Ella Langley en concert, février 2025 (photo : BrDen, CC BY 4.0)
It took twenty-two weeks, scattered across interruptions and comebacks, for a country song to pull level with a record most people assumed was untouchable. Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” has just tied the all-time mark for most weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, a throne that had belonged to one relentless holiday classic alone.
A record only the queen of Christmas could claim
With this 22nd week at No. 1, “Choosin’ Texas” now shares the top of the Hot 100’s history books with “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” The comparison is a strange one: the holiday anthem needed six years to stack up its weeks, resurfacing every December, while Langley built her total in just over seven months, across a single promotional cycle. The song also passes Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” as the longest-running non-holiday No. 1 ever, and becomes the longest reign by a female country artist in the chart’s history.
The run was anything but a straight line. Between stints at the top, several other songs briefly took over the summit before handing it back:
- “DTMF” by Bad Bunny
- “Opalite” and “I Knew It, I Knew You” by Taylor Swift
- “Swim” by BTS
- “Drop Dead” by Olivia Rodrigo
Dandelion, the album behind it all
“Choosin’ Texas” is the lead single from Dandelion, Ella Langley’s second studio album, released on April 10, 2026. Its eighteen tracks were co-produced by Langley herself alongside Miranda Lambert and Ben West — Lambert also co-wrote the single with Langley, Luke Dick and Joybeth Taylor. Dandelion opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 169,000 equivalent album units, the biggest week for a country album by a woman in two years. It has just returned to the top of that chart for a third, non-consecutive week, proof the album has a life of its own beyond the single. The title track, which gives the record its name, is framed by the singer as an image of resilience: the flower everyone assumes is fragile, growing back everywhere anyway. Another cut, “Be Her,” is already climbing into the top 10 most-streamed songs and looks like the natural next chapter.
From Hope Hull to a chart legend
Born Elizabeth Camille Langley in 1999 in Hope Hull, Alabama, she dropped out of college at twenty to try her luck in Nashville. The break came through social media: her song “If You Have To” went viral on short-form video, leading to a first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry in 2023 and a record deal. An EP, Excuse the Mess, and a debut album, Hungover, followed in late 2024, carried by the duet “You Look Like You Love Me” with Riley Green — a No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart and Musical Event of the Year at the CMA Awards. Three more CMA trophies followed in 2025, before Dandelion and “Choosin’ Texas” pushed her into an entirely different league.
whatlisten was already tracking the song’s climb back at its 18th week atop the chart; four weeks and several detours later, it now shares the most talked-about record in the chart’s history. Whether a 23rd week arrives to make the record its own remains the only question left.
For country music specifically, the milestone lands even harder. No woman in the genre has ever held the Hot 100 summit this long, and the achievement arrives at a moment when country has already been dominating the conversation around the chart all year, from festival bills to award-show performances. A tie is still a tie, though, and Mariah Carey’s song will get its usual shot at reclaiming sole ownership of the record this coming December, when the holiday season sends it back up the chart as it has every year since 2019. Until then, Langley’s summer-into-fall reign stands as proof that a single, well-placed song can still rewrite what the chart’s record books look like, one non-consecutive week at a time.
