A welcomed addition to the Spotify billions club.
Though it still doesn’t feel real just over a month later, the queen of country music herself, Dolly Parton, passed away on August 25th at 80 years old in Nashville, Tennessee. The “Jolene” singer had been dealing with undisclosed health issues for the last year or so, and she previously shared that she was having issues with severe kidney stones. Aside from that, she understandably didn’t share more, though clearly there were more serious issues going on.
Dolly’s rep confirmed to People that her death sadly followed a “brief battle with cancer,” though the specific kind was not revealed. She had been open about her health struggles over the last several months, though it sounds like the cancer was a more recent development.
Unsurprisingly, the country music world — and the world at large — has been mourning her death over the past month. Online, legends such as George Strait, Reba and Blake Shelton, as well as Alan Jackson, Tim McGraw and Ella Langley (among plenty of others) took to social media to pen tributes, share memories and send condolences to the Parton family. We’ve also seen a plethora beautiful tributes in concert from the likes of Chris Stapleton, Kacey Musgraves, Brad Paisley, the Turnpike Troubadours’ Evan Felker, Charley Crockett and more.
Elsewhere, we’ve seen celebrations and honors popping up seemingly weekly, with the state of Tennessee officially voting to rename Nashville’s airport to Dolly Parton Airport, University of Tennessee honoring her with a special butterfly sticker on their football helmet and playing “My Tennessee Mountain Home” during the fourth quarter at home games and Bristol Motor Speedway honoring her with a similar sticker for racing teams. Additionally, we saw multiple cities and states, including Nashville, celebrate the late legend and declare September 25th (9/25) as “Dolly Parton Day” in clear reference to “9 to 5.”
Upon her passing, we’ve seen a massive increase in her streaming numbers across all platforms as the world mourned her devastating passing. Notably, she received 19.8 million streams on Spotify on August 25th, which was up a staggering 1,300% from the day before. Additionally, she held a mind-blowing 92 of the Top 200 songs on the U.S. iTunes chart, including 65 of the top 100. As of writing, she still owns 42 of the Top 50 songs on the platform (43 if you include Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You”), including a clean sweep of the Top 10 with hits like “9 to 5,” “Jolene,” “Islands In the Stream” and “Coat of Many Colors.”
“Jolene” marks the first song in Dolly’s legendary discography to reach one billion streams on the platform. Given the fact that the solo-written track was released on October 15, 1973, it is now the oldest country song by a staggering 33 years to reach the threshold. Before hand, it was Rascal Flatts’ 2006 smash hit, “Life is a Highway,” that claimed the title.
A full list of country songs with a billion streams on Spotify is as follows:
- “Something in the Orange” – Zach Bryan
- “Last Night” – Morgan Wallen
- “Tennessee Whiskey” – Chris Stapleton
- “Beautiful Crazy” – Luke Combs
- “When It Rains It Pours” – Luke Combs
- “I Remember Everything” – Zach Bryan feat. Kacey Musgraves
- “Love Story” – Taylor Swift
- “I Had Some Help” – Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen
- “Whiskey Glasses” – Morgan Wallen
- “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” – Shaboozey
- “Meant To Be” – Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line
- “10,000 Hours” – Dan + Shay & Justin Bieber
- “You Belong With Me (Taylor’s Version)” – Taylor Swift
- “Body Like a Backroad” – Sam Hunt
- “Wagon Wheel” – Darius Rucker
- “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’)” – Dasha
- “Wasted On You” — Morgan Wallen
- “Life is a Highway” — Rascal Flatts
- “Fast Car” — Luke Combs
- “Jolene” – Dolly Parton
“Jolene”
