“I don’t like that term ‘crossover.'”
Ella Langley said that in March, while she spent a week co-hosting the radio show Backstage Country with Elaina Smith. Her biggest song was already spreading well past country stations, and she had her own way of looking at it.
“You’re just reaching more people,” she said. “You’re not put in the box.”
Eight months later, the numbers have caught up with her.
On Nov. 11, Whiskey Riff reported that two songs from her album “Dandelion” are now being played on country, pop and adult contemporary radio. The first is “Choosin’ Texas,” the heartbreak song she wrote with her friend Miranda Lambert, which has been all over the radio for a year. The second is “Be Her,” which the site says picked up a wave of new pop and adult contemporary stations in recent weeks.
The site credits a radio tracking account called U.S. Radio Updater for the stat, and we could not find a second outlet that has confirmed it yet.
Pop stations rarely make room for country singers. Whiskey Riff points out that some of the biggest country hits of recent years got no pop airplay at all.
Then there is the detail that surprised people in Nashville. According to the site, Ella and her label, Columbia Records, “are not actively sending these songs to non-country formats such as Pop and AC.” In plain terms, nobody on her team is reportedly knocking on those doors. The stations are said to be adding the songs because listeners want to hear them.
If you are just getting to know her, Ella is from Hope Hull, a small town outside Montgomery, Alabama. “Dandelion” is her second album. It opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in April, according to MusicRow.
She has been honest that she can’t explain the size of it. “It feels surreal,” she told Billboard at the iHeartRadio Music Awards in March. “I think this has been the biggest moment for me where I’ve seen how fans can change your career.”
Billboard posted that short red carpet chat, and she talks about the fans behind “Choosin’ Texas” in it.
Ella talks to Billboard about the fans behind “Choosin’ Texas”
So who was the last woman to do it?
Whiskey Riff reports it was Taylor Swift, with her 2010 album “Speak Now.” Two of its songs, “Mine” and “Back to December,” went from country radio to pop and adult contemporary stations. Taylor was 20 when that album came out and still very much a Nashville artist.
No woman in country had sent more than one song from the same album down that road since, the report says. That is a gap of about 15 years, and it covers some of the biggest female names the genre has had.
Here is the official video for the second song now making that trip.
Watch the official video for “Be Her”
Her week is about to get busier. On Friday, Nov. 13, the album for the new film “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping” comes out, and Ella is on it with a song called “Here Then We’re Gone.” The movie opens Nov. 20.
Two days before that, on Wednesday, Nov. 18, she walks into the CMA Awards on ABC with nine nominations, more than anyone else this year. “Choosin’ Texas” and “Be Her” are both up for Single of the Year and Song of the Year. Lainey Wilson hosts, and Ella is set to perform.
Whatever the pop stations call her, she told Elaina Smith where she stands. “This is my artistry. This is where I come from,” Ella said. “I’m as redneck as it gets, you know what I mean?”