A legendary career and famous friends are not an excuse to get Måneskin in the studio with you. What series of events occurred to lead to a collaboration with Italy’s worst rock product since Baryonyx is best left undisturbed. It has happened on Rockstar, the latest record from Parton who has since parted ways with quality and hopes the likes of Elton John, Mick Fleetwood and Paul McCartney’s name value can peddle her lengthy set of covers. An album as long as the latest instalment of The Hunger Games is a bold move when it has the same lack of quality as the Francis Lawrence piece. Delve in and experience the hard rock riffs which dominate Rockstar, both the opening track and title of this disastrous, star-studded record.
Parton can, at the very least, claim she tried something new with this opening track. A bold move of heavier rock standards – but this is the issue – these are standards. Exchange the word “rockstar” with “NASCAR” and you have the same dullard tones Mike Love deployed on his car-infatuated record. “Have we all lost sight of common decency,” is a solid message to present on World On Fire, and as on-the-nose as it is for this record, it is the blinding light of Parton’s stretch of efforts and certainly the best of a bad bunch. Impressive the consistency of Parton’s voice may be in her more than fifty years of experience; they do not leave much of a mark on this collection of covers. Enlisting the artists who shot these songs to prominence in the first place, as though receiving their blessing and forgiveness in one fell swoop, is not much of a confidence booster.
As with most cover albums, the question of whether they bring something new to the table must be asked. Beyond Parton leading the vocals, these covers offer nothing new. They are brief replicas of already established tracks and are given a ride through by an established musician but turned into sloppy country-like performances. Every Breath You Take is the other side of this extreme, a piece which finds itself stuck to the same instrumentals but with a cover equivalent of a spontaneous live performance. Weak pairings from ensemble artists also feature frequently and make for a dire experience. Rockstar soon slips into a period of uncomfortably tiresome background noise – a hard-to-focus-on collection of covers. Not even Stevie Nicks or Peter Frampton can drag the ears back into attentive motion because Parton and her cavalcade of famous friends go through the motions themselves.
Cover after cover, with the likes of Purple Rain and Let It Be dire renditions indeed. Popping somewhat modern pieces like Wrecking Ball, either for the chance to work with Miley Cyrus or to gauge a new, younger audience. Either way, the attempts made throughout Rockstar are a loose attempt at collecting big songs of the past and bringing them to a new audience through the loud and lasting qualities of Parton and her vocal range. It is a shame to see them squandered on a series of light covers which, more and more, feel like an excuse for legendary artists to hang around, have a coffee and get paid for doing so. Loose covers, and nasty renditions of established tracks which have no chance of replacing the classic mean this Parton piece is nothing more than a novelty.
