Ella Langley leads a record-breaking country boom on the charts

VPM | By Stephen Thompson

Published August 6, 2026 at 8:40 PM EDT

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

This week, the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart is dominated by country music crossovers. Stephen Thompson of NPR Music brings us the details.

STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: The biggest hit of 2026 by a wide margin is a country song, namely Ella Langley’s chart-topper “Choosin’ Texas.”

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “CHOOSIN’ TEXAS”)

ELLA LANGLEY: (Singing) He’s choosin’ Texas, I can tell.

THOMPSON: This week, the song spends a 16th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. That’s a run matched or exceeded by only six other songs in Billboard history. This week, the charts capture a larger milestone for country music. For the first time, the entire top five is made up of country songs. Morgan Wallen enters this week’s chart at No. 2 with his new single “Been By Now.”

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BEEN BY NOW”)

MORGAN WALLEN: (Singing) If it was meant to be, we’d have been by now. We wouldn’t have to keep tryna work things out. Yeah, baby, we’re a breeze when the lights go down. It wouldn’t be so hard when we ain’t in the dark.

THOMPSON: Taylor Swift returned to her country roots in a song she wrote for the movie “Toy Story 5.” This week, “I Knew It, I Knew You” dips to No. 3.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “I KNEW IT, I KNEW YOU”)

TAYLOR SWIFT: (Singing) It’s been a while, but I knew it, I knew you. I knew it, I knew you.

THOMPSON: And maybe the charts aren’t giving you enough Ella Langley or Morgan Wallen. If that’s the case, you’ll be glad to know that at No. 4, “I Can’t Love You Anymore” is by Ella Langley and Morgan Wallen.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “I CAN’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE”)

ELLA LANGLEY AND MORGAN WALLEN: (Singing) No, I can’t love you anymore, anymore, anymore.

LANGLEY: (Singing) No I can’t love you.

WALLEN: (Singing) No, I can’t love you.

THOMPSON: Finally, the song at No. 5 belongs to a fresh face, the singer Stella Lefty. Her breakthrough single “Boston” has been blowing up all summer.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BOSTON”)

STELLA LEFTY: (Singing) I don’t know where it’s goin’ but don’t wanna go back. And usually I’d leave right at the thought of that, but I like it when you’re nice, like it when you’re nice to me.

THOMPSON: Next week, a new album by the pop star Ariana Grande promises to at least challenge the songs at the top. But for now, the pop charts are firmly in the grip of hot country summer. Stephen Thompson, NPR Music.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BOSTON”)

LEFTY: (Singing) …Along for the ride. Last month, you were just another someone. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Stephen Thompson is a host, writer and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist and guest host on All Songs Considered. Thompson also co-hosts the daily NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created with NPR's Linda Holmes in 2010. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)

In 1993, Thompson founded The Onion's entertainment section, The A.V. Club, which he edited — alongside duties as The Onion's copy editor — until December 2004. In the years since, he has provided music- and pop-culture-themed commentaries for NPR programs such as Weekend Edition, All Things Considered and Morning Edition, on which he earned the distinction of becoming the first member of the NPR Music staff ever to sing on an NPR newsmagazine. (Later, the magic of AutoTune transformed him from a 12th-rate David Archuleta into a fourth-rate Cher.) Thompson's entertainment writing has also run in Paste magazine, The Washington Post and The London Guardian.

During his tenure at The Onion, Thompson edited the 2002 book The Tenacity Of The Cockroach: Conversations With Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders (Crown) and copy-edited six best-selling comedy books. While there, he also coached The Onion's softball team to a sizzling 21-42 record, and was once outscored 72-0 in a span of 10 innings. Later in life, Thompson redeemed himself by teaming up with the small gaggle of fleet-footed twentysomethings who won the 2008 NPR Relay Race, a triumph he documents in a hard-hitting essay for the book This Is NPR: The First Forty Years (Chronicle).

A 1994 graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Thompson now lives in Silver Spring, Md., with his girlfriend, their three cats and a room full of vintage arcade machines. (He also has two adult children who've headed off to college but still call once in a while.) Thompson's hobbies include watching reality television without shame, eating Pringles until his hand has involuntarily twisted itself into a gnarled claw, using the size of his Twitter following to assess his self-worth, touting the immutable moral superiority of the Green Bay Packers (who returned the favor by making a 22-minute documentary about his life) and maintaining a fierce rivalry with all Midwestern states other than Wisconsin.

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