“Every day I wake up, it’s like something more insane has happened,” Ella Langley says, reflecting on a year that has been filled with near-surreal achievements. Langley earned hits on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart with “Weren’t for the Wind” and her Riley Green collaboration “Don’t Mind If I Do” in 2025 — but this year, one smash single elevated her to history-¬making chart heights and arena headliner status.

On “Choosin’ Texas,” twangy steel guitar and line dance-ready rhythms underscore Langley’s heartrending tale of ¬losing a paramour to a woman from the Lone Star State. At press time, it had spent six weeks atop the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 — breaking a record previously held by Taylor Swift for the most weeks spent atop the chart for a song by a woman that also topped Hot Country Songs. It also became the first song by a woman country artist to simultaneously lead the Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts. The megahit, which embodies the 26-year-old’s modern yet timeless country vibe, marks a new career high for this year’s Women in Music Powerhouse.

Her vivid, reflective 18-song album Dandelion, released in April on SAWGOD/Columbia Records, builds on the momentum from “Choosin’ Texas” with songs like “Loving Life Again” and “Be Her.” In March, the latter reached No. 2 on Hot Country Songs just beneath “Choosin’ Texas,” making Langley the first woman to hold the chart’s top two spots for multiple weeks, surpassing Beyoncé and Swift, who each did so for one. In April, Langley received five Academy of Country Music Awards nominations, including for female artist, song and single of the year.

Read the full interview here.

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