![]() ![]() ![]() Cyrus sings alongside her godmother on the re-work, which sags under dramatic orchestral flourishes, and Parton again reminds listeners of “I Will Always Love You” in the coda. Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” is one of the most recent selections, a song that Parton said nearly made her weep the first time she heard it. She dutifully churns through songs like Journey’s “Open Arms” and REO Speedwagon’s “Keep on Loving You.” And sure, fuck it, get Lizzo to toot a flute on “Stairway to Heaven”! The record ends with “Free Bird,” an 11-minute fart of a closing cliché.Īmid songs first cut by Sting and Elton John and an eight-minute “Purple Rain,” Parton almost branches out when she embraces more contemporary material. Her original song “World on Fire” cribs Queen’s signature stomp-claps, which she revisits when she stitches together “We Are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You.” The contested king of rock’n’roll takes the spotlight in another Parton original, the alarming sock-hop fever dream “I Dreamed About Elvis,” which re-hashes the history of “I Will Always Love You” and imagines the singers in a duet that never happened. Parton delivers an abundance of material that vacillates between boilerplate and downright baffling. The unrelenting emphasis on a single sound obliterates the careful details that made most of the originals so striking to begin with. ![]() Apart from the occasional piano ballad reprieve, everything frantically signals rock music. Formulaic arrangements keep the arena-size guitars, keys, and drums all turned up to 11. She sings “Let It Be” with the last two living Beatles yelping absent-minded harmonies. Parton has said that the experience compelled her to make a “real” rock record, but on Rockstar, the framework of rock music is relatively narrow, with covers of songs by Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Bob Seger, and Peter Frampton. Parton’s path to Rockstar was a straight shot from her induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, an honor she initially declined so as not to “stir up controversy.” Rock and country fans volleyed questions about genre, artistic merit, and supposed imposter syndrome before Parton changed her mind, eventually attending the ceremony and performing “Jolene” with Rob Halford, Pat Benatar, Annie Lennox, and more. ![]()
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