Country Music and Politics: 'Choosin' Texas' Edition
The historic reign of "Choosin' Texas" (as of this week it's officially the longest-running Hot 100 No. 1 song ever, without a clear end in sight) is sparking all kinds of takes — that it's slop (all respect to Robin James, whose work I admire! But I disagree!). that it's not memorable (again, love Dave Moore but I've had it in my head for eons at this point), that its success is attributable in part to its family-friendliness (I'll buy that, though I think it's more than that; also I heard the Kidz Bop version at a birthday party last weekend because kids can't sing about drinking Jack all by themselves, lol), and of course, most obnoxiously, that it's an indicator of a red state cultural takeover.
It should come as a shock to no one, at this point, that the New York Times keeps making the same argument; less shocking still that that argument is a halfhearted one with a misperception of country music at the center. That country hits keep outdoing themselves over the past half-decade is notable. I do think if we're taking that arc as a whole, from "Old Town Road" to present, there might be something to the argument that country is currently winning the broad-spectrum palatability wars — passing the "does it fit as background music" test in a variety of scenarios. I certainly find that a much more compelling argument than "the culture of rural working-class whites can symbolize an unconstrained way of life that stands apart from the stifling, all-encompassing H.R. bureaucracy that everyone else lives in." How the Times manages to talk down to both its imagined readers — coastal, progressive etc. — and these "unconstrained" hicks at once is really something!
"In the cultural contest between blue and red America, lots of people are choosing Texas," concludes the magazine editor writing for the New York Times. Sigh. This facile line drawing — country music = MAGA — has been inescapable for years, in spite of the fact that the most successful and universal country songs are the ones that draw heavily from a crossover bucket. Going back to "Cruise," seminal hip-hop/country crossover moment that it was, we see the template for just about every major pop country hit since. How do we politically line-draw around that, besides the perpetually distressing reality that white people still like white people making Black music more than they do the superior source material that inspires them?
"Choosin' Texas" is something of an exception only in that regard; I'm not sure that self-consciously using '70s and '80s country aesthetic touchstones counts as a political statement in itself, but it's certainly anomalous for a 2026 hit of this magnitude. The way that it deploys those classic sounds is definitely slick, but also winds up much more traditionally "country" than the vast majority of recent country radio hits (this video with some of the nerds in the studio for the song talks about how much of it, including Langley's vocals, was recorded live). A recent Pitchfork review, for the record, is more evenhanded. I do think the only worthwhile takeaway from the Drake remix is how much "Choosin' Texas" owes to R&B and disco country (more on that later); stripped of its twangy trappings, the melody is totally serviceable as contemporary R&B song (his lyrics are another story).
There has to be a middle ground, of course: "Choosin' Texas" doesn't mean that all of America will be lining up to vote for Ken Paxton or equivalent in the midterms (heaven help us), but it also isn't meaningless that the country remains enraptured of cowboy cool and Langley's lo-fi honky-tonk to chill and study to. The song is a pretty exceptional single — hooky, groovy and well-executed, nostalgic without feeling redundant — and also offers perfect fodder for everyone who wants to post a TikTok wearing a cowboy hat which…not to oversimplify things, but lots of people like doing that because it's fun.
Sophie Cunningham can use Brooks & Dunn to dogwhistle in keeping with her abhorrent culture wars posturing and coastal libs can enjoy line-dancing to "Boot Scootin' Boogie" without first changing their voter registration. Country cosplay has been in and out of style for decades; the NYT op-ed insinuates that it basically went dormant in 1971 and only just now is coming back, erasing no fewer than two major waves of country cool since (shout-out to the Urban Cowboys and the ladies + Garth of the '90s). Nostalgia in general is extremely in, and cowboy kitsch is extremely nostalgic — for everyone, not just the imagined "rural white working-class" who are generally as much of a fantasy for Nashville songwriters and artists as they are for New York Times op-ed writers.
What does it all mean? Well, I'll go to bat for "Choosin' Texas" as a deserving hit, if not necessarily a historically deserving one. I don't think it's either a "pop music recession indicator" or a MAGA cultural bellwether; if anything, it's decidedly not those things — instead, it's a beacon at the other end of such a long Morgan Wallen-made tunnel. Mostly, I'm intrigued to see what comes next.
