Critical reception

Better Day has received positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average

Weighted mean

The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...

 score of 71, based on 18 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Mikael Wood of The Los Angeles Times stated, "Stylistically, “Better Day” lands somewhere between Parton’s recent bluegrass albums and 2008’s “Backwoods Barbie”", and praised of Parton, "[her] irrepressible personality is the star attraction, and on “Better Day” it shines.". Elysa Gardner of USA Today

USA Today

USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

 gave Better Day three out of four stars, and wrote "this age-defying country girl, with her resilient soprano and infectious pluck, seems incapable of a truly false note." Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

s Ken Tucker

Ken Tucker

Ken Tucker was an English footballer who played as a left winger....

 wrote, "In the midst of hard economic times, the positive anthems that fill Better Day [...] come off as brilliant strategy, with some equally brilliant vocal performances." Tucker added to this, with his review for NPR

NPR

NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

's Fresh Air

Fresh Air

Fresh Air is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States. The show is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its longtime host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to 450 stations and claimed 4.5 million listeners. The show...

, stating, "There's a sincere and earnest quality to this music that enables it to stand apart from so much of the trumped-up emotionalism and cheesy irony of the pop-music world all around it." In a favorable review, Billboard Magazine's Phil Gallo exclaimed, "The album's dozen story songs [..] are filled with uplifting sentiment and words of encouragement set against a variety of backdrops, most of them deeply rooted in country traditions rather than acquiescing to radio demands", and claimed that the album's mid-tempo songs, "leap out and beg to be played on the radio."

The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

 writer Nate Chinen offered praise for Parton's "almost ageless" vocals. While Holly Gleason of Paste Magazine stated that Parton, "juxtaposes superstardom with her down-home comfort zone" and continued that the album is a "pop-country gem that empowers as it punches country radio’s clichés with a freshness".
Allmusics Steve Leggett commended that Better Day is, "an energetic, spirited, and hopeful outing that rocks and soars with enough musical sunshine to light up even the grayest day" and wrote that Parton, "has never sounded fresher or more spirited [...] she shows she still knows how to write a timeless song."

While The Washington Post

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

s Allison Stewart stated that Better Day is a "restless jumble of styles weighted toward mainstream country", and that the album "is only as great as it needs to be". Carla Gillis of NOW panned the album's "eye-rolling Dollyisms", but complimented that Parton's vocals were "as strong, clear and distinct as ever."

Chart performance

Better Day debuted at number 51 on the Billboard 200

Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

 albums chart. The album also debuted at number 11 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. In the UK, the album was released on August 29, 2011 and debuted at #9 on the UK Album Charts, becoming Parton's highest charting studio album in that country.

Charts

Chart (2011)	Peak Position
Australian Country Albums Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...	1
Australian Albums Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...	29
Irish Albums Chart Irish Albums Chart The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically...	68
Scottish Albums Chart	6
UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...	9
UK Country Albums Chart	1
UK Download Albums Chart UK Official Download Chart The UK Official Download Chart is compiled by The Official UK Charts Company on behalf of the music industry. The chart week runs from Sunday to Saturday, with the chart being published on a Wednesday afternoon, so as to not to clash with the release of the main UK Singles Chart...	18
U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	51
U.S. Billboard Top Country Albums Billboard charts The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...	11

Credits and personnel

• Kii Arens - Art Direction
• Mike Brignardello - Bass (Electric)
• Matt Coles - Assistant
• Jamie Dailey - Vocals (Background)
• Christian Davis - Vocals (Background)
• Mac Davis - Composer
• Michael Davis - Hammond B3, Organ (Hammond), Synthesizer
• Richard Dennison - Vocals, Vocals (Background)
• Kyle Dickinson - Assistant
• Allen Ditto - Assistant
• Peter Dokus - Photo Assistance
• Lloyd Green - Guitar (Steel)
• Andy Hall - Dobro
• Vicki Hampton - Vocals (Background)
• Emmylou Harris - Vocals (Background)
• Aubrey Haynie - Fiddle, Mando
• Steve Hinson - Guitar (Steel), Slide Guitar
• Paul Hollowell - Hammond B3, Keyboards, Piano
• Becky Isaacs - Vocals (Background)
• Sonya Isaacs - Vocals (Background)
• Randy Kohrs - Dobro
• Alison Krauss - Vocals (Background)
• Steve Mackey - Bass (Electric), Bass (Upright)

• Stephen Marcussen - Mastering
• Brent Mason - Guitar (Electric)
• Jimmy Mattingly - Fiddle, Mando
• Rob McNelley - Guitar (Electric)
• Jerry McPherson - Guitar (Electric)
• Patrick Murphy - Engineering, Mixing
• Jen O'Brien - Vocals (Background)
• Jennifer O'Brien - Vocals (Background)
• Richie Owens - Harmonica
• Dolly Parton - Composer, Executive Producer, Vocals (Background)
• Cheryl Riddle - Hair Stylist
• Pig Robbins - Piano
• Ben Schmitt - Assistant
• Tony Smith - Engineer
• Fran Strine - Photography
• Steve Summers - Costume Design
• Bryan Sutton - Guitar (Acoustic)
• Dave Talbot - Banjo
• Steve Turner - Drums, Percussion
• Darrin Vincent - Vocals (Background)
• Bill Watson - Guitar (Acoustic)
• Kent Wells - Arranger, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), Producer, Vocal Harmony, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
• Stewart Whitmore - Digital Editing

Release history

Country	Date	Label	Format	Catalogue
Canada	June 28, 2011	Dolly Records, Warner Music Nashville	CD Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... , digital download Music download A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...
United States				528216 2
Canada	August 16, 2011		LP LP record The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
United States
Australia	August 26, 2011	Dolly Records, Universal Music TV	CD, digital download
Ireland	August 29, 2011	Dolly Records, Sony Music Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
United Kingdom				88697915312