Ella Langley ponders the dream at L.A.'s Greek Theatre

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Set us as preferred Halfway through her very sold-out concert Tuesday night at the Greek Theatre, Ella Langley pulled up a stool near the front of the stage and told us she wanted to “be kind of normal for a second, if that’s all right witcha.”Life has been pretty un-normal lately for the 27-year-old country singer from small-town Alabama, whose smash “Choosin’ Texas” set a new record last month for the longest stay of all time atop Billboard’s Hot 100.The chart achievement only bolstered talk that Langley is due to clean up when Grammy Award nominations are announced next month — welcome chatter, no doubt, for a striver who grew up, as she said at the Greek, determined to get exactly where she’s gotten.Yet Langley’s success has brought with it some darkness, including accusations from armchair experts on social media that “Choosin’ Texas” — a monster hit that people keep saying they’ve never heard — owes its impressive stats to an act of record-biz chicanery.

More ominously, Langley called off a concert in Oklahoma last week due to what she called a “serious security threat.”Then former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem got involved in Langley’s business when she tried in a tweet to pit the singer against Kacey Musgraves after Musgraves hosted the Senate hopeful James Talarico at a show in Dallas.(Langley, who’s been circumspect about voicing her political opinions, appeared to un-tag herself from Noem’s post, which is objectively hilarious.)So you could empathize with Langley — empathize more than with other country singers longing for the good ol’ days — as she straightened up on that stool to do “Somethin’ Simple,” a winsome ditty from this year’s double-platinum “Dandelion” LP.

“While I’m living the dream,” she sang, “all I’m dreaming about is sl...