Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	(72/100)
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Billboard	(favorable)
Entertainment Weekly	A−
Los Angeles Times
The New York Times	(favorable)
Now Magazine
Paste Magazine
USA Today
Washington Post	(mixed)

Better Day is the 41st studio album by American country recording artist Dolly Parton. It was released on June 28, 2011, as the second album from her Dolly Records label.

Better Day contains entirely original material, her first since Hungry Again. However, only five of the album's twelve tracks are exclusively new. Four of the songs on Better Day, "I Just Might", "Shine Like the Sun", "Get Out and Stay Out" and "Let Love Grow" are Parton's personally recorded versions of songs she wrote for the Broadway adaptation of her 1980 movie 9 to 5. "Holding Everything" was previously written for and recorded by Randy Owen on his debut album, One on One. "Together You and I", was previously recorded with Porter Wagoner on their collaborative album, Porter 'n' Dolly.

In an interview with Billboard, it was noted that the songs on the album are thematically linked, in that they are all inspirational. Parton replied with, "We actually did demo a lot of songs for this [...] and it seemed that with everything being so doomsday-terrorists and bad weather and unemployment-we need a little sunshine. [...] I wanted to do something people would want to hear."The National Post mentioned that "Better Day was inspired in part, Parton says, by such disparate world problems as the Japanese tsunami, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and America’s economic crisis". Parton added with, “I don't write just to relieve my own anxieties, I write for the people who can't express themselves.” Finishing with, “I can't save the world, but I might be able to save someone today if I can put them in a better mood. The music’s designed to be like a ray of sunshine for all those folks in the dark.”

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Wikipedia