Ella Langley And Mariah Carey Both Reset The Same All-Time Record In The Same Year

Mariah Carey Set the Record Earlier This Year

Carey entered 2026 as the sole owner of the all-time record for most time spent atop the Billboard Hot 100 by one single. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” had already passed both Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Old Town Road” and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which each managed 19 weeks at No. 1 – they are now tied as the third-longest-running rulers ever – and it kept going.

The Christmas standard stretched its total to 22 weeks as of the first Billboard Hot 100 dated in 2026. Less than nine months later, “Choosin’ Texas” has moved the ceiling even higher, as the cut celebrates 23 stays in first place.

For decades, this particular record didn’t trade hands. Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s “One Sweet Day” spent 16 weeks at No. 1 between 1995 and 1996, and that benchmark survived for more than 23 years. “Old Town Road” finally pushed the figure to 19 weeks in 2019, Shaboozey tied it in 2024, and then Carey and Langley began raising the total repeatedly.

Mariah Carey Rebuilds Her Hit Every Christmas

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” has earned its enormous sum in a way no other major Billboard Hot 100 hit can hope to replicate. The tune disappears for most of the year before returning every holiday season, when Americans begin streaming Christmas music in huge numbers again and radio stations make it inescapable once more.

Carey’s staple first reached No. 1 in 2019, a quarter-century after it was released, and it has found its way back to the chart’s summit during every holiday season since. Each December effectively begins another chapter in the same chart run, and Carey’s hit adds to its total regularly.

The modern streaming economy and radio ubiquity makes that surge possible. Listeners do not need to purchase “All I Want for Christmas Is You” again for their consumption to count toward the Billboard Hot 100. Every play on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music adds to the song’s weekly performance, while attention at radio gives it another enormous boost as stations across the country switch to exclusively holiday programming.

Ella Langley Has Dominated Throughout 2026

“Choosin’ Texas” has taken a more traditional – if unprecedented – route to the same historic territory. Langley first topped the Billboard Hot 100 in February, and all 23 of the single’s weeks at the summit have taken place during 2026. There is no seasonal reset helping the smash return every year – it has simply remained the most-consumed tunes in America month after month.

Deep into its record-breaking chart run, “Choosin’ Texas” continues to generate tens of millions of streams and radio audience impressions during each individual tracking period. “Choosin’ Texas” also almost always lives at No. 1 on the Digital Song Sales chart, where it ties as the sturdiest leader ever, as of this frame.

Mariah Carey Could Challenge Ella Langley Again

Langley owns the record now, and “Choosin’ Texas” may continue adding to its total. Carey, meanwhile, is only a few months away from another opportunity to reset that bit of history, and perhaps even reclaim it for herself.

If “All I Want for Christmas Is You” returns to No. 1 during the 2026 holiday season, its cumulative count will begin growing again. That could turn ownership of the most prestigious longevity record on the Billboard Hot 100 into an ongoing race between two songs released more than three decades apart.

For most of the ranking’s history, reaching 15 or 16 weeks at No. 1 was almost unheard of. Now, with more than 20 turns at the summit to their credit, the two longest-running leaders ever established their current totals during the same nine-month stretch.

ForbesElla Langley Rules Billboard’s Two Biggest Charts SimultaneouslyBy Hugh McIntyre