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May 19, 2014On Blue Smoke, the country legend travels many different paths and sounds only like herself.
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May 13, 2014Finding a strong balance between art and slick, Parton continues walking a line of what people expect and her heart. She just gets better with age.
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May 13, 2014On Blue Smoke, she handily harnesses those charms--coupled with that stellar musicality, of course--to produce an absolutely lovely LP.
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MojoJul 11, 2014Nothing suggests that Parton has lost her touch as a writer. [Aug 2014, p.94]
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May 19, 2014Blue Smoke easily hits its mark of making us look within ourselves while laughing through our tears.
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May 19, 2014The country legend mainlines one greeting-card sentiment after another, singing about angels, rainbows, moons, and fishing holes with reckless abandon. But the vividness and genuine conviction in that timeless, still-powerful voice finds the humanity in all of it.
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May 16, 2014Fans will find much to love in Blue Smoke, and while nothing here approaches "Jolene" or "Coat of Many Colors" or "Here You Come Again," songs like the title track or "Banks of the Ohio" wouldn't feel out of place on a playlist next to these classics.
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May 13, 2014This being Dolly, there are the occasional missteps (the silly “Lover du Jour,” the overly earnest “Try”). But even when Parton goes camp and piles on the gloss, there’s still a big heart beating beneath the album’s surface, much like the artist herself.
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May 13, 2014Perhaps there are no permanent additions to her canon here, but the remarkable thing is how satisfying an album this is: it sounds good and the songs are sturdy, proof that Parton is far from resting on her laurels.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 12
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Mixed: 0 out of 12
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Negative: 2 out of 12
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Oct 22, 2016