No one has heard it, despite the song being number one for 23 weeks, how can this be?

Well, “Rolling Stone” posited that it’s hatred of country music:

“WHAT SOME FOLKS REALLY MEAN WHEN THEY CLAIM TO HAVE NEVER HEARD ‘CHOOSIN’ TEXAS’ Proclaiming you’re unfamiliar with Ella Langley’s record-setting song has a lot in common with saying ‘I listen to anything but country'”

https://apple.news/Anai0_RnRTYWO_VKMj7A8CA

“The Atlantic” dives deep into the data, claiming it’s an innocuous tune that fits many formats and therefore it was on many playlists, driving up streaming counts:

“ELLA LANGLEY CAN’T BELIEVE HER SUCCESS. MANY LISTENERS CAN’T EITHER. The criteria—and meaning—of a No. 1 hit are always changing.”

https://apple.news/AIullxF4IQeeL8D858O85sg

Never have so many spewed so many words overanalyzing a quite simple concept:

NOTHING IS UNIVERSAL!

This is anathema to conventional news outlets, who believe they’re aggregators for the masses. They find the universal and feed it back to the public.

Only most people don’t get their news from conventional outlets anymore. Forget newspapers, which have died on the vine, but TV news too. It’s laughable that Hollywood was up in arms that the Ellisons might control CNN along with CBS. Have you checked the ratings recently? They’re in the dumper and descending. Very few are watching. Appointment TV? That went out with the DVR, and is completely history today. Assuming you’re interested in SNL or other network tripe…you know if anything good happens, it’s instantly findable online thereafter, usually on YouTube, furthermore it appears in your TikTok feed! That’s where I find “Weekend Update,” usually the only worthwhile segment of SNL.

And maybe SNL is the point. Major outlets have stories about what happened the night before, like this is Ed Sullivan and we’re all watching. Just because SNL was a phenomenon in the seventies that does not mean it possesses the same place in the public consciousness today.

But this is heresy to oldsters! If SNL is not all-encompassing and important, WHAT IS?

I had lunch with Daniel Glass yesterday. He signed an act who built his career online. He’s excited about the prospects. But everywhere he goes people tell him they’re glad that analog is coming back. This is when Mr. Glass becomes increasingly intense. Decries these ignorant lunatics. It all happens on the handset today, and usage on TikTok is even going up!

But this is akin to the endless anti-technology stories in “The New York Times.”

“My Dumbphone Made My Life Better. It Made Everyone Else’s Worse”:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/opinion/dumbphone-smartphone-friendship.html?unlocked_article_code=1.GlE.vLZR.XP8QARO7oM6-&smid=url-share

This is oldster clickbait. And elder abuse. All you’ve got to do is scan the article and you’ll find out…

The writer couldn’t call an Uber, couldn’t use digital maps to find her destination. But she self-satisfiedly says she’s happier. What next, churning your own butter?

Kind of like the endless Waymos are dangerous stories. The future must be stopped, NOW! And while we’re at it, kill all those AI data centers. Okay, okay, but don’t expect to get an easy answer on Google, never mind talk to ChatGPT or Anthropic. This is like those who say manufacturing needs to come back to America. Sure, but are you ready to pay $4000 for a television set?

And the queen of popular music is Taylor Swift. She’s been anointed. She even dropped in on SNL during Dakota Johnson’s monologue Saturday night. Did you know that? Probably not. And it might have come across your news transom, but did you click and see it? Highly doubtful.

There is a very hard core addicted to certain verticals and the PR machine is amped up and news outlets take the bait and tell us things are universal when they are not.

Forget whether Swift’s music is good or bad, but I’d bet many more people have heard “Choosin’ Texas” than anything off her recent album. There’s just too much in the channel. And young women love Taylor, but other slices of the population want nothing to do with her.

Never mind acts without the footprint of Swift.

Let’s look at last week’s Senate hearing. Eric Schmitt called Jack Smith a “dirtbag” for lying about not being at a basketball game in Atlanta. Amy Klobuchar had him dead to rights, Smith was at an Iowa Hawkeyes game in Maryland, not an Atlanta Hawks game in Atlanta.

This was all over MS NOW and other left wing sites. The right wing? It’s like it didn’t even happen. Schmitt still hasn’t uttered a mea culpa.

In the old, pre-internet days, Schmitt would be tarred forever, he might have had to resign. But not today, everything is grist for the mill, the river of stories is endless, what happens in the morning is not atop the homepage in the evening.

And you’re surprised people have not heard “Choosin’ Texas”?

It’s kind of like equating today’s Hot 100 with that of the 60’s. Come on, is there anyone who grew up in that era who did not hear “Yesterday”? Today records constantly go top ten and only a student of the chart has heard all of them.

But if you admit all this…

Then you have to question your underlying beliefs.

Like sales are coming back. No they are not, streaming killed them long ago. There is a sales business, but I point you to this story:

“Luminate report: Taylor Swift fans drive millions in physical album sales”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2026/09/04/luminate-report-taylor-swifts-fans-power-record-album-sales/91601521007/

All you need to know is this:

“Luminate counted 65 different physical and digital product releases for Swift’s 2025 album, ‘The Life of a Showgirl.’ Her previous two original albums had similarly sprawling rollouts: ‘Midnights’ had 67 product releases and ‘The Tortured Poets Department” had 54.”

This isn’t about listening, this is about merch. Selling to rabid fans who must have everything. No one ignored Swift and then weeks, months later, decided to buy the latest iteration of one of these albums, no it’s FANS!

I could go on, but the facts here are self-evident.

But like Daniel Glass referenced, you’ll tell me about cassette sales. I’ve got to ask you, do you know anybody with a cassette player? Do YOU have a cassette player?

Now I’d like to say the three major label groups have their heads in the sand, ignoring reality, but in truth that ship sailed long ago. They put out few new releases, they find it almost impossible to break an act and their bottom lines are padded for paid-for catalog.

As for news outlets… They don’t want to admit they’re fighting for attention, they don’t want to question their platform, they’d just rather be holier-than-thou.

So what do you print in the newspaper, on the paper’s website? Well, you can’t cover everything. Hell, look at all the news articles in Apple News+, never mind elsewhere online. No, you put forth a limited number of stories and say these are the important ones, and by the way we employ JOURNALISTS, educated and experienced, and we must be TRUSTED!

Ain’t that laughable.

The emperor is wearing no clothes. And the news media is denying this. Telling us stuff is happening and important when it is not.

Meanwhile, fewer than ever are paying attention to these traditional outlets.

And oldsters decry social media. Forget entertainment, my TikTok stream is informative, that’s where I find out about so much, that never shows up on mainstream media, if for no other reason than it’s massive for me and miniature for others.

This is the world we live in, but if we all admit it…

We live in a Tower of Babel society. Everyone is in their own world, their own niche, there is no consensus. And we have the old guard saying there is consensus when there is not! Never mind too often they’re in their ivory tower and detached from the street, having no clue what is really going on.

The foregoing is daunting. But the solution is not to wear blinders or express a desire to jet back into the past. Funny, all the left wing intelligentsia/elite decry the right wing “Make America Great Again,” yet they feel the same way! The Boomers want to bring back the past, and the Gen-X’ers too. And it seems the more educated you are, the more you’re steadfast in the belief that technology is evil and if we could just go back to the old way of doing things…

That is never going to happen.

In eras of chaos… That’s when you end up with authoritarians, they make the trains run on time, they say they’re going to make society comprehensible. Which people are yearning for.

If that’s not scary…

But D.C. in total, all the elected officials, are so out of touch with America it’s mind-blowing.

The only way out of this is through this. And in order to accomplish this, you’ve got to own the present, lock stock and barrel.

There are no more universal number ones, no matter what the charts may tell you. That’s history. Done for. Theoretically it could happen again, but everybody is so deep into their own niche…including the 808 in country songs, as if this is what the public is really interested in!

“Choosin’ Texas” is the biggest song of the year. But like the biggest movie and biggest TV show there’s a good chance you’ve never heard it/experienced it. And that’s got nothing to do with the song itself, it’s got to do with society and how people spend their time today.

Case closed.