Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” steps to No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (dated Feb. 14). The track drew 29.7 million audience impressions (up 4%) Jan. 30-Feb. 5, according to Luminate.

Notably, the average trip to the top of Country Airplay in the last 10 years has taken 30 weeks; “Choosin’ Texas” needed just 16, completing the quickest journey for a song by a woman and no co-billed acts since two Carrie Underwood tracks in 2016 also led in their 16th weeks: “Church Bells” and “Heartbeat.”

Langley earns her third Country Airplay leader and first on her own, following last year’s “Don’t Mind If I Do”  and 2024’s “You Look Like You Love Me,” both with Riley Green. Langley has placed six titles on the list, including 2025’s “Weren’t for the Wind,” which peaked at No. 2.

But the story extends well beyond Country Airplay. “Choosin’ Texas” has continued to build across metrics, leading Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart for 10 weeks after reaching No. 1 in just six — well ahead of the 10-year average of 15 — and moving into territory rarely occupied by solo women. An 11th week in the lead there would place Langley alongside Gabby Barrett (“The Good Ones,” 2021) and Kelsea Ballerini (“Peter Pan,” 2016) as the only women with no other credited acts to lead both charts at the same time since the surveys have coexisted (dating to October 2012). (The Feb. 14-dated Hot Country Songs chart will be released Monday, Feb. 9.)

Moreover, that momentum feeds into a broader picture. “Choosin’ Texas” sits one position shy of the summit on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, positioning Langley in especially rare company should it reach No. 1.

HARDY Party

All-star team-up “McArthur,” from HARDY, Eric Church, Morgan Wallen and Tim McGraw, bows at No. 28 (5.7 million) on Country Airplay. Released Jan. 30, the generation-spanning story song marks HARDY’s highest debut among 10 charted titles.

All charts dated Feb. 14 will update Tuesday, Feb. 10 on Billboard.com.

“My blood was just pumped,” Bob the Drag Queen tells Billboard of her first performance in Broadway’s Moulin Rouge! The Musical on Jan. 27. “I was on so much Red Bull.”

Although Bob is no stranger to the stage (or an eye-popping outfit), stepping into Harold Zidler’s ostentatious coattails marked the artist’s Broadway debut — more than 15 years after first arriving in New York City and making the audition rounds with the rest of the city’s theatrical hopefuls.

“I’ve been on a lot of wacky journeys, from reality TV to books to music to Broadway to stand-up, and I’ve had a lot of people go with me on every single journey,” says Bob, who won RuPaul’s Drag Race season 8 and served as the MC on Madonna’s globe-trotting Celebration Tour from 2023-2024. “I’m really appreciative.”

Below, Bob walks Billboard through his non-audition audition for the role of Zidler, her winding road to Broadway and what other roles could be a perfect fit for The Drag Queen on the Gay White Way.

You’re obviously no stranger to being on stage, but were the nerves for this different because it was a thespian situation?

Not really. I’ve been acting for a minute, and I’ve done quite a few plays in my day—not as many as a tenured Broadway actor. The last big play I did was Angels in America eight years ago. I get excited more than I get nervous.

Any preshow rituals?

I just listen to video essays or podcasts and do makeup and chat with the people backstage. I do vocal warmups and stuff, but no, nothing super earthy or ritualistic.

You’ve released songs before, but how comfortable do you feel singing on stage in a live environment eight times a week? That’s a lot.

I like singing quite a bit. I’ve sang live and professionally several times, but this is more than I’ve ever done. It’s definitely outside of my wheelhouse, but it gets me really excited.

Did you get much time to rehearse with your castmates before your grand debut?

No. For the most part, it’s just me all by myself, as Céline Dion would say. We did one “put in” show which is where you get to run a show, but not everyone’s in costume, and the whole band is not there. It’s just the piano and there’s no audience. So that’s the closest you get to doing it all before the show.

That’s wild. I know you’ve been looking to get on Broadway for a long time, but how did you land this role? Did they come to you, did you have to audition?

They reached out to me and said I didn’t [have to] audition. They said it was a “work session,” but I was auditioning. [Laughs] I flew to New York and I worked out some scenes with them. Then I was offered the role after that, after the “work session” which was certainly not an audition.

Right, absolutely not an audition. They wanted you regardless, but they also needed to see you first. Do you have a personal history with Moulin Rouge!, the Baz Luhrmann movie? Was that a seminal film for you?

No, not at all. I hadn’t seen the movie until maybe a month ago, to be honest. I saw the play twice before I saw the movie once. I’m more familiar with the play than I am the movie. Even before I was casting, I was more familiar with the play than I was the movie.

As you prepared, did you find yourself comparing your approach to what other actors had done in the role? Or did you try to keep a blank slate?

I’m mostly trying to keep a blank slate. And I’m so different than all the other Zidlers who played the role. I’ve seen Wayne Brady in the role, I’ve seen Robert Petkoff, and I bring something very different than they do to the role. I’m also the youngest Zidler of all time, but not by not by much. I’m barely in my thirties; I’ll be 40 before the year is over.

One of my co-workers was telling me he needs to go to Coachella this year, because he’s never been and wants to get there before he’s 40.

I have no desire to go to Coachella. Nothing about it.

I saw Madonna’s Celebration Tour several times, which you were a big part of. I absolutely loved it. You were such a perfect MC. Did you draw on any of that for this role?

You know, not so much. I didn’t learn to MC through the Madonna tour, I have been emceeing in New York City for, my God, 17 years now. I’ve hosted Werk the World tours and comedy tours and drag queen tours and stand-up shows. I hosted Stand Out for Netflix, the Queer Comedy Festival. If anything, for the Madonna tour I was just applying what I’ve learned over the years, and I’m still applying that here on Broadway.

Any chance Madonna will come see your Broadway performance?

Who knows? Probably not. I don’t think she’s in the States now. I think she’s deep into Confessions Part 2.

You were the standout of The Traitors season 3. What’s your take on this new season?

I think Alan (Cumming) is just eating so hard this season, and I really look forward to seeing how it all plays out. I am currently hosting the official Traitors podcast, and it’s currently the number one podcast for television and film.

Congrats! I love The Traitors. I feel like they need to have two drag queens a season, however. The Housewives get four contestants, which lets them have a little block to protect each other. You, Peppermint and Monét X Change were just out there on your own each season.

Apparently we can get to figure two Olympic figure skaters but we can’t get two drag queens in one season! Two figures skaters and one drag queen? Crazy numbers.

So back the Moulin Rouge! The Musical. Eight times a week is an awful lot. What are you up to when you’re not on stage? I know you have podcasts, but are those prerecorded? Are you just resting when you’re not on stage?

I still work! I still do my podcast. I review RuPaul’s Drag Race with my drag sister, Monét X Change, over on our YouTube page. I’m still doing the Traitors podcast, my solo podcast, Only Child. So I do about four or five podcasts a week.

Sometimes I’ll talk to Broadway actors and they’re like, “The second I get offstage it’s vocal rest, I go straight home.”

I mean, I probably should do that. [Laughs] But then you got Jessica Vosk walking the streets of Times Square interviewing people and then going on and singing in Hell’s Kitchen, singing her tits off.

Hell’s Kitchen was great. What’s your all-time favorite Broadway show? Or what are the best shows you’ve seen on Broadway?

My favorite Broadway show I’ve ever seen is probably Once On This Island. It was really good, I saw it twice. I also really enjoyed Kinky Boots, also at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, where I’m at [in Moulin Rouge! The Musical]. Oh, Mary! was fantastic. A Strange Loop changed my life. I could do this all day,

Who did you see in Oh, Mary!?

I saw Cole [Escola] and Jinkx [Monsoon].

Same, plus Jane Krakowski. So when you’re watching these shows on Broadway, are you in fan mode or is part of you thinking, “I could do that role”?

Oh, every actor watches a play and casts themselves. Every actor cast themselves in every TV show, especially every play they go to. I remember watching Moulin Rouge! and saying, “I can play Harold Zidler.”

Damn. You put it out there, and it happened. Are there any other Broadway roles you want to toss out into the universe?

I would love to do Jesus Christ Superstar as King Herod. I would love to do Annie as Miss Hannigan. I would love to do Mary as either Mary Todd Lincoln or Abraham Lincoln. I would love to… I mean, again, I could do this literally all day. I really, genuinely love theater.

What’s your favorite song in Moulin Rouge! The Musical?

Well, I’m really into [Adele’s] “Rolling in the Deep” as a song and “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. I just love both those songs so much. They get mashed together, it’s really good. I was thinking back to when Gnarls Barkley first dropped the song “Crazy” and how f–king good it was. It changed the zeitgeist. It really did; it was everywhere.

When your Broadway gig wraps, what’s next?

When I’m done with this run, I’m going to be back on tour, you can get tickets for my comedy tour. My first love was theater, but the first love I had to love me back was stand-up comedy. It took theater 17 years to love me back, but stand-up comedy immediately embraced me, and I will always return to my stand-up comedy roots every time.

To wait so long and finally get the love back must be very gratifying.

I always knew the day would come. I just had to be patient enough to wait for it. It came when it came.

So 17 years ago, you were doing Broadway auditions?

Yeah, down at Pearl Studio and Ripley-Grier Studios. I once got kicked out of an audition. Okay, not kicked out, but asked to leave a dance call for Wicked. I fell and I tried to get back in, hop back in, and I was obviously behind the steps at that point. The guy, while everyone’s dancing, he tapped my shoulder and was like, “You can just go.”

Brutal. I hope he sees you now on stage.

Well, I’m not doing it to get back at him. And in his defense, I would probably still be bad in the chorus of Wicked. [Laughs] Maybe I could be a Madame Morrible or Doctor Dillamond or The Wizard.

Dave and Tems have dethroned Harry Styles from the No. 1 spot on the U.K. Singles Chart with their joint track “Raindance.” (Feb. 6)

It means that Styles’ “Aperture,” which debuted at No. 1 on the chart dated Jan. 30, lands just a single week at the summit of the tally. The song is currently at the same spot on the Billboard Hot 100, though faces pressure from Ella Langley and Olivia Dean.

“Raindance” first hit the top spot in the U.K. a fortnight ago and was dethroned by Styles’ comeback track; it has now scored two non-consecutive weeks at No. 1. The track appears on Dave’s The Boy Who Played the Harp and also landed on the Hot 100 this past week (No. 89) to give the London-born rapper his first appearance on the chart and Tems’ her sixth.

RAYE’s “Where Is My Husband!” closes the week at No. 2, though the track has already spent a sole week at No. 1 in January. Djo’s “End of Beginning” holds its position at No. 3, having enjoyed a two-week stay at the No. 1 spot in January following the conclusion of Stranger Things, in which Joe Kerry plays the role of fan-favorite Steve Harrington.

Styles’ “Aperture” falls to No. 4 in its second week on the U.K.’s Singles Chart. “As It Was,” the lead single from his previous LP, Harry’s House, scored a 10-week stay at the summit back in 2022. Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia” holds its position at No. 5.

Noah Kahan’s “The Great Divide” is the week’s highest new entry and debuts at No. 10; his upcoming fourth album of the same name will be released April 24.

Zara Larsson continues to ride a new wave of attention with “Midnight Sun” up six places to No. 20. After The Cure bagged its first-ever Grammy Awards on Sunday (Feb. 1), the band’s 1979 classic “Boys Don’t Cry” lifts 14 places to No. 22.

Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” squeezes into the top 40 at No. 38 for her first appearance on the charts.

Illenium logs onto Zoom from his Los Angeles home studio in a moment of relative chill, given what his last year has been like.

The producer born Nick Miller released his sixth studio album, Odyssey, today (Feb. 6) and on March 6 will launch a nine-date Sphere residency of the same name that will make him the second electronic artist in history after Anyma to headline the venue.

As such, Illenium and his team have spent the last year creating an entirely new world around the project, with the process starting with the creation of a storyline for the show that then inspired Odyssey. The LP is Illenium’s first with Republic Records, and includes collaborators Ellie Goulding, Kid Cudi, Bring Me the Horizon, Dabin, Alok and Ryan Tedder. Odyssey also finds the producer, whose work pioneered the future bass genre, leaning into house, tech house and trance of the first time.

After the story and the visuals and the album was finished, the work continued, with Illenium spending, he says, “eight to 20 hours per song” to mix the album into spatial audio, a technological component of Sphere that Illenium is employing more than any other artist who’s played a residency there thus far. As he tells it to Billboard, it’s all coming together well enough to leave him with a big smile on his face during rehearsals.

“The only people that are probably going to notice [the spatial stuff] are those who’ve been to Sphere before for shows without it, but people that are going there for the first time are probably just going be like, ‘Wow, that sounded really good.’ It’s like, “Goddammit, we worked so hard on that!’”

So how did this new album Odyssey come about?

For me to really grind on an album, I have to put so much love behind it. I had done five albums, an album every two years, and was going to take a year to chill, to collect my thoughts and figure out what I really wanted to pursue. I’m so glad I did. I still worked on music in that time, a couple singles, the Ellie Golding song that I’m putting out, but I wasn’t grinding on an album yet.

When did that shift?

I really started once Sphere came into the picture about 14 months ago. Once we did the storyboard for that and had a world built for the show, I knew I needed a new album for it. It needed to be completely fresh. I wanted to make music for this storyline for the show and have brand new visuals, brand new music, everything new. I’m so glad I did that, because it turned into this major focus where I had tunnel vision for what I needed to do, and that was super fun.

I was wondering if Sphere came first and then the album, or vice versa?

Without going into a two hour ramble, last January we decided we were going to shoot for a Sphere residency. In order to do that, we needed a story. We were like, “We want to make a movie.” Every show I’ve seen there has done an amazing job pushing boundaries, but I do feel like there’s room to push the combination of an immersive show and a movie storyline that’s impactful, emotional and has this captivating immersion to it.

How did you do that?

The first phase was getting the storyboard. The story is very much a metaphor for accepting the dark and light parts of yourself, going through a journey of accepting who you are and that there’s beautiful aspects to the light and beautiful aspects to the darkness. It’s really a roller coaster ride of that yin and yang, made at a macro scale. We use a lot of space and black holes and visuals of worlds being created in these two polar opposite… I just got obsessed with this whole storyline.

If it’s a movie, are there characters?

Yes, it gets really intricate with the character development. We wrote that, then I would have a reference image and a scene, then we would go in the studio and write a song to that scene. Building the show was building the album at the same time. It was totally in tandem. The show has a different layout and order and a lot of different edits, and the album has a different ebb and flow to it

That’s interesting given that the last time we spoke you said you were interested in film scoring, although I can’t image you thought it’d be like this. Are you saying that you’re playing the show in order of the album tracklist?

Not at all. I built the show first and then went back and finished the album. Normally it’s album first, then the show.

Obviously Sphere is so different than any other show you’ve done. Who did you work with to make it and how complicated was it to do?

[Laughs] That’s another two hour conversation. The first show I saw was Dead & Co., and then I saw Anyma, and then Backstreet Boys. I think all three of them did a fantastic job. I mean, the canvas you get there is just so different creatively. You get so many more possibilities and so much more immersion — the haptic seats, the spatial audio, which a lot of artists haven’t fully used to its full potential. We’re going fricken’ HAM on all that.

When you saw Anyma and Backstreet Boys, did you know by that point that you were doing your own show there?

When I saw Anyma we were talking to them and going through the approval process, so I knew it was a potential, but it wasn’t confirmed. Backstreet Boys, yes, we were already working on it.

You said you and the team were “shooting for a sphere show,” so obviously it’s something you knew was a possibility. How did you guys get it across the finish line?

Once it became a reality, the only way to do it was to fully commit. It became our entire focus for 12 to 14 months. Not just myself, but my whole team. The only way to do it is to make it your entire life.

You’re working with the Woodblock animation studio on the visuals, right?

That’s my entire visual team, and they’re freaking awesome. My mind is very character driven, so we took a while to fine tune the characters and how we want them to look, walk and fly. So then you get sketches of those characters in each scene, then we start dissecting like, “We really want this part to be impactful and for everything to flow with the music.” Everything needs to be driving to the music.

No matter how amazing all the shows I’ve seen at Sphere have been, I feel like there needs to be more [emphasis] on those impactful musical moments and really driving with them, really feeling it. That’s where that immersion element comes in so well. A big moment starts coming, and you feel a rumble in your seats that takes you to this rumble you see visually. It’s very tied together.

If you’re saying it’s like a movie, is there going be dialog?

There’s no dialog, actually, besides one tiny piece at the very beginning. It’s tricky, because we’re going to make a movie and tell a story, but nobody gets to talk. That’s where writing for the scenes is so helpful. For example there’s this one moment called “Into the Dark,” and it’s the intro song to my album, and it’s these two characters coming into contact for the first time, and they have to follow each other into the dark. The lyrics work with what’s happening visually really well, so it’s almost like writing for a movie.

The music is the dialog.

Yeah, exactly.

Will there be any of symbolism that we’ve seen previously in your shows and that have defined your world and aesthetic for a long time? Are you adapting that pre-existing world?

Not exactly. The world is new. There are similarities in terms of the phoenix being present, but not as constantly present. I love like that the phoenix is kind of godly or higher power-esque figure that has these special powers and can create worlds, and from the ashes of a feather can create an entire universe type of thing. I like that kind of massive thought.

It’s like the end of Men in Black when you find out it’s all taken place in marble of some alien.

Right there! Spoiler alert. There’s some cool stuff.

Did signing with Republic during this time open any opportunities for you and make the album process in any way different?

They’ve been such a family vibe. When we signed with them, they knew we were doing Sphere. It was pretty much like “I’ve got a quick timeline. We’ve got to go!” I went from not doing much to “We’ve got to go hard, fast.”

They’ve been so supportive. I love everyone on the team. I’ve been through a lot of different label families, and there’s always pros to a lot of them, and cons to some, and I feel like overall, Republic has been really invested in what I want to do as an artist creatively. They’re excited to be a part of Sphere and were super helpful, because I had to get so many sessions done in a short amount of time. I had to write that album in six months, really.

I was just listening to the Ellie Goulding track “Don’t Want Your Love,” which really goes and also feels like an evolution for you in terms of having a more tech house sound.

For sure. I haven’t dabbled in the house or trance space a lot, and had so much fun working on that. “Feels Like You” with Ellie Duhé too, I love that song. I had a really fun time implementing my sound into that genre. There were some amazing vocals that called for it, that I was like, “I’ve just got to go to this world, it’s just meant to be there.”

Do you think your fans are ready for these kind of genre diversions?

I can’t wait for them to hear the Bring Me the Horizon collab. That thing is fully psychotic. I haven’t made a song that aggressive ever. Fans that want the same half-time big synth drops, they’ll get some of that, but I want to mess around. I don’t want to just do that constantly. There are some amazing songs that are very Illenium sounding, but there are diverse songs too. At first people might get tripped up on that, but with a second or third listen, I think people are going to get really obsessed.

The atmosphere at Sphere obviously changes so much from artist to artist. The Dead shows were a super Dead vibe and the Anyma shows were very futuristic and techno. I feel like your people are gonna create a really nice atmosphere.

I can’t wait. It’s getting to the point where I am personally blown away by being there and looking and watching. I cannot f–king wait to see fans in it. Right now I’m just in an empty venue with a huge smile on my face. Every run-through I’m like, “Wow, this is gonna be f–king insane.”

I’m so excited for you to have the moment of the first note of the first show.

I don’t get that nervous for a lot of shows, but I’m sure I’ll be f–king losing my fricken self.

You’ve already done such big stuff, like your stadium shows. I’d been wondering how you’d do anything bigger than what you’d already achieved, so this all makes perfect sense.

Creatively, doing a stadium show is so fun. I do get nervous for those, but it doesn’t take as much longterm work as a Sphere show. The rush of a stadium show is really fricken’ crazy. You almost have your own show that you’re watching from the stage, because it’s so massive and we have so many lighting effects out in the crowd.

But the Sphere residency is a whole different type of work. I’ve never done a lot of this. It’s super immersive. We’re adding sound effects to all these these visual aspects and layering with the music and making edits. It really feels like making a movie, which is so fun, because I love that s–t.