A career-spanning, cross-label anthology featuring 23 essential recordings from 1971-2020 for the first time on one album. It might have been better had Parton invited these songs into her own world: clearly, hearing a country or bluegrass version of 4 Non Blondes’ What’s Up? The concert does not survive in its entirety, as all releases of this concert are missing the last four songs from the set list.

Rockstar might have got away with the obviousness of its material if it had opted to do something interesting with it, but virtually every cover here seems to have been made as close to the original version as possible: listening to it feels like being trapped in a karaoke bar where Dolly Parton, having taken the stage to surprise and general rejoicing, is now drunkenly refusing to let go of the microphone. Jolene’ had two or three precursors which lead to the perfect song, same with ‘Coat of Many Colors’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’. She still has a great voice, but it’s also a hugely distinctive one, and the sense that it doesn’t necessarily fit these songs in these arrangements is hard to avoid. From her debut single ‘Dumb Blonde’, Dolly made it clear she was at ease with telling jokes at her own expense.Dolly’s song ‘In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)’ is her most honest take on the harsh realities of her childhood upbringing, where she concluded ‘ no amount of money could pay me to go back and live through it again’. In response, she declared her intention to record an album of rock covers with a host of musical guests from that genre to justify her inclusion.

Listening to her discography also reveals another uncomfortable truth about Dolly’s life – the pain caused by criticism of her image. Despite all her success Dolly has managed somehow to maintain ambition and hunger throughout her career. Even if she was happy to laugh at herself it didn’t mean that she didn’t suffer from the cruelty of the attacks by others.The album earned 128,000 album-equivalent units, with 118,500 in album sales, in its debut week, making it Parton's most successful debut ever. Contains Parton's Monument era recording of "Everything's Beautiful (In Its Own Way)" and alternate versions of "I'm Not Worth the Tears", "Why, Why, Why", "The Giving and the Taking", and "I Don't Want You Around Me Anymore". I started my project to listen to all of Dolly’s albums in 2018 and I admit it took me much longer to finish this than I had anticipated ( see the full list of reviews here). You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Dolly Parton learned her trade working on Porter’s show where comedy was an integral part of the entertainment offered. Budget album containing six Parton tracks: "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels", "Making Believe", "Letter to Heaven", "Release Me", "Two Little Orphans", and "Little Blossom".Around the time of ‘My Tennessee Mountain Home’ she began to soften her outlook somewhat, using more rose-tinted glasses to describe where she was from. Listening across the decades what struck me most was how often Dolly mined the same themes, sometimes even the similar melodies or titles, until she found the exact right ingredients to make a hit. Turning off the personalised advertising setting won’t stop you from seeing Etsy ads, but it may make the ads you see less relevant or more repetitive.