Ella Langley has had the kind of year most singers only dream about, and it keeps getting bigger.
Ella is a young singer and songwriter from Alabama. You may know her from “Choosin’ Texas,” which became the longest-running No. 1 in the history of the Billboard Hot 100.
Now another one of her songs is in the record books.
“Loving Life Again” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart dated Oct 31. That’s the chart that tracks country radio. The song racked up 32.4 million audience impressions from Oct 16 to 22. She wrote it with co-writers ERNEST and Devin Dawson, and it went to radio on July 13.
It’s her sixth No. 1 on country radio. She got there just 99 weeks after her first one, back in December 2024.
No woman has ever done that faster in the chart’s 36-year history.
If you haven’t heard the song yet, this is the one that set the record, with the words right on screen so you can follow along.
The song that put Ella Langley in the record books
So who got there faster? Only two acts in the chart’s whole history reached six Country Airplay No. 1s quicker than Ella’s 99 weeks.
One is Nashville singer Jelly Roll. He did it in 96 weeks.
The other is the ’90s legend. Alan Jackson, one of the biggest country voices of that decade, got to six in only 94 weeks.
That’s pretty good company for a young singer from Alabama.
On the way, Ella passed two stars who held big records of their own. Lady A had the old record for any act with a woman singer, at 125 weeks. Carrie Underwood held the record for a solo woman, at more than 127 weeks. Both names are a sign of how hard this one was to reach.
And the records don’t stop there. “Loving Life Again” is the fourth No. 1 from her album “Dandelion.” That puts her on a short list with Shania Twain, who famously had six No. 1s from her 1995 album “The Woman in Me.”
She’s also only the fourth artist ever to land four country radio No. 1s in one calendar year. The other three are Garth Brooks, Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen.
So how does Ella feel about all this? In an Instagram video in October, she sounded like someone still trying to catch up with her own life.
“It’s changing my life. It’s changing lives of the writers of this song. It’s changing lives of my family,” she said.
Then she added, “It doesn’t feel like a real thing. It feels fake.”
She admitted she was running out of words. “I feel like I just don’t even know what to say at this point.”
There’s more coming, too. Ella leads this year’s CMA Awards nominations with nine, including Entertainer of the Year. The show airs Wednesday, Nov 18 on ABC.