Ella Langley’s ‘Choosin’ Texas’ spends a record 23rd week at No. 1 on the Hot 100, passing Mariah Carey’s all-time mark
Ella Langley now owns the longest run at No. 1 in the 68-year history of the Billboard Hot 100. “Choosin’ Texas” logged a 23rd week atop the chart on Tuesday (Sept. 22), passing the 22 weeks that Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” accumulated across multiple holiday seasons. The 27-year-old Alabama native marked the moment with a video from her backyard, posted to Instagram and addressed to fans. “I’m running out of hyperboles to describe how I feel,” she said.
She was blunter on her Instagram Story hours earlier, calling the milestone “absolutely insane.” Her caption on the longer video read simply: “23 weeks Texas forever.” Langley also pointed to who else the run has reached, saying the song is changing her life along with the lives of her co-writers and her family, and building something she expects to do for the rest of it. Then she said she planned to take the night off and celebrate with her team.
The Anatomy of a 23-Week No. 1
Released Oct. 17, 2025, “Choosin’ Texas” entered the Hot 100 at No. 39 in November as Langley’s fifth career entry, reached the top 10 in January and first led the chart dated Feb. 14. Those 23 weeks are non-consecutive. The song was knocked off repeatedly and kept returning, reclaiming the summit six separate times before settling in for an unbroken stretch since early July.
Its reach across formats made the record possible. “Choosin’ Texas” became the first song by a female artist to top Country Airplay, Hot Country Songs and the all-genre Hot 100 at the same time, and it holds a 41st week atop Hot Country Songs. Langley co-wrote it with Luke Dick, Miranda Lambert and Joybeth Taylor, and produced it with Lambert and Ben West at Nashville’s Sound Emporium. Lambert also sings background vocals on the track.
The parent album has kept pace. Dandelion debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 169,000 equivalent album units, making Langley just the second woman to hold the No. 1 album and the No. 1 song in the U.S. simultaneously with country titles. The album returned to the top of the Billboard 200 for a third week this week.
The Record Comes With a Countdown
Here is the asterisk the trades are already flagging. The mark may not hold. Carey’s 22 weeks were assembled across multiple chart years, and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” returns to No. 1 nearly every December. If “Choosin’ Texas” cools before the holidays, Carey could reclaim the record within three months.
That tension says something about the modern Hot 100, where streaming has made longevity the defining metric and seasonal catalog titles can overwhelm a chart built for new releases. Langley’s version is the rarer feat: a current single that outlasted a 32-year-old standard on live consumption alone, without a calendar working in its favor.
Country’s grip on the chart’s endurance records is also worth noting. Three of the five longest-running No. 1s now carry country DNA, with “Choosin’ Texas” joined by Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” each at 19 weeks. The genre that radio programmers once treated as a walled garden is now setting the all-genre pace.
Langley does not get long to sit with it. She returns to the road Thursday in Knoxville, Tennessee, on her Dandelion Tour.
The Hot 100’s ceiling stood for decades, then moved twice inside a single year. For now it belongs to a song about losing somebody to Texas.
