026 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n
The lyrics of Choosin’ Texas have a few things going for them<\/p>\n
Choosin\u2019 Texas continues a great tradition of “songs that country women do about what men do in bars”, says Hughes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s straightforward: She\u2019s losing her lover to someone else. She\u2019s not going to fight for him \u2014 it\u2019s a song of resignation that ends with her drinking alone as he chooses Texas (another woman) over her (and Tennessee). <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a universal heartbreak theme with potential for cross-generational resonance: It works for both the insecurity of a first breakup and a long-term relationship ending over another woman, or a move.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s got these great turns of phrase that give you a little bit of ironic distance as a narrator and as a listener,” says Sloan.<\/p>\n
“It doesn\u2019t take a crystal ball to see,” Langley acquiesces in the chorus, “A cowboy always finds a way to leave.”<\/p>\n
The lyrics are also clever, standing out in contemporary country, says Hughes. (Compare it to Luke Bryan\u2019s Fish Hunt Golf Drink.) And it\u2019s detailed: Langley\u2019s paramour loves George Strait\u2019s Amarillo by Morning, a pantheon Texas track; she\u2019s drinking Tennessee whiskey as a result.<\/p>\n
“There is the phenomenon of what some critics have called \u2018the sad banger\u2019 within the world of pop music,” says Sloan. In country, it\u2019s even more common to take something sad and transform it into something funny or deadpan. “And that\u2019s what she\u2019s really good at, at this song.”<\/p>\n
Choosin\u2019 Texas says a lot about music in 2026<\/p>\n
The fact that regular chart-toppers like Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen and Bad Bunny haven\u2019t released new albums this year could\u2019ve cleared a path for the dominance of Choosin\u2019 Texas, but Sloan sees its rise as indicative of something else.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re in this environment where you can measure a song\u2019s success in a numerical way,” he says. “But then in terms of its actual cultural impact, that might be more fragmented than you think.”<\/p>\n
Essentially: Choosin\u2019 Texas is on top. But how many people know Langley\u2019s name, the way they knew Houston\u2019s and Carey\u2019s when those hits were released?<\/p>\n
“It doesn\u2019t feel like a centrepiece of a monoculture, but it is absolutely a key part of like radio culture, streaming playlists, TikTok,” Hughes adds. “But it\u2019s hitting these various audiences in a way that combines to create something huge.”<\/p>\n
But what does it forecast for Langley? She\u2019s no one-hit wonder: Her award-winning 2024 collaboration with Riley Green, You Look Like You Love Me is evidence of that.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s always hard to prognosticate with artists when they have an unexpected smash,” says Sloan. “Her ability to write songs with a lot of integrity that both reach back into country tradition and incorporate sounds of the 21st century? That\u2019s a pretty good formula to have a successful and long career in the music world.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ella Langley\u2019s Choosin\u2019 Texas, a simmering, midtempo, country-and-then-some heartbreak song released last October, is indisputably 2026\u2019s biggest hit.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,157,111,139,64,69],"class_list":["post-608917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-north-america","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}