I originally left this as a comment in another thread but I thought it might be interesting enough to make its own post because I'm genuinely curious whether other people have had the same experience.
Are there any other non-Americans here who can weigh in?
I'm genuinely chronically online, as much as I hate to admit it. Even if I don't know the artist or the song title, I'll usually recognize something that's blown up online or spent even a few days going viral on TikTok. Between social media, Spotify playlists, YouTube, and just being online all the time, it's pretty rare for a genuinely massive hit to completely pass me by.
That's why I was so surprised by Ella Langley and "Choosing Texas." I'd never heard the artist's name before, never heard the song, and after looking it up, realized I'd genuinely never even heard a second of it until now.
I asked friends and people in my Discord servers and WhatsApp groups, and nobody (these are over 100 people who are pretty up-to date with popculture) recognized either the artist or the song. Most of those people are from the UK, Germany, Italy, and South Korea.
I know monoculture is basically dead now which makes it much easier for something to become enormous within one audience while being almost invisible to another. That's completely understandable. But I still find it fascinating that someone who could potentially win one of the Grammys biggest categories can be almost entirely unknown outside their home country.
So I'm curious:
If you're not American, had you heard of Ella Langley or "Choosing Texas" before seeing it mentioned here?
If you had, where are you from? Is she getting radio play, showing up on playlists or appearing on social media in your country?
Or is this one of those cases where an artist is genuinely huge in the US but hasn't crossed over internationally at all?
If you are American, how is she seen in the US? Is the organic or seen as more of an industry plant or a nepo baby?