Ella Langley's 'Choosin' Texas' Sets Record as Longest-Running No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100

Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" has become the longest-running No. 1 hit in U.S. chart history, spending 23 weeks atop the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, it was announced Tuesday.

The midtempo country heartbreak song, released last October, surpasses the previous record held by Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You," which logged 22 weeks at No. 1. It also outpaces marks set by Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)," Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You."

The track's dominance has been striking. Luminate, the industry data and analytics firm, found that "Choosin' Texas" drew 911 million on-demand streams in the U.S. and 1.26 billion globally as of mid-August. Langley began 2023, around the time of her Grand Ole Opry debut, with under 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify; she now has over 32 million.

Country listenership has historically centered on radio play, but that has shifted as the genre's popularity grows, coalescing around what Luminate's Jaime Marconette calls a "younger, streaming-forward listener" — a "multiyear narrative accelerated" by hits like "Choosin' Texas."

Claire Heinichen, a senior editor at Spotify, said the song's growth has been both explosive and consistent. It "started big," she said, moving from the platform's leading country playlist, "Hot Country," to larger, generic offerings because it works across audiences.

"It made its way into 'Today's Top Hits,' which is our biggest global flagship playlist, but it's also showing up in 'Mood' and 'Moments' playlists because it fits so well in 'driving' or 'chill' or 'cookout,'" Heinichen said. "It really can work everywhere."

Heinichen added that the song's success on a playlist like "Today's Top Hits" indicates it is connecting with listeners who are not seeking out one specific genre. "It's definitely growing in every direction," she said.

Musicologist Nate Sloan, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California and co-host of the podcast "Switched On Pop," pointed to Langley's voice as a key factor. He described it as "like syrup." She sings in long phrases that lull the listener into the song's rhythm, from its opening guitar line to its coda. "It's almost like a trance," Sloan said.

The song also draws on other genres, a cross-pollination common in much modern country. "Choosin' Texas" features shimmery disco grooves, not unlike Kacey Musgraves. "It's a little more rock or even kind of soul-inflected," Sloan said. "Part of the reason songs like 'Choosin' Texas' are able to resonate with such a wide audience is because, musically, they're bringing in a lot of diverse influences."

Charles L. Hughes, a Rhodes College professor and author of "Country Soul," said the song evokes many different eras of country music while remaining contemporary. To his ears, it pulls from late 1970s and early '80s country musicians who brought R&B and pop into their sound — think Ronnie Milsap, Barbara Mandrell and Charlie Rich — but filters those sounds through a post-Musgraves, post-Miranda Lambert songwriting style, with Langley's idiosyncratic charms. Lambert and Langley are two of the song's four cowriters.

"The best country music has one foot in the past and one foot into the present, if not the future," Hughes said. "And that's what she's doing."

Even for its light, bright musicality, "Choosin' Texas" is an unusual hit because it lacks the features that historically make up a No. 1 smash. It is highly specific, with detailed descriptions of characters and geography in the lyrics — which Sloan called "antithetical to what you usually expect from a big, hit pop song that's supposed to appeal to everyone." It is also "chill," he said. "It's not bombastic or anthemic."

"It has no big moments," Hughes said. But it has both a subtle dance pulse and steel guitar, so "it sounds country, but it doesn't automatically turn off people who are allergic to certain kinds of country sounds."

There is a sparkle that transgresses genre lines, but it does so while sounding mellow — the kind of track that inspires repeat listens. "Choosin' Texas" continues a great tradition of "songs that country women do about what men do in bars," Hughes said.

The narrative is straightforward: She is losing her lover to someone else. She will not fight for him. It is a song of resignation that ends with her drinking alone as he chooses Texas — another woman — over her and Tennessee. It is a universal heartbreak theme with potential for cross-generational resonance, working for both the insecurity of a first breakup and a long-term relationship ending over another woman or a move.

"It's got these great turns of phrase that give you a little bit of ironic distance as a narrator and as a listener," Sloan said.

"It doesn't take a crystal ball to see," Langley sings in the chorus, "A cowboy always finds a way to leave."

The lyrics are also clever, standing out in contemporary country, Hughes said. They are detailed: Langley's paramour loves George Strait's "Amarillo by Morning," a pantheon Texas track; she is drinking Tennessee whiskey as a result.

"There is the phenomenon of what some critics have called 'the sad banger' within the world of pop music," Sloan said. In country, it is even more common to take something sad and transform it into something funny or deadpan. "And that's what she's really good at, at this song."

The fact that regular chart-toppers like Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen and Bad Bunny have not released new albums this year could have cleared a path for the dominance of "Choosin' Texas," but Sloan sees its rise as indicative of something else.

"We're in this environment where you can measure a song's success in a numerical way," he said. "But then in terms of its actual cultural impact, that might be more fragmented than you think."

In essence, "Choosin' Texas" is on top. But how many people know Langley's name the way they knew Houston's and Carey's when those hits were released?

"It doesn't feel like a centerpiece of a monoculture, but it is absolutely a key part of like radio culture, streaming playlists, TikTok," Hughes added. "But it's hitting these various audiences in a way that combines to create something huge."

As for what the record forecasts for Langley, she is no one-hit wonder: her award-winning 2024 collaboration with Riley Green, "You Look Like You Love Me," is evidence of that.

"It's always hard to prognosticate with artists when they have an unexpected smash," Sloan said. "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's a pretty good formula to have a successful and long career in the music world."