Ella Langley is not just a singles phenomenon. “Choosin’ Texas” has spent a phenomenal six weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 this year, but that is hardly the last word on her chart successes for 2026. Her “Dandelion” album has ridden the ubiquity of that song to a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 album chart, with 169,000 equivalent album units in its first week.
It’s the country crossover sensation’s first No. 1 album. Her previous effort for Columbia, “Hungover,” debuted at a lowly No. 80 in August 2024, then took 17 weeks to reach the album chart’s top 40 before finally peaking at No. 20 just last week, as noted by Billboard.
“Choosin’ Texas” has been No. 1 on the Spotify US Top 50 as often as not in recent weeks, indicating that its streaming success has been across many different demographics, not just country fans, even with its strong traditional-country lean. Currently “Texas” is at No. 2 on the Spotify chart, pushed out of the top spot only by the new Olivia Rodrigo single; it is joined in the top 10 by another song off the new album, “Be Here,” that looks likely to be her followup hit.
Breaking down the 169,000 units, 39,000 of those were in album sales, meaning almost all of the rest was due to her strong streaming performance. Langley’s 120,000 streaming units represent 130.46 million on-demand streams for the songs on the album, as tallied by Luminate.
Even while there are songs from “Dandelion” lined up to be future singles off the album, Langley appeared at a Morgan Wallen stadium show Saturday night and performed a song with him that they are about to put out as a duet. That joint song, “I Can’t Love You Anymore,” is due out this Friday. It hasn’t yet been revealed whether it might appear on a deluxe edition of “Dandelion” or be set for Wallen’s album… or whether it could just be a non-album stand-alone track.
Billboard reported that the debut for “Dandelion” was the best for a country album by a woman in two years — since Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter.” But it’s notable that it comes on the heels of another relatively fresh country artist, Megan Moroney, getting her first No. 1 album with “Cloud Nine” in March. These two are leading contenders for the Academy of Country Music Awards (ACMs) coming up in May.
Speaking of Wallen, he is at No. 2 on this week’s album chart, as “I’m the Problem” stays strong with 83,000 units.
Following behind Wallen at No. 3 is BTS‘ “Arirang,” in its fourth week on the chart. It spent the first three lodged at No. 1.
The biggest leap was taken by Justin Bieber’s “Swag,” which rose from No. 55 to No. 7 on the strength of his widely seen and discussed Coachella week 1 performance, which largely consisted of songs from his two “Swag” albums. It saw an increase of 160%, to 43,000 equivalent album units.
The remainder of this week’s album chart saw Don Toliver at No. 4, Olivia Dean at No. 5, Bad Bunny at No. 6, Luke Combs at No. 8, a second Morgan Wallen album at No. 9, and Sabrina Carpenter at No. 10 (also a Coachella-inspired leap back into the top 10.)
Between Langley, Combs and the two Wallen albums, country releases account for an impressive four spots in this week’s top 10.
Source:
variety.com
