Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard the infectious and melodic hit “Choosin’ Texas” by country artist Ella Langley. Not only has it spent 21 weeks (and counting) as the #1 song on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, but it has now been #1 on Billboard’s all genre Hot 100 chart for seven weeks and counting, which breaks Taylor Swift’s record for women to hold the spot for both pop and country. There’s hot, and then there’s white hot - this song is certainly the latter.
Ella Langley is one of three women in country music’s new dominant class of female stars, rising to unparalleled notoriety alongside Megan Moroney and Lainey Wilson. Having moved to Nashville in 2019, Langley is only on her second studio album which was released in April of 2026. Her growth, measured and visualized by Spotify Monthly Listeners, is nothing short of remarkable since signing with Sony Music Nashville in February of 2023.
While much of her early momentum stemmed from her viral collaboration with Riley Green on “you look like you love me” which was followed up by an additional duet and subsequent tour, her career soared to new heights with the release of “Choosin’ Texas” in October of 2025. Fueled by massive radio consumption and 500+ million video views of the song’s sound on TikTok, the song was the perfect launching pad for her sophomore album Dandelion which poured gasoline on an already enormous fire.
Langley entered 2023 with under one million Spotify Monthly Listeners and is closing in on thirty million by midyear in 2026. That is an increase of 2,760% and averages out to a gain of over 665,000 monthly listeners per month. This expansion now puts her ahead of country heavyweights Zach Bryan, Luke Combs, and Chris Stapleton.
In the country world, she now only sits behind Morgan Wallen for most Spotify monthly listeners, who is a prolific streamer and RIAA’s highest certified country artist of all time. Langley is currently the fifth most popular country artist by Chartmetric’s overall artist rankings, and inside the top 100 in the world all-genre. She has transcended the country music world and entered true superstardom. The scary part is, she’s just getting started.
Langley has not only ballooned her streaming metrics, but her following across increasingly important social platforms has also skyrocketed. Looking at year over year follower growth as of April 20 for both Instagram and TikTok, it’s clear she is in a league of her own.
While the majority of the top country artists gained under 100,000 followers on each platform, some even losing followers in this time frame, Langley gained two million on both. That is over 500,000 more than the next highest on Instagram (Jelly Roll) and 1.1 million more than the next highest on TikTok (Megan Moroney). This is the definition of lifting and separating from the pack, which is best contextualized by measuring the rate of growth of her socials.
Specifically looking at her Instagram followers since 2023, it is easy to see the massive growth over the last 40 months. Adding the rolling 365 day change in followers to visualize the rate of change, along with the rolling delta of the 365 day rate of change shows just how explosive the growth has been and will continue to be.
These additional metrics measure how many followers she gained over a 365 day span, and how that increase compared to the 365 day period prior to that. These serve as a proxy for the first and second derivative of Langley’s Instagram followers. Adding these easily identify the pattern that while her surge began to level off in July of 2025 (indicated by a downward slope in the second derivative), this quickly reversed course in October of 2025 coinciding with the release of “Choosin’ Texas.”
Since then, the rate at which she is gaining followers has increased, which continues to accelerate at levels higher than the previous 365 day periods. This means not only is she continuing to gain followers, but she is gaining followers at a higher rate than ever before. While it may be easy to assume other artists are experiencing the same expansion on socials, this is certainly not the case.
For example, looking at the same chart for her frequent collaborator and fellow Alabama native Riley Green, a very different story emerges. While he has continued to grow his Instagram followers, that rate of growth began leveling off in October 2025 with both his rolling 365 day change in followers beginning to decline (negative slope) and the rolling delta of his 365 day change trending downward.
With the second derivative of this line hitting negative numbers in March of this year, he is now officially gaining followers at a lesser rate than the year before. This represents a plateau in his follower curve and while subject to change at any time, is the opposite of what Ella Langley is experiencing. When comparing these metrics across the top country artists for change in Instagram followers, Langley is once again an outlier.
Significantly outpacing all other artists in year over year growth, Langley’s huge positive delta in the last one year follower growth dwarfs her contemporaries, many of which experienced a negative change in growth. This indicates they are not increasing their follower counts at as high of a rate as they were the previous year, even top acts such as Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Megan Moroney and Riley Green. The same trend exists for artist TikTok follower counts.
Once again, Langley lands in the top right quadrant of the chart with increasing growth rates that are unrivaled by her peers. The vast majority of artists experience modest growth under 250,000 followers, which was less than the previous 365 day period. Even the biggest acts (Riley Green, Megan Moroney and Jelly Roll) couldn’t maintain their growth levels from the previous year.
Luke Combs was the only other artist to increase his following by over 500,000 and have it represent an increase from the previous year’s growth, yet Langley’s follower growth was over a million more than his.
She continues to dominate attention on social channels through her music and captivating content, resonating with both men and women, which has unlocked an ability to continue to grow at unprecedented rates. She even cleverly plays into the male demographic of her fanbase, fondly known as Ella’s Fellas.
Ella Langley is the quintessential modern country music superstar who uses her ability to distribute her music and connect directly with fans on social media to her advantage. With no signs of slowing down, it is clear that no one in the genre is executing these two crucial tactics better as exemplified by the gigantic numbers she is producing across the board.
