Mega Monday: 'Choosin' Texas' Breaks Mariah Carey's Record With a 23rd Week at No. 1
Ella Langley's 'Choosin' Texas' logs a 23rd week at No. 1 and takes sole possession of the longest run in Hot 100 history from Mariah Carey, while a reshuffled top 10 leaves the three lowest-scored records in the top 10 sitting at Nos. 4 through 6.
By Song Reviews · September 28, 2026
What Mega Monday Is
Every Monday, Song Reviews takes the previous week’s Billboard Hot 100 top 10 and asks the one question a chart position can’t answer on its own: is the popularity deserved? This week the number at the top is the whole headline, so the column spends its second half on the part of the chart that isn’t.
This Week’s Chart
The Hot 100, week of September 26, 2026:
| # | Song | Artist | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Choosin’ Texas | Ella Langley | 23rd nonconsecutive week at No. 1 – one more than Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which makes it the longest-running No. 1 in Hot 100 history outright. Given the full Feature Friday treatment already, not re-reviewed here. |
| 2 | Boston | Stella Lefty | 8.0/10 – holds at No. 2, its peak, for a fifth straight week. |
| 3 | Been by Now | Morgan Wallen | 7.3/10 – climbs from No. 4 to No. 3, one spot below its No. 2 debut. |
| 4 | Hate That I Made You Love Me | Ariana Grande | 6.0/10 – climbs from No. 5 to No. 4. |
| 5 | Dracula | Tame Impala & JENNIE | 6.4/10 – climbs from No. 6 to No. 5. |
| 6 | I Knew It, I Knew You | Taylor Swift | 6.3/10 – falls three spots from No. 3, the biggest drop in the top 10. |
| 7 | BbY WOW | KAROL G, Judeline & rusowsky | 7.7/10 – climbs from No. 10 to No. 7, tying “TQG” as KAROL G’s highest-charting Hot 100 entry. |
| 8 | So Easy (To Fall In Love) | Olivia Dean | 8.0/10 – slips from No. 7 to No. 8. |
| 9 | Man I Need | Olivia Dean | 8.8/10 – slips from No. 8 to No. 9, still the best-reviewed record on the chart. |
| 10 | Be Her | Ella Langley | 7.8/10 – slips from No. 9 to No. 10. |
Is the Popularity Deserved?
Take the record first, since it is the reason this week’s chart made the news. “Choosin’ Texas” ran its 23rd week at No. 1 on the chart dated September 26, one past the 22 that Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has racked up across its December returns, and it now stands alone as the longest-running No. 1 the Hot 100 has had. Billboard’s numbers for the week were 21.8 million official U.S. streams (down 9% from the week before), 58.3 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 2%) and 6,000 copies sold (up 4%). Langley marked the day on TikTok with a line worth quoting for its plainness: “It’s changing my life. It’s changing lives of the writers of this song. It’s changing lives of my family.” Whether the song deserves it has been answered at length in this column since August. What the numbers add is texture: streaming down while airplay and sales rise reads as a record that has settled into being the default rather than the event, which is no mark against it. Twenty-three weeks is a record about staying power, and staying power includes weeks like this one.
The more instructive part of this chart is what the reshuffle did to the middle. Line the top 10 up against the scores this column has given each record and the distribution is lopsided. The three lowest-scored songs here, Ariana Grande’s “Hate That I Made You Love Me” (6.0), Taylor Swift’s “I Knew It, I Knew You” (6.3) and Tame Impala and JENNIE’s “Dracula” (6.4), sit at No. 4, No. 6 and No. 5. The best-reviewed record on the chart, Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need” (8.8), sits at No. 9, and her “So Easy (To Fall In Love)” (8.0), level with “Boston” as the next best, sits at No. 8. Those three middle songs are also the ones whose chart lives this column has already traced to something other than the writing: the Swift single as a Toy Story 5 tie-in, the Ariana Grande single debuting on the reputation of its writers’ room, and “Dracula” as a JENNIE remix riding a platform trend. Their reviews argued that is what put them here.
The chart did move slightly toward the better records this week. The Swift single’s three-spot fall is the biggest drop in the top 10, and the biggest climb belongs to “BbY WOW,” up three to No. 7, a record this column scored well and that got there through weeks of steady streaming growth rather than a launch-week spike. But two of the three lowest-scored songs also moved up a spot, and both Olivia Dean songs slipped one. The chart is still slower to reward the best song on it than it is to keep rewarding a big name, and next Monday will show whether that changes.
Hero image: “Choosin’ Texas” single artwork, SAWGOD/Columbia Records. Used under fair use for editorial commentary.