By MARIA SHERMAN
NEW YORK (AP) — A few years ago, Ella Langley emerged a saving grace for modern country music because she dared to look backward. “You Look Like You Love Me,” her award-winning, inescapable 2024 hit with Riley Green, pulled from another era — all pedal steel and spoken-word choruses, the same night out told from different perspectives. It put her on the map six years after the release of her debut single.
A song that big can be a curse — or at the very least, an obstacle — for a new performer, because they become tasked with eclipsing their own success, bypassing the curse of a one-hit wonder. But the Alabama singer-songwriter has done so with ease. And her sophomore album, “Dandelion” out Friday, co-produced by Langley, Miranda Lambert and Ben West, only further proves her chops.
Lead single “Choosin’ Texas” may be her “You Look Like You Love Me” of the current moment, a rare No. 1 hit on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 for a female country artist and a radio mainstay that challenges the country industry’s reputation for failing to support its women artists. (If that’s not enough to sway the non-believers, maybe this is: As of this writing, “Choosin’ Texas” has spent five weeks at the top, the longest run from a song by a female artist that also hit No. 1 on the country charts. Whose record did she best? Taylor Swift, of course.) Langley and her earworms, it seems, are too big to fail.
It’s not just “Choosin’ Texas,” though it is a standout. “Dandelion” plays to Langley’s old soul strengths. The album opens with “Froggy Went A Courtin’,” the centuries-old folk song and nursery rhyme, before leading to a few tracks worthy of their own myth-making: The homesick title track “Dandelion,” the credits-closing cinema of “Low Lights,” the sweet dual harmonies with ERNEST on “Loving Life Again,” and so on.
The strongest moments display Langley’s Southern swagger and simultaneous fondness for melancholy: “Choosin’ Texas,” of course, but also the power chords of “I Gotta Quit” and the undeniable stomper “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” a reference to the pioneering singer Kitty Wells’ 1952 song of the same name. Wells is largely viewed as the first female country music superstar and first to top the country charts. Between that nod, and Langley’s work with Lambert, the young singer does more than just tip her hat to those who paved the way. She venerates them.
In the modern era, where country music is full of retro traditionalists — typically male artists, like Zach Top’s playful George Strait worship — Langley brings the past to her present, melding wistful insights with contemporary acuity. She’s not a revisionist, but a nostalgist, one who sees the value in using old tools to tell new stories. Wisdom and insecurity sit next to one another in her songs; so does a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a tall drink of water on the bar stool to her right. And isn’t that what country music is all about?
“Dandelion” by Ella Langley
Four stars out of five.
On repeat: “Choosin’ Texas,” “Butterfly Season” featuring Miranda Lambert
Skip it: “You & Me Time,” “Speaking Terms”
For fans of: Bourbon, flirting in a dance hall, “Amarillo by Morning”
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