Ella Langley, Morgan Wallen & More: Inside Country Music’s Historic Decade and What’s To Expect Next

By the time Ella Langley’s second album, Dandelion, arrived April 10, the country star had already made chart history several times over — and symbolized the commercial boom that country music has experienced in the 2020s. All decade long, artists like Langley, Morgan Wallen and Megan Moroney have been smashing records and spilling over onto the pop charts, yielding one of country music’s most culturally significant eras.

In February, for example, Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” accomplished an unpredecented hat trick, making her the first woman to concurrently hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts. By March, she and Moroney became the first women who primarily record country music to simultaneously top the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 (with Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” and Moroney’s Cloud 9, ­respectively). As Langley told Billboard in April, “Every day I wake up, it’s like something more insane has happened.”

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Upon its release, Dandelion debuted atop the Billboard 200 and Top Country Albums, making Langley one of just eight women to launch an album on the latter chart with at least 100,000 weekly units. And of those eight, two others also released albums this year: Moroney’s Cloud 9 and Kacey Musgraves’ Middle of Nowhere (joining Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood and Shania Twain). Since Dandelion arrived, it has remained No. 1 on Top Country Albums, setting a modern-era record (referring to 2017 onward) for the chart as the first album by a woman to earn 100,000-plus units for five consecutive weeks.

All the while, Langley has maintained her reign atop Hot Country Songs and the Hot 100, with “Choosin’ Texas” ruling for 26 weeks on the former (through May 30) and 10 weeks on the latter (through May 23). More history has followed: As “Choosin’ Texas” and “Be Her” held at Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, on the Hot 100, Langley became the first artist known for primarily recording country music in the chart’s 67-year history to simultaneously occupy the list’s top two spots for multiple weeks (May 6 and 23). The last country artist to come close? Wallen pulled it off for one week in May 2025.

Wallen has, without a doubt, led the charge for country music’s record-shattering run. The 2021 release of his Dangerous: The Double Album set things in motion by spending a record 97 weeks at No. 1 on Top Country Albums. He dethroned himself with his 2023 set, One Thing at a Time, which topped the list for a second-place 87 weeks, and he continued his historic run with 2025’s I’m the Problem, which set a then-weekly record of 37 Hot 100 entries (he once again replaced himself, as he held the previous record at 36).

Wallen’s rise runs parallel to country’s rising streaming numbers. The genre hit a new high in the United States at the start of 2020 with a record 1.24 billion on-­demand audio streams of its songs, according to Luminate. By 2023, country had become the fastest-­growing U.S. format for on-demand audio streaming. And in the first six months of 2025, country was the most common genre in the Hot 100’s top 10, claiming 29% of all top 10 hits, according to Hit Songs Deconstructed.

This decade, so far, the genre has also become more diverse: In April 2024, Shaboozey and Beyoncé made history on Hot Country Songs when the former’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” replaced the latter’s “Texas Hold ’Em” at No. 1, marking the first time two Black artists led the ranking back-to-back. And they continued to break chart records throughout the year. When Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter debuted at No. 1 on Top Country Albums, it was the first time a Black woman led the list. By the year’s end, “A Bar Song” tied for the then-longest-reigning Hot 100 chart-­topper when it hit its 19th week at No. 1 in November (matching Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus).

They weren’t the only ones new to the genre to make history: In February 2024, former Christian artist Nate Smith’s “World on Fire” tied Wallen for a record 10 weeks at No. 1 on Country Airplay; rap-rocker-turned-country star Jelly Roll became the only soloist with at least four songs to hit No. 1 on Country Airplay and Mainstream Rock Airplay; and ­newcomer Oliver Anthony became the first artist to debut atop the Hot 100 — with his viral “Rich Men North of Richmond” — without previously appearing on any Billboard ranking. Plus, three icons made history this decade as well: In 2023, Luke Combs became the only artist to place two titles with no billed collaborators in the top two on Country Airplay simultaneously (“Love You Anyway” and “Fast Car”) — and he did it again this April with “Sleepless in a Hotel Room” and “Days Like These”; “Fast Car” also helped Tracy Chapman make history, as she became the first Black woman to have solely penned a Country Airplay No. 1; and country legend Dolly Parton made personal history when her 2023 album, Rockstar, marked her career-best on the Billboard 200, debuting at No. 3. And with such rising stars as Alexandra Kay, Carter Faith and Stella Lefty making strides of their own, women in country are poised to dominate the latter half of the decade.

“Seeing women at the top of the charts together is incredible,” Langley recently told Billboard. “It’s a testament to the stories we’re telling and how they’re resonating with fans.”

Lainey Wilson — who made her own chart history in 2023, accomplishing the fastest return by a woman to No. 1 on Country Airplay when her collaboration “Save Me” with Jelly Roll topped the tally just six weeks after her single “Watermelon Moonshine” — shares Langley’s sentiment. As she told Billboard in April at Women in Music, where she presented Langley with the Powerhouse honor, “I’ve been telling the boys for a long time, ‘Y’all ain’t seen nothing.’ And that’s exactly what’s happening right now. These girls are making history and doing things that we didn’t even know could happen.” 

Additional reporting by Russ Penuell.

This story appears in the May 30, 2026, issue of Billboard.