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)").
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"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.
