Heartbreaker (Buddha, 1999)

By the time 1978 and "Heartbreaker" rolled around, Dolly Parton was increasingly immersed in pop-oriented experimentation. While the Billy Vera-written "I Really Got The Feeling" hit the top of the country charts, its flip side, Parton's own "Baby I'm Burnin'," barely missed the Adult Contemporary Top 10 and broke into the pop Top 40 as did the title track. Though there's some delicious pedal steel guitar on songs like "With You Gone," it's underpinned by the Latin percussion, popping bass and soul-style backup vocals that characterize the album, not country stylings. Superstardom was close, but it wasn't quite there yet.