By TRH Entertainment Desk
Ella Langley’s slow-burning country crossover has now spent 20 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, breaking a tie with “Old Town Road” and leaving only Mariah Carey’s Christmas classic ahead of it.
Mumbai, September 1, 2026 — Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” has racked up a 20th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first non-holiday single in the chart’s 68-year history to reach that milestone — and cementing its place as the second-longest-running No. 1 song ever, trailing only Mariah Carey’s perennial holiday juggernaut “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
Billboard reported the song’s 20th week at No. 1 makes it just the second title in Hot 100 history to lead for at least 20 weeks, breaking a tie it had briefly held with Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, which now sits alone at No. 3 among all-time longest-running chart-toppers with 19 weeks. Deadline noted the milestone comes with what it called “a small asterisk”: Carey’s holiday classic holds the overall record with 22 weeks atop the chart, but that total was compiled across seven separate years of seasonal chart-topping runs, rather than in a single continuous or non-consecutive stretch tied to one release cycle.
Billboard’s weekly tracking data shows the song’s staying power reflects genuinely sustained, not fading, consumption: for the tracking week of August 21-27, “Choosin’ Texas” logged 24.2 million official US streams, essentially flat week over week, and 56.8 million radio airplay audience impressions, up 2%. The song also holds its 20th week atop Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart, making it just the third song ever to lead that chart for 20 or more weeks, joining Carey’s holiday hit (26 weeks) and “Old Town Road” (20 weeks).
An Unusual Path to the Record
What makes Langley’s run notable isn’t just its length — it’s the shape of it. Deadline reported the song first reached No. 1 back in mid-February, only to be dethroned by a pair of songs the following two weeks.
It then reclaimed the top spot for a single week before falling back three separate times, losing the top spot for three more weeks before ascending again in early July.
That non-consecutive, repeatedly-interrupted climb makes its eventual record-breaking total unusual among the chart’s longest-running hits, most of which built their totals through uninterrupted stretches at No. 1.
Langley co-wrote the song, released on SAWGOD/Columbia Records, alongside Luke Dick, Miranda Lambert, and Joybeth Taylor, with Triple Tigers handling promotion to country radio.
A Record-Setting Run Across Multiple Charts
The Hot 100 milestone caps a broader string of chart records the song has racked up throughout 2026. Billboard’s own chart-history rundown notes “Choosin’ Texas” also dominates the multimetric Hot Country Songs chart for a 37th week and the Songs of the Summer chart for a 12th week.
The song made history in February by becoming the first time a female artist had simultaneously topped the Hot 100, Hot Country Songs, and Country Airplay charts all at once — and in April, it broke the record for the longest-running No. 1 country song by a female artist on the Hot 100 outright.
Langley, reflecting on the song’s unlikely trajectory, told Billboard earlier this year: “We loved the song when we wrote it, but none of us thought that it would be the song to do everything it’s doing.”
What’s Left to Chase
With Carey’s 22-week overall record still standing, “Choosin’ Texas” would need two more weeks at No. 1 to draw level — a mark that, given Carey’s total was built entirely through repeat December chart-topping runs over seven years, would represent an entirely different kind of achievement if reached through a single ongoing 2026 chart cycle.
Billboard’s reporting notes Carey’s song, first topping the chart during the 2019 holiday season, could still add to its own total in the holidays ahead, meaning the two songs’ historic showdown for the outright record may not be fully settled even if Langley’s song eventually falls from the top spot.
For now, “Choosin’ Texas” stands alone at the top of the Hot 100’s non-holiday history — a rare, slow-built phenomenon in an era when most hits burn through the charts in a fraction of the time.
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