Ella Langley's 'Choosin' Texas' Breaks All-Time Billboard No. 1 Record, Passing Mariah Carey

Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" logged its 23rd week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, breaking the record for the longest-running No. 1 single in the chart's 68-year history. The single, a slow-building country heartbreak song released nearly a year ago, has spent its weeks atop the chart non-consecutively, and now surpasses Mariah Carey's holiday perennial "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which had held the mark at 22 weeks.

The milestone, confirmed on the chart dated Sept. 26 and reported Tuesday, caps a run that began modestly last fall and grew into the defining commercial story of the year in American popular music, cutting across country radio, pop playlists and viral short-form video in a way few Nashville records have managed.

The numbers

"Choosin' Texas" first reached No. 1 in February 2026, months after its October 2025 release, and has occupied the top spot in non-consecutive stretches since. In its own accounting of the milestone, Billboard detailed how the song overtook a string of prior record holders on its way to the top of the all-time list. Along the way it passed the marks set by:

• Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You"
• Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road"
• Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)"
• Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You," the previous record holder at 22 weeks

By mid-August the song had generated 911 million on-demand streams in the United States and 1.26 billion worldwide, according to figures reported by the Associated Press. Langley's own audience has expanded alongside the song: her monthly Spotify listener count has grown from under 1 million in early 2023, around the time of her Grand Ole Opry debut, to more than 32 million now.

Context: a genre-crossing hit built slowly

"Choosin' Texas" was written by Langley with Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick and Joybeth Taylor, reportedly during a songwriting retreat, and produced by Langley with Lambert and Ben West. It is the lead single from Langley's second studio album, "Dandelion," released on her official site and through her label, Sony Music Nashville.

Unlike most Hot 100 record-setters, which tend to be maximalist pop or hip-hop singles built for immediate virality, "Choosin' Texas" is a midtempo, largely unadorned breakup song, blending traditional country instrumentation such as steel guitar with subtle disco and soul-inflected rhythm. That combination has been credited by critics with giving it crossover reach into pop and R&B playlists without abandoning its country identity — a rarer feat than the song's commercial numbers alone suggest. Rolling Stone noted that the record's staying power has less to do with a single viral moment than with a slow, steady accumulation of streams and airplay across formats, an unusual pattern for a 21st-century No. 1.

Langley, who is from Alabama and moved to Nashville to pursue songwriting before signing with Sony Music Nashville in 2023, had her first significant chart success the following year with "You Look Like You Love Me," a duet with Riley Green. "Choosin' Texas" is her first No. 1 on the all-genre Hot 100.

Who is affected

The record reshuffles a list of chart benchmarks that had stood for years or, in Carey's case, decades: "All I Want for Christmas Is You," originally released in 1994, has topped the Hot 100 in multiple separate holiday stretches since 2019, when Billboard's methodology changes made older catalog songs newly eligible to chart. That the record has now passed to a contemporary country single, rather than another seasonal or novelty hit, is being read in the music industry as a marker of country music's continued commercial expansion beyond its traditional radio base, a trend also reflected in recent Hot 100 runs by Shaboozey and Morgan Wallen.

For Langley, the milestone arrives as she is touring behind "Dandelion" and heading into a period when awards-season attention typically intensifies for the year's biggest commercial stories. It is also a significant win for her songwriting collaborators, Lambert, Dick and Taylor, whose credits on the song are now attached to a chart record likely to be cited for years.

Reaction

Langley addressed the record in comments reported Tuesday, describing the scale of the song's success as difficult to process.

"It's changing my life. It's changing the lives of the writers of this song. It's changing the lives of my family."

She also described the moment as surreal, saying it "feels fake" and that she keeps expecting to be told the achievement is not real, before thanking listeners directly for keeping the song at the top of the chart for so long.

Industry analysts quoted in wire reporting on the record pointed to the song's unhurried, repetitive melodic structure and its cross-format appeal as reasons for its unusually long chart life, distinguishing it from shorter-lived viral hits that spike and fade within weeks.

What happens next

Whether "Choosin' Texas" continues adding weeks at No. 1 or cedes the top spot in coming weeks, it has already set a mark that will be the new reference point for chart longevity. Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" traditionally returns to the upper reaches of the Hot 100 each December, meaning the holiday song could still add to its own tally of 22 weeks, though it would need a run of consecutive future Decembers to threaten Langley's new total.

For now, the record stands as the signature commercial achievement of Langley's career and one of the defining chart stories of 2026, likely to factor into conversations about year-end best-of lists and next year's Grammy nominations for a song still generating streams and airplay nearly a year after its release.