Ella Langley took nine nominations. A producer took five. Taylor Swift returned through a Pixar film. What the 60th CMA ballot says about who decides country now.
Four Billboard charts. One guitar legend away from country radio for fifteen years. We pulled up the weekly Billboard Country Airplay rankings this week and found something we had not seen in a long time: John Mayer's name on a country chart. "Phone, Keys, Wallet," the new single from Lainey Wilson featuring Mayer on guitar,…
September 10 is circled on our calendar in permanent marker, and honestly, we have been thinking about it since the moment CMA confirmed the date. That is when the nominations for the 60th Annual CMA Awards drop, setting the stage for what promises to be the most watched night in country music come November 18…
Nineteen weeks. That is the number we stared at when the latest Billboard Hot 100 chart landed in our feed this week, and we had to read it twice to believe what we were seeing. Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" has done something no country song, no pop smash, and no viral phenomenon has ever managed:…
Eighteen weeks. We stared at that number on the Billboard Hot 100 this week and did a double-take. Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" has now spent 18 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, making it the longest-running chart-topper by any woman in Hot 100 history for a non-holiday title. And if that alone…
The date was August 8, 2026, and we were staring at the Billboard Hot 100 like we'd seen a ghost. All five of the top spots on the chart that defines American popular music: all country. Ella Langley at No. 1 with "Choosin' Texas," Morgan Wallen at No. 2 with "Been by Now," Taylor Swift's…
The second-ballot voting window for the 60th Annual CMA Awards closed on August 17 — and we have been watching the balloting schedule closely enough to know that final nominees are about to drop any day now. This is not just another awards cycle. The Country Music Association is marking 60 years of celebrating the…
Forty weeks on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. We watched every one of them as Josh Ross climbed with the steady, irresistible momentum that only comes from a song people genuinely love. On the chart dated July 4, 2026, "Hate How You Look" finally arrived at No. 1, dethroning Ella Langley's "Be Her" after its…
Sixty-eight years. That is how long the Billboard Hot 100 has been tracking the pulse of American popular music, since August 4, 1958, through every genre shift, cultural earthquake, and musical revolution the country has witnessed. We have been following country music's crossover momentum closely all year, watching the streaming numbers, the radio data, the…
Monday's chart update stopped us cold. Ella Langley and Morgan Wallen have officially taken "I Can't Love You Anymore" to No. 1 on Billboard's Country Airplay chart, knocking Langley's own "Choosin' Texas" off the top spot it had dominated for weeks. This is the moment we have been watching build all summer, and the Ella…
Eight o'clock Thursday morning, and we were doing our regular Billboard Hot 100 check when the chart stopped us cold. Five songs. Five country songs. The entire top five slots of America's most-watched pop chart, occupied by country music and nothing else. In 67 years of Hot 100 history, from the British Invasion to Michael…
Fifteen weeks. We checked the Billboard Hot 100 chart this past weekend and that number stopped us cold. Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" has now logged 15 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 : a milestone that does not just define country music in 2026, it places her among a group of artists…