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Ella Langley — "Choosin' Texas" — NEOAWARDS 2027: Record of the Year
Some songs top the charts. "Choosin' Texas" rewrote them.
Released in October 2025 as the lead single from her sophomore album Dandelion, Ella Langley's aching heartbreak anthem became an unstoppable force — and, by the summer of 2026, a genuine piece of chart history. The song spent 18 non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the longest-running No. 1 by a solo female artist with no co-billed act in the chart's history, surpassed only by Mariah Carey's holiday perennial "All I Want for Christmas Is You." It didn't stop at the Hot 100 either — "Choosin' Texas" simultaneously topped Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay, making Langley the first female artist ever to lead all three charts at once, while the song itself climbed to No. 1 in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand.
The song's magic starts with its origin story. Written at a retreat with Luke Dick, Miranda Lambert, and Joybeth Taylor, "Choosin' Texas" was sparked by one of Lambert's own colorful, real-life stories — the kind of authentic, lived-in songwriting that Nashville's best writers pointed to as the reason it resonated so widely. Lambert lent her voice to the track's background vocals and co-produced alongside Langley and Ben West, adding her own legendary stamp to a song built on effortless confidence and unpretentious storytelling.
Its reach went far beyond country radio. The track crossed into pop culture as a certified viral moment, racking up over a billion streams and becoming inescapable on TikTok, where it was used more than a million times — pulled into fan edits, dance trends, and even celebrity posts. Rolling Stone crowned it the song of the summer, and CNN noted its rare feat: a song that felt "everywhere and nowhere at once," cutting across algorithms, genres, and generations alike.
"Choosin' Texas" isn't just a hit. It's the rare record that unites chart dominance, songwriting craft, and genuine cultural gravity — exactly what Record of the Year is meant to honor.