Country Women Hold Both Top Chart Spots for the First Time as Moroney and Langley Lead Billboard Lists
Megan Moroney's debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and Ella Langley's return to the top of the Hot 100 mark the first time women known mainly for country music have led both charts at once.
By Juan Gonzalez · · Originally reported by KJZZ
Two country artists are sitting atop the Billboard rankings this week, and the pairing is a first. Women known primarily for country music have never before held the No. 1 spot on both the Hot 100 singles chart and the Billboard 200 albums chart at the same time.
Megan Moroney claimed her first chart-topping album with Cloud 9, which opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The record moved 78,000 copies and drew enough streams to place Moroney at No. 2 on the streaming chart. Sales were helped along by a range of Target-exclusive editions on vinyl and CD, a strategy often associated with Taylor Swift. The result is a sizable climb for Moroney, whose previous album, 2024's Am I Okay?, peaked at No. 9.
On the singles side, Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" returned to No. 1 on the Hot 100 after a week away. It knocked Swift's "Opalite" from the top; that song had reached the summit the previous week on the strength of physical copies sold through the singer's website. Swift fell to No. 4. Olivia Dean's "Man I Need" rose to No. 2, and Alex Warren's "Ordinary" holds at No. 3.
Moroney's album displaced Bad Bunny's DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS at the top of the albums chart. Beneath her, several artists who have been absent from the top 10 for years made appearances. Hilary Duff, who rose to fame as Lizzie McGuire about 25 years ago, debuted at No. 3 with luck… or something, her first album in more than a decade. It is her highest-charting release since 2007, helped by a Walmart-exclusive edition.
Rapper Baby Keem, a cousin and frequent collaborator of Kendrick Lamar, reached his best chart position yet as Ca$ino debuted at No. 4. Unlike the Duff and Mumford & Sons releases, most of its numbers came from streaming rather than sales, which bodes well for how long it may stay on the chart.
Mumford & Sons placed Prizefighter at No. 10. The folk-rock group last reached the top 10 in 2018 with Delta, which went to No. 1. Their previous album, Rushmere, released last year, peaked at No. 19.
Elsewhere on the Hot 100, Bad Bunny's many hits are beginning to slip as his Super Bowl halftime show recedes, a drop that was widely expected.
One more sports-linked success stood out. U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu was among the breakout stars of this year's Winter Olympics, winning gold in the women's singles event. Afterward, in the noncompetitive Olympic figure-skating gala, she performed a widely viewed routine to PinkPantheress' "Stateside (feat. Zara Larsson)," a remix of a track from last year's Fancy That. Liu also wore an outfit inspired by the dress PinkPantheress wore in the song's video.
This week "Stateside" jumped from No. 41 to No. 13 on the Hot 100, while Fancy That climbed more than 100 spots to No. 57 on the Billboard 200. The timing coincides with Liu's skate and shows another route by which a quiet song can become a full-fledged hit.
