Country music fans use the Long Road festival in Leicestershire to mark the passing of Dolly Parton
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© Photograph: Orlando Gili/The Guardian
© Photograph: Orlando Gili/The Guardian
© Photograph: Orlando Gili/The Guardian
© Ron Galella, via Getty Images
Grammy award-winning American artist selected as 13th person to submit written work to Oslo-based project
The next manuscript by the American artist Laurie Anderson will remain unseen for 88 years, as she becomes the 13th figure to contribute to the Future Library project.
Anderson joins Margaret Atwood, Han Kang, Ocean Vuong and other prominent authors who have written secret manuscripts, which have been locked away until 2114.
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© Photograph: Wolfgang Tillmans
© Photograph: Wolfgang Tillmans
© Photograph: Wolfgang Tillmans
Grammy award-winning American artist selected as 13th person to submit written work to Oslo-based project
The next manuscript by the American artist Laurie Anderson will remain unseen for 88 years, as she becomes the 13th figure to contribute to the Future Library project.
Anderson joins Margaret Atwood, Han Kang, Ocean Vuong and other prominent authors who have written secret manuscripts, which have been locked away until 2114.
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© Photograph: Wolfgang Tillmans
© Photograph: Wolfgang Tillmans
© Photograph: Wolfgang Tillmans
If you haven’t yet heard about how a certain fella is choosin’ a woman from Texas over Ella Langley, it’s only a matter of time.
Langley’s massive hit, “Choosin’ Texas,” began dominating the Billboard Hot 100 charts a few months ago — and never looked back. It’s still sitting at No. 1 after 19 weeks, tied for the longest time spent atop the charts among non-holiday songs. In a few more weeks, Langley could shatter the all-time record and dethrone Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
It’s a runaway success for Langley, who is relatively new to country music but has quickly vaulted to a new tier of stardom. To break down how it happened, Today, Explained turned to Marissa Moss, a senior writer at Rolling Stone and the author of Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be.
Moss talked with Today, Explained co-host Noel King about where Langley’s success came from, what it means for women in country music, and why many fans don’t know what to make of Langley, who has maintained a low profile for a star artist.
Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Tell me about “Choosin’ Texas.”
“Choosin’ Texas” is a song about a woman who is essentially losing her man in real time. She goes to a bar or a honky-tonk in Texas. She’s from Tennessee. She suddenly realizes that he sees his ex who’s from Texas and drifts away from her to this woman. It’s that feeling of knowing when you see it in someone’s face that they’re going to be leaving you and figuring out whether it’s worth it to hold on or to let go.
How big is this song, exactly?
It is huge. It is up there right now in competition with Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which owns the record for the most weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 22 weeks. Her only [other] competition is from Shaboozey and Lil Nas X, which are country-adjacent songs.
She really could blow by Mariah Carey. Of course you get a boost every time Christmas comes around, but we’re a little ways off from Mariah Carey declaring once and for all that it’s Christmas season. So I think Ella has plenty of time to catch up. And it could be the biggest song of all time, which is crazy.
You’re a music writer and you’re based in Nashville. How big a deal is Ella Langley in a place like Nashville and in the country industry?
She’s a big deal. And it’s exciting because she’s a relatively newish artist in terms of how long she’s been putting out music. She only released her debut album in 2024, called Hungover.
It’s really exciting because as a lot of people know, it can be really hard for a woman to make it in Nashville. Usually under 10 percent of songs on country radio are by women, so having someone like her out there and having so much country radio airplay and presence on the Hot 100 and breaking all these records, you really hope that it’s going to help influence people in Nashville to sign more women, platform more women, do all of those things to try to sort of flip this longstanding sexism that has existed in Nashville.
Not to put all of our hopes and dreams on one woman, because it’s not up to her to do this. It’s up to the industry to respond. But you sure have to hope so.
Was it a surprise that “Choosin’ Texas” became such a big hit?
I would’ve never predicted this. I loved the song when I heard it, but I don’t think I ever thought that something this country could be this popular.
“Despite the lyrical content, which may be a little bit of a bummer, the song does just feel so good. And it’s like a little bit of a brain weed gummy.”
And yes, country music is becoming so much more popular nationwide, worldwide. But it is also country music in a lot of ways that is a little bit more pop-leaning. Morgan Wallen is extremely popular, but he’s not putting out super-twangy tears-in-your-beer kind of country music songs.
“Choosin’ Texas” is kind of sad, but more than sad, I think it’s relatable. It taps into this feeling that a lot of people have, especially in the summer. If you’re thinking about a summer romance, of losing something that you once had, of letting go, of nostalgia, I think that’s something that we really want to feel right now.
And despite the lyrical content, which may be a little bit of a bummer, the song does just feel so good. And it’s like a little bit of a brain weed gummy. The second it comes on and you hear that little guitar lick it relaxes you. It gives you that summer feel of airy and fresh and a lot of people want to feel that way right now.
You’ve said she’s not a person who shares a ton about herself. Probably smart in this day and age. But country music often does get politicized. And I’ve seen that happening a bit around her and around this song. Tell me about the way she is being slotted into certain perspectives in the US, whether she wants to be or not.
One thing I’ve seen is a lot of people from the far right wanting to use her as an example of a return to sort of this anti-girlboss era. They like to take the fact that she speaks about her faith on stage and warp that into that being sort of her overriding agenda and that she wants this return to traditional values.
And then on the left, I’ve seen some people sort of play with the same. I personally think you could just as easily make a case that she’s a feminist who had Miranda Lambert produce her album and writes with women and takes all these women on tour.
So many people want this moment to serve their own narrative and want Ella Langley to stand for something on every side. And if you don’t give people a little, they’re going to go wild. But maybe that’s better than putting your personal views out there and having them ripped apart. I can’t say I really blame her, to be honest.
Country star came to South Yorkshire town in 2007 for UK launch of the Imagination Library, her book donation scheme
Shane Jarman was up a ladder decorating a Christmas tree at the school where he was deputy headteacher when he got a call asking him to come to Rotherham hospital ASAP. It was December 2007 and Jarman’s wife, Claire, had given birth the previous day to their first child, a girl called Emma, so of course he rushed to the phone. All was well, he was told, but that “everything would become clear” when he got to the hospital.
Once there, his wife told him – somewhat unexpectedly – that they were going to meet Dolly Parton. “And literally within what felt like five minutes,” he recalled, “there were great camera flashes, lots of noise, lots of clicking and in walked this real big bundle of energy.”
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© Photograph: The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust
© Photograph: The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust
© Photograph: The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust
Their un-Googlable, very online name is the antithesis of this earthy duo’s sublime art-folk. Like their emotionally ambiguous music, the pair don’t give up their mysteries easily
• The best music of autumn 2026: Johnny Marr, Phoebe Bridgers, Rachel Chinouriri and more
• See all of our unmissable autumn arts recommendations here
Victoria Rose arrives at Philadelphia’s 30th St Station and apologises for the sticky streaks covering her car’s interior. She’s a beekeeper, and it’s just propolis, a resinous sealant for gaps in the hive. Her bandmate, Stone Filipczak, is riding shotgun, and her protective gear occupies the rear passenger seat. We’re heading to one of their favourite spots, an Ethiopian restaurant that doubles as a venue. The dining room quickly gets boisterous – a challenge for our interview given that Filipczak and Rose are relatively soft speakers, and not wildly keen to divulge specifics about the music they make as @. Like Rose’s bees, they’re a secretive and self-sustaining pair.
As you might guess, @ is pronounced “at”. It’s a tough Google. The name, Filipczak explains, came from “a vision of an @ sign on a kick drum head”. Not that they have any need for one: @’s art-folk is rooted in acoustic guitar, woodwinds and vocal harmonies that furrow and frolic. Their fantastic second album, Autosmile, is their first with the venerated indie label 4AD. (The name is a reference to a meme showing a dopey sunflower: “When you and gang faded and auto smile gets turn on …”)
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© Photograph: Ingmar Chen
© Photograph: Ingmar Chen
© Photograph: Ingmar Chen
Irish noisemongers Gilla Band, shadowy producers Two Shell and lovable band the Big Moon have new records, and there are tours from Bob Dylan and Kelela – plus the best of jazz, global and classical
• ‘It’s easier when nobody’s watching’: inside the secretive and sublime freak-folk of @
• See all of our unmissable autumn arts recommendations here
© Composite: Guardian Design/Kaio Cesar/Patrick McCormack
© Composite: Guardian Design/Kaio Cesar/Patrick McCormack
© Composite: Guardian Design/Kaio Cesar/Patrick McCormack
Reading Festival
There’s not much time to dig into her deep catalogue of future-facing pop, but she satisfies the hardcore
“Time itself is a circle,” as the rock’n’roll philosopher Nietzsche once said, accurately foreshadowing Charli xcx’s only UK festival appearance this summer. Like her performance on Glastonbury’s Other Stage last year – a pyrotechnic farewell to the puke-green reign of Brat – Charli’s Reading and Leeds appearance is a not-quite-headline slot that also follows a rowdy set from grime don Skepta.
Yet in the past 14 months, everything else in Charli’s pop factory has undergone a hard reset. She’s released two albums – a grandiose, gothic soundtrack to Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights, and last month’s high-concept Music, Fashion, Film, an album of raw, glitching micro-rock, with guitars shredded into Tetris-like pieces, and fitted with lacerating lyrics about shopping, egotism and mortality. She’s also launched an acting career, thrown a big fat celebrity wedding and, somewhere along the way, found time to rehearse her biggest, most vertiginous show to date.
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© Photograph: Henry Redcliffe/PA
© Photograph: Henry Redcliffe/PA
© Photograph: Henry Redcliffe/PA
With Lazy Thinking in Sydney the latest venue to shut its doors, the once-vibrant grassroots music scene is becoming increasingly vulnerable
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Jim Flanagan has four days to hand his keys back to his landlord.
Panels engulfed in grungy band posters, handmade plates that have served countless customers, a shelving unit housing a library of iconic vinyls: all of it will be sold for next to nothing in the rush to vacate.
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© Photograph: Teagan Glenane/The Guardian
© Photograph: Teagan Glenane/The Guardian
© Photograph: Teagan Glenane/The Guardian
© Nina Westervelt for The New York Times
Rich harmonies mix with synth, harp and aquatic grace on the intriguing first single from the New York songwriter’s debut album
From New York, USA
Recommended if you like Jessica Pratt, Minnie Riperton, Cocteau Twins
Up next Debut LP Follow the Light released via Jagjaguwar on 16 October
In Robert Silverberg’s 1973 sci-fi anthology New Dimensions 3, there’s a story by author Terry Carr called They Live on Levels. The simplest outline of this tale is that thanks to a technological breakthrough, humans are able to exist and communicate through different planes of existence. Through musical styles and generational layers, the spectral folk of New York-based songwriter June McDoom expresses this very notion in stunning fashion.
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© Photograph: Ryley Paskal
© Photograph: Ryley Paskal
© Photograph: Ryley Paskal
Their raucous pop music has made Katseye the biggest girl band in two decades. Can they weather toxic fandom, critical pans and a dwindling member count?
Before screenings of their new documentary, the members of Katseye appear in a video message to thank fans for their support. Their followers, Eyekons, have played a critical role in their rise to stardom, so it makes sense that Katseye: Wild Hearts, released in global theaters this month, takes a beat to shout out to them. Perhaps more than many other big music groups today, the group’s rise has depended on their relationship with their devotees who ensure that few corners of the world are safe from Katseye mania.
Katseye’s multinational members – Daniela, Lara, Manon, Megan, Sophia and Yoonchae – were selected through a combination of fan votes and judge scores on the 2023 YouTube reality competition The Debut: Dream Academy. The joint project between the American record label Geffen Records and Korean entertainment company Hybe aimed to create a global girl group, with hopefuls participating in a rigorous bootcamp to test their singing and dancing skills. The following year, Netflix’s docu-series Pop Star Academy: Katseye – which documented the group’s nascent era, behind-the-scenes drama and all – catapulted them to a new level of visibility.
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© Photograph: Eric Acquaye/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Eric Acquaye/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Eric Acquaye/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
(ALTER)
The Grammy winner unites former clients including Lamar and Ravyn Lenae for a playful, dazzling voyage through the guitar’s diversity, from alt-rock to Afrobeat
On this long-awaited debut, Grammy-winning hip-hop producer Dahi steps out from the booth and into the spotlight. He’s best known for transforming a dreamy Beach House sample into Kendrick Lamar’s hit Money Trees, alongside chameleonic production work for SZA, Madonna, Drake and many more. Now that Dahi’s got the mic, what does he want to say?
Blending the brittle 90s British rock he loved as a California teen with the west African grooves his father played in the house, Black Boy (Alternative) celebrates the guitar as a transcendent tool that spans genres and continents. No other album this year will boast such starry guest features – Dahi calls up former clients Lamar, Childish Gambino, Vince Staples and Ravyn Lenae alongside experimentalists such as Moses Sumney, Baby Rose and Fousheé – but it’s testament to the strength of his vision that these distinct voices come together like a bedded-in, playful house band. All trust, no ego.
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© Photograph: Marissa Blair
© Photograph: Marissa Blair
© Photograph: Marissa Blair
McCarthy/Waarts/National Symphony Orchestra Ireland/McAdams
(Nonesuch)
Dennehy’s Limina, based on areas of the body, is firmly grounded in the harmonic series, and sparklingly executed here, while Stephen Waarts gives a bravura performance of the Violin Concerto
These two concertos, beautifully paired, again find Donnacha Dennehy writing music that is both firmly grounded – both rhythmically and in his fascination with the harmonic series – and, to the ear at least, joyously unfettered. Limina was written in 2023 for the pianist Eliza McCarthy, who is a powerhouse soloist here with the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland and conductor Ryan McAdams. It’s a serious piece born of a slightly playful idea. Its three movements are each named for a part of the body, staking out one area before moving to the threshold, or limina, of the next. Head starts with synapses firing high up the keyboard in sparks and glitter; it travels downwards, frenetic energy dissipating, towards Chest, which evokes breathing – not with regular rhythms but with gentle palindromic phrases that swell in and out and sigh back towards the same bass pitch. Nervous System begins deep in the gut, with coarser sounds – low piano vamping, and slapped bowing from the strings – but eventually escapes its tether and disperses around the keyboard.
The Violin Concerto, written in 2020, is just as propulsive, and the outer movements especially are a workout for Stephen Waarts, who gives a bravura performance. In the middle movement his violin soars, pushing off from the orchestral support to trace slow, weightless somersaults in the air. The finale has a thrilling sense of motion creating its own gravity: as with so much of Dennehy’s writing, it’s as if the music is held together by centrifugal force.
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© Photograph: Hugh O'Conor
© Photograph: Hugh O'Conor
© Photograph: Hugh O'Conor
© Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Across six decades, the late country singer and pop culture icon turned self‑presentation into a flamboyant art form
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Dolly Parton may have had a record 25 US country No 1 singles, released 66 studio albums and earned six Golden Globe nominations, among many other achievements, but the Tennessee-born star also had an incredible number of fashion moments. “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap”, she famously quipped when asked about her style. As we bid her farewell, six Guardian writers reflect on their favourite Dolly looks.
***
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© Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
© Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
© Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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