Ella Langley has officially made Billboard history. Her breakout smash “Choosin’ Texas” has logged a 23rd week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving the Alabama country star the longest-running No. 1 single in the chart’s 68-year history.
The milestone, confirmed with the latest chart published Tuesday, September 22, pushes Langley past Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which had held the all-time record with 22 weeks at the top. Twenty-three weeks at No. 1 means Langley has spent nearly half a year at the summit of American pop music.
How Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” Toppled a Mariah Carey Record
The road to the record was a slow burn. “Choosin’ Texas” entered the Hot 100 in November 2025 and cracked the top 10 that January. It first hit No. 1 in February 2026, slipped off briefly, then returned on the July 4 chart — and it has not moved since.
Carey’s holiday classic earned its 22 weeks the long way, returning to No. 1 every Christmas season since it first topped the chart in December 2019. Langley matched that record in a single year with one song.
Meanwhile, the milestone puts even more distance between Langley and everyone else. At 20 weeks, “Choosin’ Texas” had already become the longest-leading non-holiday song in Hot 100 history, passing the 19-week runs of Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus‘ “Old Town Road.”
The Story Behind the Record-Breaking Song
The song’s origin is almost as good as its chart run. Langley wrote it at a songwriting retreat in October 2024 with her mentor Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick, and Joybeth Taylor. The Texas theme reportedly came from a story Lambert told about getting pulled over while driving with her pet kangaroo. The group finished the song in about 30 minutes.
But the song is pure heartbreak. The narrator, planted in Tennessee, watches the person she loves drift toward another woman from Texas. “She’s from Texas, I can tell by the way / He’s two-steppin’ ’round the room,” Langley sings, name-dropping country classics like “Amarillo by Morning” and “Smoky Mountain Rain” along the way. Lambert also produced the track with Langley and Ben West and added background vocals.
Langley has said the success still feels unreal. She told Billboard she never expected fans to take hold of the song the way they have, and watching fans change her career one song at a time has been the biggest moment of her journey so far.
The Numbers Behind Ella Langley’s 23-Week Run
The statistics are staggering. In the tracking week of September 11–17 alone, “Choosin’ Texas” pulled 21.8 million official U.S. streams, reached a radio audience of 58.3 million, and sold 6,000 copies. It has also logged 23 weeks at No. 1 on Streaming Songs, 18 weeks atop Digital Song Sales (tied with two BTS songs), and 41 weeks at No. 1 on Hot Country Songs.
In addition, Luminate data shows the song has drawn 911 million on-demand streams in the U.S. and 1.26 billion globally. For context, Langley started 2023 with under 1 million monthly Spotify listeners. She now has more than 32 million.
The song crossed over because it refuses to sit in one lane. A senior Spotify editor noted it “started big” on the platform’s leading country playlist, Hot Country, then moved into bigger genre-blending playlists because it works across audiences.
Langley’s Record-Breaking Year Keeps Getting Bigger
The Hot 100 record is just the latest line on a résumé that already looks like a hall-of-fame year. Langley swept all seven of her nominations at the 2026 ACM Awards, and she leads the 2026 CMA Awards nominations with nine nods. Back in February, she became the only woman to top the Hot 100, Hot Country Songs, and Country Airplay charts at the same time.
Billboard’s final Songs of the Summer ranking for 2026 put “Choosin’ Texas” at No. 1, with Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You” at No. 2 and Langley’s own “Be Her” at No. 3 — the first time country songs have held all three top spots on the season list.
What Comes Next for “Choosin’ Texas”?
So can anyone catch her? For now, the song shows no signs of slowing, and it could add more weeks to its total. But one challenger looms: Mariah Carey. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” returns to the top every holiday season, so Carey could start closing the gap when December arrives.
For Langley, though, the crown is hers. In less than two years she has gone from club gigs to owning the biggest chart record in Billboard Hot 100 history. Not bad for a song that started with a kangaroo story.
What do you think — is “Choosin’ Texas” the song of the decade, or will Mariah reclaim the record at Christmas? Let us know in the comments.