Ella Langley Leads Country's First Hot 100 Top 5 Sweep

Something happened on the Billboard Hot 100 this week that has never happened in the chart's 67-year history: country songs took all five spots at the top. Every single one. And sitting at the very top of that country top five, for a 16th total week, is "Choosin' Texas" — with Ella Langley's name on two of the five entries.

For those of us who have watched this song refuse to leave No. 1 since last year, the Hot 100 dated August 8 reads like a country radio dream someone forgot to wake up from. Here is the top five in full, per Billboard: "Choosin' Texas" at No. 1, Morgan Wallen's "Been by Now" debuting at No. 2, Taylor Swift's "I Knew It, I Knew You" at No. 3, Ella and Wallen's "I Can't Love You Anymore" at No. 4, and Stella Lefty's "Boston" at No. 5.

Country's clean sweep of the top five

Country has landed songs high on the Hot 100 before — the genre has had a huge couple of years — but it had never claimed all five of the top slots at once until now, as Variety noted. The Hot 100 measures the whole American listening picture at once: streaming, radio airplay, and sales, all genres thrown in the same pot. For country to sweep the top of that chart is a different thing than topping a country-only list. It means that in the tracking week, the five biggest songs in the country, by any measure, all came from Nashville's world.

Four acts pulled it off — Langley, Wallen, Swift, and newcomer Stella Lefty — and Ella is the only one with two songs in the group, thanks to the Wallen duet still climbing at No. 4. We wrote last week about how that duet is one radio spot from a No. 1 of its own, and it is doing all of this while "Choosin' Texas" keeps the whole thing pinned in place above it.

A 16th week that lands in rare company

The 16 weeks matter as much as the sweep. With this frame, "Choosin' Texas" is now the fourth longest-leading No. 1 in Hot 100 history, tying Wallen's "Last Night," Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito," and Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "One Sweet Day" — all of which also ran 16 weeks on top. The only song that has ever led longer, over any stretch, is Carey's holiday standard "All I Want for Christmas Is You" at 22 weeks. That is the neighborhood this song is standing in now.

It got there the hard way, on volume: 25.5 million U.S. streams, 52.3 million in radio airplay audience, and 9,000 copies sold in the tracking week ending July 30, Billboard reports. The song also tops Hot Country Songs and Billboard's Songs of the Summer tally on the same date. If you had told us a year ago that the lead single from "Dandelion" — co-written and co-produced by Miranda Lambert — would still be at No. 1 deep into August, we would have taken that bet and then some.

Where this run goes next

Two weeks ago the song passed 15 weeks and the record over Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, and here we are already talking about the all-time leaderboard. Whether "Choosin' Texas" can push toward the 19- and 22-week tiers depends on Wallen's "Been by Now" and whatever arrives behind it, but every extra week now is genuine chart history.

The other place to feel it is live. The Dandelion Tour picks back up this month and runs into the fall, including a two-night homecoming in Auburn, Alabama at the end of August — you can see the full run and grab seats on our tour dates page. If you want to mark a run like this, our arena-night concert look is the fit we would wear to watch a 16-week No. 1 get played in person.

For now, the scoreboard is simple: one song, 16 weeks, and a top five that country has never owned outright before. We will keep counting.

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