Dolly Parton celebrated her 78th birthday on Friday (Jan. 19) by gifting all of us with new recordings. The four songs expand her already-mammoth 2023 album Rockstar to 39 songs and include a redux of Parton's "Stay Out of My Bedroom" plus covers of Simon & Garfunkel ("Bridge Over Troubled Water"), Billy Joel ("The Entertainer") and The Eurythmics ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)").
"Hey fans and friends, It's my birthday so I'm going to give you a present!" she wrote on an image shared via Instagram. "I'm releasing four never released songs for my birthday, to go with the Rockstar album, and a few others that you may have heard before that were not on the album. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope you all have a happy birthday for me!"
Parton's caption added that fans can "stream Rockstar: Deluxe wherever you get your music."
The original 35-song set's filled with guest stars. There's no collaborators on the new songs. In fact, Parton lost one, with "Stay Out of My Bedroom," a soundtrack cut from the 1984 film "Rhinestone," now lacks duet partner Sylvester Stallone.
Upon its Nov. 17, 2023 release, Rockstar netted Parton her highest-ever debut on the Billboard 200 album chart. It finished No. 3 in the tally of the most-consumed albums in America after its first week, placing behind Drake's freshly-expanded For All the Dogs album and Taylor Swift's 1989 (Taylor's Version).
It's Parton's highest-ever placement on the all-genre chart in a career that now spans 49 albums. She'd stalled at No. 6 twice before: with the 1987 Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris collaboration Trio and the 2014 solo effort Blue Smoke.
Rockstar shifted 128,000 equivalent album units, a figure that factors in streams, downloads and the sales of physical copies. Forbes and other outlets report that a bulk of that figure for Parton came through physical media purchases. Billboard adds that "physical sales comprise a little more than 96,000 (78,000 on CD, 18,000 on vinyl and a negligible sum on cassette) and download album sales comprise a little over 22,000." Successful weeks for Drake, Swift and others can be heavily credited to streams.
In addition, Rockstar debuted atop Billboard's Top Album Sales chart, marking a first for Parton in the chart's 32-year history. Parton outsold the likes of Swift and K-pop band Enhyphen.
