Which 19-Week #1 Is the Biggest Hot 100 Hit?
According to our midweek forecasts, Ella Langley’s Choosin’ Texas will spend a 19th week at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated August 29, 2026, matching Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy) and Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ Old Town Road. Nineteen weeks is the record for a non-holiday song.
For Tipsy and Old Town Road, week 19 marked the end of their time at #1. Choosin’ Texas, on the other hand, looks likely to keep going for many more weeks, thanks to both its streaming strength and the fact that it has almost no competition for the top spot in the current Hot 100 landscape.
Our like-for-like calculation puts Choosin’ Texas well ahead of A Bar Song (Tipsy) at week 19, and roughly equal with Old Town Road.
The three songs share a country connection. Choosin’ Texas and A Bar Song (Tipsy) are unambiguously country hits, while Old Town Road was released and promoted as “country trap”. Billboard disagreed with that classification and controversially removed it from the Hot Country Songs chart, arguing that it did not contain enough elements of contemporary country music. The decision (and the debate around genre, race and who gets accepted by the country establishment) became a major part of the song’s story as it climbed the Hot 100.
Weekly strength at week 19
Making the comparison fair
The Hot 100’s formula has changed since A Bar Song (Tipsy) logged its 19th week at #1 in late 2024: YouTube stopped supplying its data to Billboard’s charts starting January 16, 2026, and the formula underwent a weighting change across streaming and radio metrics. It’s changed even more substantially since Old Town Road, which means points estimated for the three songs in their respective chart weeks cannot be compared directly.
As a result, to make it fair, we applied the 2026 formula alongside 2024 equivalent streaming platform coverage. That means putting Tipsy through the 2026 formula and adding approximately 3.5 million estimated YouTube streams to Choosin’ Texas to account for its removal.
All Choosin’ Texas figures in this article are based on our midweek forecast, not our final forecast, and remain subject to revision.
On that basis, the three weeks compare as follows:
| Metric | Choosin’ Texas | A Bar Song (Tipsy) | Old Town Road* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Estimated points | 312 | 260 | ~310 |
| Sales | 7K | 8K | 34K |
| Streams | 28.0M | 19.6M | ~32M |
| Radio audience | 55.4M | 69.5M | 38.5M |
*Old Town Road’s points and streams are estimates adjusted to the same benchmark: 2026 component weights with 2024-equivalent platform coverage. Its sales and radio figures are Billboard-reported. See “Why Old Town Road is less certain” for how we arrived at the estimates.
The result is an estimated 312 points for Choosin’ Texas, about 20% more than the 260 points Tipsy would have earned under the same benchmark.
Where the points came from
For the two 2020s hits, the biggest difference is streaming. Choosin’ Texas is earning approximately 24.5 million US streams in our midweek forecast. Adding an estimated 3.5 million YouTube streams for the comparison benchmark brings it to 28 million, compared with 19.6 million for A Bar Song (Tipsy) in its 19th week. That gives Texas an advantage of roughly 43%.
Old Town Road is above both on our adjusted figure at roughly 32 million streams, with the important caveat that its adjustment to match the same benchmark is a very rough estimate.
In terms of radio, Tipsy drew 69.5 million audience impressions in its 19th week at #1, approximately 25% more than the 55.4 million for Texas. Old Town Road was the weakest of the three with at 38.5 million audience impressions.
Sales-wise, Texas sold about 7K, compared with 8K for Tipsy. Old Town Road sold far more at 34K, but it’s a gap that says more about how far the download market has shrunk since 2019 than about relative demand.
Why Old Town Road is less certain
In its 19th week at #1, Billboard credited Old Town Road with 58.8 million US streams, alongside 34,000 sales and 38.5 million radio impressions. To match 2024 rules, we need to remove ineligible YouTube streams, which brings it down to approximately 32 million streams; then applying the 2026 formula results in an estimated 310 points. That’s level with Choosin’ Texas.
| Old Town Road measurement | Result |
|---|---|
| 19th #1 week: streams under 2019 rules | 58.8M |
| 19th #1 week: streams under 2024 rules | ~32M |
| Peak weekly streams under 2019 rules | 143M |
| Peak estimated Hot 100 points | >1,000 |
Billboard stopped counting UGC (user-generated content, mostly short-form video clips containing the song) in its weekly charts in 2020. Separately, a July 2020 Billboard article suggested logged-out views stopped being counted simultaneously when non-song UGC was removed. (Luminate’s current methodology accepts only YouTube streams from logged-in accounts that last at least 30 continuous seconds.)
That matters far more for Old Town Road than for the other two songs, because of how it grew. It broke through as a TikTok meme built from countless short clips, surrounded by a YouTube ecosystem of meme edits, reactions, mash-ups and lyric uploads. That is why our adjusted benchmark strips approximately 27 million streams (nearly half) from its total, leaving 32 million streams. Count all UGC instead, and Old Town Road gains a huge number of viral streams, while A Bar Song (Tipsy) and Choosin’ Texas gain almost nothing. By that measure, Old Town Road wins easily.
There is much less uncertainty about its peak. Old Town Road once earned a record 143 million US streams and more than 1,000 estimated Hot 100 points in one week. Neither newer song would approach that peak and virality even with the same rule advantages. To put it simply: Old Town Road really was everywhere in the US in a way that Choosin’ Texas and A Bar Song (Tipsy) weren’t quite.
Its 2019 run also came before COVID changed listening habits and under different chart rules. Any exact like-for-like score needs an asterisk, because talk about the decline of monoculture and the rise of streaming fragmentation is a real factor.
Career strength at the same milestone
The three songs took different routes to 19 weeks at #1.
Texas is projected to reach the milestone in its 44th week on the Hot 100, compared with Tipsy in its 32nd, and Old Town Road in just its 23rd.
The all-time points below are separate from the estimated weekly Hot 100 points above. They are our era-weighted scores based on each song’s weekly chart positions, used to model Billboard’s all-time ranking.
Here is how much time each had accumulated in the chart’s upper regions by the end of its 19th week at #1:
| Milestone | Choosin’ Texas | A Bar Song (Tipsy) | Old Town Road |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks on chart | 44 | 32 | 23 |
| Weeks at #1 | 19 | 19 | 19 |
| Weeks in top 2 | 28 | 22 | 19 |
| Weeks in top 3 | 28 | 24 | 19 |
| Weeks in top 5 | 32 | 30 | 19 |
| Weeks in top 10 | 34 | 30 | 19 |
| Era-weighted all-time points | 10,612 | 9,362 | 8,690 |
Although Texas had the slower climb, it will have accumulated more weeks in the top 2, top 3, top 5 and top 10 by its projected 19th week at #1. It will also have earned approximately 13% more era-weighted all-time points than Tipsy: 10,612 to 9,362.
Old Town Road reached 19 weeks at #1 the fastest, but it had the fewest weeks in the top 10 and the lowest all-time point total by its 19th week at #1.
The post-#1 run matters
A Bar Song (Tipsy) and Old Town Road were each in their final week at #1 when they reached 19 weeks. Neither returned to the top. But Choosin’ Texas may keep going for many more weeks.
Tipsy left #1 with 9,362 all-time points and finished with 16,972. About 45% of its career total arrived after its #1 run was over. Old Town Road was more frontloaded; it went from 8,690 to 11,160 across 45 chart weeks, so only 22% of its total came afterwards.
Weeks at #1 alone do not determine the all-time ranking; a long descent through the rest of the top 10 does much of the work. Texas will have 10,612 points by its 19th week, and its descent has not yet started.
Texas currently faces little competition for the top spot. If that continues, it could move well beyond 20 weeks at #1, potentially even dethroning Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You, at least temporarily.
The all-time race
In September 2025, we examined whether A Bar Song (Tipsy) was the biggest US hit of all time. Our conclusion then was that it would take the title if Billboard kept using the same era multiplier in its All-Time Hot 100 methodology. Our updated modeling indicates that Billboard has since changed it.
Under the updated weighting we have modeled, Tipsy falls to #3 all-time, approximately 7% behind The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights. The precise ordering remains in flux until Billboard officially publishes an updated all-time list.
The bar for modern hits is much higher in terms of their chart run. We now estimate that a song may need something on the order of 75 weeks in the top 10, together with more than 20 weeks at #1, to take the all-time title.
The hard part is still ahead
Reaching 20 or more weeks at #1 would satisfy only one part of the challenge. To contend for the all-time title, Choosin’ Texas would also have to remain near the top of the chart well into 2027.
After its projected 19th week at #1, Texas would have 34 weeks in the top 10 out of 44 chart weeks. Reaching 75 would take another 41 weeks in the top 10, carrying it to roughly chart week 85 (mid-2027).
That is very difficult under the Hot 100’s stricter recurrency rules, which took effect with Billboard’s 2026 chart year. Descending songs now leave the chart after crossing a series of age and rank thresholds: below the top 50 after 20 weeks, the top 25 after 26 weeks, the top 10 after 52 weeks, or the top five after 78 weeks.
One crowded release week or album bomb from Taylor Swift or Drake, and it’s all over.
So which 19-week #1 is the biggest?
It depends on what is being measured.
On the 19th week itself, Choosin’ Texas and Old Town Road are a wash. Their estimated points are about equal. Both are about 20% ahead of A Bar Song (Tipsy), though.
Of the two finished runs, A Bar Song (Tipsy) wins by a wide margin. It finished with 16,972 all-time points against 11,160 for Old Town Road. Choosin’ Texas is projected to have 10,612 points after its 19th week at #1.
Old Town Road wins by far on peak and cultural reach, and it is not particularly close. Its 143 million US streams in one week is still a record. Neither newer song would approach that under the same rules, because neither would gain much from counting UGC or logged-out views, which country hits attract far less of.
The 310-point estimate strips out the meme edits and short clips that carried Old Town Road. That makes the comparison fairer against the same benchmark, but it also removes much of what made the song so pervasive. Old Town Road was undeniably the bigger event.
Under our adjusted week-19 comparison, Choosin’ Texas is as strong as either rival was. In total all-time points it’s still behind them, but its run is far from over yet.
Even grabbing an astonishing 26 weeks at #1 would not make it the biggest Hot 100 hit ever still. It needs to remain near the top well into 2027, so the next 6 to 12 months are the deciding factor.
