Cancel Christmas! – Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” ‘sleighs’ Mariah’s festive favourite

In a matter of just a few weeks, arguably the two biggest records in the history of the UK and US singles charts have been obliterated.

First, Sam Fender and Olivia Dean took down crooner Frankie Laine for the most weeks at No.1 on the UK Official Singles Chart – a quite incredible 23 – with “Rein Me In”, which spent its final week at the top on 3 September.

Now, on the US Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending 26 September 2026, Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas”, a rambunctious tale of the country singer surrendering her lover to another woman in a tug-of-war between Tennessee and the Lone Star State, has ousted – albeit temporarily, one suspects – Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” for the most weeks at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Like “Rein Me In”, it’s also up to 23 weeks at No.1… and counting.

“Choosin’ Texas” had long since passed the US record for the most weeks at No.1 for a non-Christmas song, which had stood at 19 weeks for both Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road”, featuring country stalwart Billy Ray Cyrus (aka Miley’s dad).

Throw in a sprinkle of irony that “Choosin’ Texas” was the song that finally caused “Rein Me In” to relinquish its months-old crown as the UK’s best-seller (incidentally, Sam and Olivia have never threatened to return the favour in the US, registering a peak of No.45 for the indefatigable duet, as I write this) and you have record-shattering music news for the ages on both sides of the Atlantic.

On Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, “Choosin’ Texas” is up to a two-spell tally of 41 weeks at No.1, as of 26 September. Only Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”, totalling 45 weeks in 2024-25, and the Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line duet “Meant to Be”, which logged 50 weeks in 2017-18 (the most weeks at No.1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart) have dared spend longer at the summit of a chart that mashes together streaming, radio airplay and sales data.

Indeed, the track has been so successful in Langley’s homeland that it’s denied not only a follow-up, “Be Her”, from a shot at No.1 on both the country chart and the all-genre Hot 100, but also seen off six other Top 10 country-chart entries for the gal from Hope Hull, Alabama, the most successful of which, “I Can’t Love You Anymore” (featuring Morgan Wallen), stalled at No.3.

If, like me, you’ve been “two-steppin’ ‘round the room” at country music’s long-overdue resurgence in the UK – right beside its unrelinquishable, decades-old popularity on the US charts – the likes of “Choosin’ Texas” and Stella Lefty’s “Boston”, Luke Combs recently becoming the first solo country artist to headline Wembley Stadium, Wallen’s nod as the country artist with the most RIAA-certified Diamond singles (5), and the vast outpouring of grief that followed last month’s tragic demise of Guinness World Records ICON and multiple title holder Dolly Parton, are proof aplenty that the genre with more Stetsons, pedal steel guitars and cry-into-your-beer tales of heartbreak than any other is in rude health.

Read about more record-breaking music stars in our Arts and Entertainment section.

And all this without the genre-flitting superstar that has almost single-handedly wrested country music – kicking and a-hollering – from the high-energy synchronicity of line-dance clubs since 2006: Taylor Swift.

Nobody who’s had their musical ear to the ground in recent months will be surprised to discover that Ella Langley is at the forefront of the revival with her delicious take on “three chords and the truth”.

But she’s come a very long way from her childhood days singing Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” to a pasture full of cows near her home. “When ‘moo’ sounds very close to ‘boo’, it toughens a girl up,” she quipped in a December 2025 interview with whiskeyriff.com.

And now she’s been belting out “Choosin’ Texas” to the masses long after the cows have come home – all the way from the top of the US Billboard Hot 100.

Header image: Jason Moore/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock