<\/p>\n
By MARIA SHERMAN<\/strong><\/p>\n NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A few years ago, Ella Langley<\/a> emerged a saving grace for modern country music because she dared to look backward. \u201cYou Look Like You Love Me,\u201d her award-winning,<\/a> inescapable 2024 hit with Riley Green, pulled from another era \u2014 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.<\/p>\n A song that big can be a curse \u2014 or at the very least, an obstacle \u2014 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, \u201cDandelion\u201d out Friday, co-produced by Langley, Miranda Lambert<\/a> and Ben West, only further proves her chops.<\/p>\n Lead single \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas\u201d may be her \u201cYou Look Like You Love Me\u201d 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\u2019s reputation for failing to support<\/a> its women artists. (If that\u2019s not enough to sway the non-believers, maybe this is: As of this writing, \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas\u201d 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,<\/a> of course.) Langley and her earworms, it seems, are too big to fail.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas,\u201d though it is a standout. \u201cDandelion\u201d plays to Langley\u2019s old soul strengths. The album opens with \u201cFroggy Went A Courtin\u2019,\u201d the centuries-old folk song and nursery rhyme, before leading to a few tracks worthy of their own myth-making: The homesick title track \u201cDandelion,\u201d the credits-closing cinema of \u201cLow Lights,\u201d the sweet dual harmonies with ERNEST on \u201cLoving Life Again,\u201d and so on.<\/p>\n The strongest moments display Langley\u2019s Southern swagger and simultaneous fondness for melancholy: \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas,\u201d of course, but also the power chords of \u201cI Gotta Quit\u201d and the undeniable stomper \u201cIt Wasn\u2019t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,\u201d a reference to the pioneering singer Kitty Wells\u2019<\/a> 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\u2019s work with Lambert, the young singer does more than just tip her hat to those who paved the way. She venerates them.<\/p>\n In the modern era, where country music is full of retro traditionalists \u2014 typically male artists, like Zach Top\u2019s<\/a> playful George Strait<\/a> worship \u2014 Langley brings the past to her present, melding wistful insights with contemporary acuity. She\u2019s 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\u2019s<\/a> and a tall drink of water on the bar stool to her right. And isn\u2019t that what country music is all about?<\/p>\n \u201cDandelion\u201d by Ella Langley<\/p>\n Four stars out of five.<\/p>\n On repeat: \u201cChoosin\u2019 Texas,\u201d \u201cButterfly Season\u201d featuring Miranda Lambert<\/p>\n Skip it: \u201cYou & Me Time,\u201d \u201cSpeaking Terms\u201d<\/p>\n For fans of: Bourbon, flirting in a dance hall, \u201cAmarillo by Morning\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.bostonherald.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By MARIA SHERMAN NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A few years ago, Ella Langley emerged a saving grace for modern country music because she dared to look backward. \u201cYou Look Like You Love Me,\u201d her award-winning, inescapable 2024 hit with Riley Green, pulled from another era \u2014 all pedal steel and spoken-word choruses, the same night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2365965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[459769,459768,333330,308486,26626],"class_list":["post-2365964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-ben-west","tag-dandelion","tag-ella-langley","tag-miranda-lambert","tag-new-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775763200_Music-Review-Make-way-for-Ella-Langleys-\u2018Dandelion-a-new.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2365964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2365964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2365964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2365966,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2365964\/revisions\/2365966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2365965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2365964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2365964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2365964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}