It’s hard to believe that Ella Langley has been part of country music for only two years, but it’s true. Langley’s debut EP, Excuse the Mess, came out in 2023. That was followed by Hungover, her first full-length album, which also includes her first No. 1 single, “You Look Like You Love Me,” her duet with Riley Green.
Relatively new to being an artist, Langley has already drawn one big line in the sand: her refusal to use software during her live shows to autotune her vocals.
“That’s something that I’m never going to do. I don’t want to do that,” Langley says on The Bobby Bones Show (via Country Now).
For Langley, it’s the raw vocal that makes live shows so magical. Without perfecting a show, it also shows the audience who she authentically is as an artist, something that is important to her.
“I think it is just something to just being honest out there,” explains the 26-year-old. “Sometimes I’m going to forget some lyrics, and there’s sometimes my voice is pitchier than others. I’m out of breath. But that’s just the live show that’s coming to the show, where I’m running around on stage performing a song. Or we’re standing still, or I’m emotional, or there’s wind, or who knows? But that’s kind of what’s fun about seeing an artist live, is you get the imperfections. You get to see them as who they are as an artist, not just, here’s perfect.”
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It’s only been since Langley got started that she has seen the shift to making performances more perfect. It makes her wistful for country music of the past, before everything had to be flawless.
“Three years ago, you could go into a live show, and that’s kind of where the pressure was off,” Langley reflects. “You could just perform and not have to worry about the idiosyncrasies. But now all of that has to be paid attention to because it’s all recorded all the time.”
Using autotune is just part of what Langley sees as a larger problem across music in general, one that she frankly wants no part of.
“I think what’s so hard about that too is, everything’s so perfect,” laments the singer. “You see now, every picture’s been edited, every song has autotune. Not only on vocals, but most of the instruments. Everything’s so perfect presented to you that live music is almost like, ‘Oh God, that sounds like a live vocal.’ And people are getting less and less familiar with what a live vocal sounds like.”
Langley doesn’t say who, but she does reveal that someone suggested her live shows would be better if she started using autotune. Fortunately, Langley disagreed.
“I had an artist come up to me last year, and he was watching my show,” Langley recalls. “And he was like ‘[You] got a great show. … One day when you start running [auto] tune and things on your show…’ I was like, ‘I’m not going to do that.’ He’s like, ‘Yes, you will. Everyone does that. You’re going to do that.’ And I was like, ‘No, I’m not.'”
Langley and Green have a Top 40 single with “Don’t Mind If I Do.” Find all of her music and upcoming shows at EllaLangley.com.