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“I’m in the back half of my twenties and still figuring it out, but I feel like I do it with a little more confidence,” Ella Langley tells Apple Music. “That’s why a lot of these songs represent that. They represent that feeling of, like, you know, you’re still figuring it out, but you’re trying to do it a little bit better each time.” Arriving in the midst of Langley’s historic 2026 run atop Billboard’s Hot 100, Dandelion is a monolithic country-pop album in an easy, understated disguise. Across 18 polished tracks, the Alabama native channels the hazy, reflective side of a neon-lit barroom on her sophomore album, inching towards a broader pop audience the whole time. The disco ball is definitely still turned on, but melancholy and longing pervade, whether in the danceable heartbreak tune “Choosin’ Texas,” about watching someone walk away, or “Somethin’ Simple,” a groovy song about wishing you were settled down even in the midst of a meteoric rise. For the album, the singer-songwriter tapped some of Nashville’s most beloved studio talents, including guitarist Charlie Worsham, bassist Rachel Loy, and pedal steel player Spencer Cullum, whose romantic licks drive home the release’s deep twang from front to back. Langley herself produced the album alongside Nashville veterans Ben West and Miranda Lambert—yes, the star took a background role (except on the duet “Butterfly Season”). Together, they crafted a slick, shimmering, yet still familiar and well-worn old-school sound, where all that pedal steel meets lush string sections to soundtrack the smoother side of boot-scootin’. The release, almost entirely co-written by Langley, is book-ended by Langley singing the classic folk song “Froggy Went A Courtin’,” solo and acoustic—a nod to the fact that it was one of the first songs she ever learned how to play. With her version of Kitty Wells’ “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” Langley’s arc is etched into the record: from singing the first song she learned to singing the first No. 1 country song by a woman artist as the performer of the longest-running country No. 1 ever by a woman artist. Rock solid, effortlessly country and cleverly poppy, Dandelion is a victory lap for an artist who makes defying country music’s long-standing gender inequity sound easy.

Hangovers aren’t just for booze. On her debut full-length album, Alabama artist Ella Langley explores the kinds of emotional aftermaths that leave behind heartache, not headaches. The record opens with its title track, a soulful and somber account of learning lessons in love the hard way. Fan favorite “nicotine” likens a lover she “want[s] but just don’t need” to the irresistible allure of a cigarette fix. Riley Green joins Langley on the hit duet “you look like you love me,” an old-school honky-tonk jam. Another standout is “paint the town blue,” a clever subversion of a country trope: Finding no solace in painting the town red in the wake of a breakup, Langley opts to “fall to pieces” (one of several classic country references on the record) and indulge her broken heart. This still hungover deluxe edition adds a handful of new tracks from Langley, which follow acoustic takes on “cowgirl don’t cry” and “broken in.” Moody ballad “girl you’re taking home” contrasts a long-term relationship—“Bet she met your grandma, you took her to church”—with a messy situationship, using clever signifiers like “neon” bar signs and the idea of a “last call” to illustrate the tension. The acoustic track “made it out of mexico” is somber and spare, as Langley sings of a trip to paradise ending in heartache. She closes still hungover with “monologue,” a spoken-word track that seems to close this heartbroken chapter.

Her raw emotions and Alabama country roots rise to the surface.