From left: Wallen, Langley and Moroney.
Illustration by Maria Contreras
How country's current stars have lassoed the Billboard charts and made a dent in the genre.
By the time Ella Langley’s second album, Dandelion, arrived April 10, the country star had already made chart history several times over — and symbolized the commercial boom that country music has experienced in the 2020s. All decade long, artists like Langley, Morgan Wallen and Megan Moroney have been smashing records and spilling over onto the pop charts, yielding one of country music’s most culturally significant eras.
In February, for example, Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” accomplished an unpredecented hat trick, making her the first woman to concurrently hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts. By March, she and Moroney became the first women who primarily record country music to simultaneously top the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 (with Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” and Moroney’s Cloud 9, respectively). As Langley told Billboard in April, “Every day I wake up, it’s like something more insane has happened.”
