{"id":772233,"date":"2026-09-16T06:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T06:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/772233\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T06:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T06:42:16","slug":"ella-langley-is-about-to-smash-mariah-careys-chart-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/772233\/","title":{"rendered":"Ella Langley is about to smash Mariah Carey\u2019s chart record"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ella Langley is on the verge of making Billboard history with \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas\u201d \u2014 a song whose unlikely origin involves Miranda Lambert, a kangaroo and a story about getting pulled over by a cop.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old country star \u2014 whose main axe is a Gibson<\/a> SJ-200 acoustic<\/a> \u2014 has emerged as one of 2026\u2019s breakout acts. Five tracks from her fourth album, Dandelion, have surpassed 100 million streams on Spotify alone, helping the singer-songwriter from Hope Hull, Alabama, connect with a huge audience.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas\u201d has left the rest in the dust, amassing more than 694 million Spotify streams and climbing to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Ella\n<\/p>\n

Langley performs at Billboard Women in Music 2026, April 29, 2026. (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Released in October 2025 as the lead single from Dandelion, the song didn\u2019t reach No. 1 until February. It hasn\u2019t budged since, and this week it is expected to notch its 23rd week at the summit \u2014 breaking a record held by Mariah Carey\u2019s \u201cAll I Want for Christmas Is You.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carey\u2019s festive smash has spent 22 weeks at number one since first reaching the top in 2019. The achievement helped cement her status as the \u201cQueen of Christmas,\u201d and for the past seven years, her 22-week run has been the benchmark Langley is now poised to surpass.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

\u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas,\u201d meanwhile, is a country song in the classic tradition of heartbreak and romantic rejection, told from the perspective of a jilted lover. And its inspiration is about as far removed from the Billboard Hot 100 as you can imagine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote it with one of my favorite artists, Miranda Lambert,\u201d Langley told iHeartCountry<\/a> in April. Luke Dick and Joybeth Taylor also receive writing credits on the hit.<\/p>\n

All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were at a writer\u2019s retreat, and she [Lambert] was telling me this story of how she had a kangaroo in her passenger seat,\u201d Langley explains. \u201cShe got pulled over, and the cop was like, \u2018Oh, you have Texas plates.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Well, she\u2019s from Texas, I can tell.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all latched onto that story of \u2018he picked the other girl.\u2019 We\u2019ve all had a crush at one time who was more into someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ella Langley – Choosin’ Texas (Official Video) – YouTube
\n\"Ella<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

The kangaroo, it turns out, belongs to Lambert, making the song\u2019s origin story even more unusual. The animal\u2019s name has never been publicly revealed, but its appearance at a writer\u2019s retreat helped inspire a song that is now on the verge of surpassing one of Mariah Carey\u2019s most enduring chart records.<\/p>\n

Nearly a year after its release, \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas\u201d shows no sign of slowing down. If it reaches 23 weeks at number one this week as expected, Langley will have a new Billboard record \u2014 thanks, in part, to a kangaroo.<\/p>\n

In related news, the undisputed queen of country, Dolly Parton, was recently honored at the Emmys<\/a>, while another fast-rising country star has opened up about making a fan<\/a> out of Bob Dylan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ella Langley is on the verge of making Billboard history with \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas\u201d \u2014 a song whose unlikely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-772233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}