During a sold-out show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Tuesday, 27-year-old country artist Ella Langley paused mid-set to sit on a stool and express a desire to “be kind of normal for a second, if that’s all right witcha.” The Alabama native is currently navigating a period of intense professional turbulence, highlighted by her single “Choosin’ Texas” setting a new record last month for the longest-running song atop the Billboard Hot 100. On record, she summons a coolly detached quality that plays intriguingly against arrangements lush with romantic pedal steel; there’s something hard to pin down about the emotion of tunes like “Be Her” and “Choosin’ Texas,” in which the narrator sounds almost alienated from her own heartbreak.
This massive chart success has sparked widespread speculation that Langley is a top contender for upcoming Grammy Award nominations, a validation she reportedly sought throughout her career. However, the singer’s rapid ascent has been met with both digital scrutiny and real-world instability. Social media critics have leveled claims of industry manipulation regarding the streaming statistics of “Choosin’ Texas,” while a more immediate concern led Langley to cancel a show in Oklahoma last week, citing a “serious security threat.” According to the chart achievement only bolstered talk that Langley is due to clean up when Grammy Award nominations are announced next month — welcome chatter, no doubt, for a striver who grew up, as she, At the Greek, determine. Including accusations from armchair experts on social media that “Choosin’ Texas” — a monster hit that people keep saying they’ve never heard — owes its impressive, yet Langley’s success has brought with it some darkness.
Amidst the public pressure, the artist recently found herself in an unexpected political crossfire. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem attempted to pit Langley against Kacey Musgraves on social media after Musgraves hosted political candidate James Talarico. Langley, who has generally avoided overt political commentary, appeared to distance herself by removing her tag from Noem’s post.
Returning to her acoustic set at the Greek—the first of two scheduled performances—Langley performed “Somethin’ Simple” from her double-platinum LP, “Dandelion.” The lyrics, “While I’m living the dream, all I’m dreaming about is slowing down just a little,” underscored her current tension between fame and her roots. This stripped-down portion of the evening featured duets with openers Laci Kaye Booth on the Fleetwood Mac classic “Dreams” and Kameron Marlowe on her power ballad “Strangers.”
Despite the intimate nature of these acoustic moments, the broader concert production highlighted the complexities of Langley’s current brand. The show, complete with complex lighting and stage props, contrasted with the singer’s preferred, understated aesthetic. While her studio recordings display a cool, detached emotional style that critics have likened to the influence of Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks, her live performance sometimes lacked the overt charisma typically required to anchor such a large-scale production. If somebody wants to make a case that Langley’s beautifully dead-eyed love songs represent the purest embodiment of Gen Z’s post-pandemic social dysfunction — well, I’m all ears. (Great look too: very Linda Ronstadt meets Stevie Nicks.).
The scale of Langley’s commercial operation was evident throughout the venue, which featured extensive merchandising stands and advertisements for her various business ventures, including branded jeans, sunglasses, and energy drinks. The performance ultimately raised questions about the level of stage presence needed to support an infrastructure as large as hers, as she balanced being a musician on the back porch with the heavy demands of modern pop-country stardom. According to loose, chatty, surrounded by friends and bandmates, Langley here was just a musician playing music; I can’t say whether she attained the normalcy she, She was looking for, though I’d buy that this is more or less what she gets up to on the back porch she sings about missing in “Somethin’ Simple.”. The problem with the rest of the concert — the parts with the lights and the videos and the goofy stage business involving a guy with a keytar and a cigarette — was that it demanded a level of star power that Langley simply doesn’t possess (or anyway isn’t interested in deploying). Not least when she’d dole out the kind of canned banter between songs that would make anyone resent the mechanics of stardom, but onstage the lack of affect just felt flat.
