today.com reports that co-host Carson Daly channeled record-setting country artist Ella Langley as part of the show's Halloween extravaganza on Oct. 30, strumming a guitar and lip-syncing her No. 1 hit "Choosin' Texas" while two-stepping around Rockefeller Plaza.

For the big reveal, a clip of Daly announcing another Langley record on PopStart morphed into him onstage in the red jumpsuit and long brown tresses Langley wears in the song's music video.

Daly said he picked the costume because TODAY has covered Langley's record-smashing feats "a million times" on PopStart, and he thought it would be a fun, current pop culture pick.

The moment that set social media alight was the video reveal itself: Daly, live on the TODAY Plaza, in full Langley costume as the PopStart clip gave way to his performance of "Choosin' Texas."

According to today.com, fans reacted immediately, with one commenter writing "my jaw was on the floor" and another dubbing him "Fella Langley." For country fans, the segment is a signal of how far Langley's reach now extends beyond Nashville radio into mainstream morning television.

What made Daly's tribute timely, according to today.com, is that "Choosin' Texas" has reportedly set a record as the longest-running No. 1 song in Billboard Hot 100 history with 25 weeks at the top, surpassing Mariah Carey's holiday standard "All I Want for Christmas Is You."

A country song holding the all-time Hot 100 longevity mark — and beating a Christmas juggernaut at its own game — is the kind of chart reversal country watchers would normally consider unthinkable, which is exactly why TODAY's PopStart desk kept covering it.

Backstage Country reports that Langley's latest hit "Loving Life Again" reached No. 1 on Billboard's Country Airplay chart, her sixth chart-topping single, and that she reached six No. 1s in just 99 weeks — which that outlet says is faster than any other female artist or female-fronted act in the chart's 36-year history.

Backstage Country also notes "Loving Life Again" is the fourth No. 1 single from her album *Dandelion*, putting the project alongside catalogs from Shania Twain and Carrie Underwood, and that the album has spent 21 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart since its April 2026 release.

today.com frames Daly's Langley interlude as part of a larger Halloween celebration marking 100 years of NBC history, with "NBC page" Savannah Guthrie as tour guide and co-hosts embodying icons like Rachel and Phoebe from "Friends," Eddie Murphy's Gumby, and Snoop Dogg's Olympic commentary.

It was also not Daly's first female music-star costume: today.com notes he embodied Gwen Stefani, his former "The Voice" co-star, in 2015.

The costume landed inside a show Daly already uses to track Langley's chart feats, making the bit feel less like a one-off gag and more like an ongoing storyline.

The Langley story also threads through the wider country scene this week.

Backstage Country reports ERNEST co-wrote "Loving Life Again" alongside Devin Dawson, while All Country News's weekly roundup reviews HARDY's new four-song project *Sides* and Cody Lohden's "Good Ole Boy," the latter co-produced by ERNEST.

All Country News praises HARDY for finding "the song inside each one" of his shifting styles, suggesting the same writer-producer circle behind Langley's chart dominance is shaping several of the week's most talked-about releases.