Aretha Franklin...what did she do "wrong"

It's funny that you mention Al Green, that kind of nudged me into thinking about Aretha in my question. Been playing his new album (Don't think it's nearly as good as I Can't Stop. But i may be jumping the gun a bit on that, first spin) But he seems to be getting wonderful reviews all the way around. Anyways, i don't think Wexler's gonna hop behind the console at this stage of his life. But man, i have to admit that the idea is very exciting!!

who says she would have had anything interesting to say?

anyway, aretha was hardly alone among the soul singers in her generation to see her artistic worth pretty much go down the tubes... due to an inability to keep up with shifting genres, or an indifference? i mean, even al green went into gospel.

Stevie Wonder: With two or three exceptions, pretty much anything after Hotter than July has been tepid crap. "Part Time Lover"? "I Just Called to Say I Love You"?

Diana Ross: Um, need I say anything other than just invoking her name? Do I need to bring up Swept Away, released the same year as Aretha's not-perfect but still great Who's Zoomin' Who? (And yes, "Sweet Bitter Love" is one of her more amazing ballads. Jody Rosen OTM.)

Smokey Robinson: What has Smokey done that's worth comment since One Heartbeat other than cannibalize his past?

And Aretha can still outperform, outsing, and outdo any Alicia Keys or any Ashanti out there. Even at 300+ pounds and sitting in a chair.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3494/635/1600/aretha1.2.jpg

1) Sign with Factory; 2) get Martin Hannett and Kid Creole to co-produce her comeback album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a0-gFOUp-Y

OMG, Aretha as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog!

Yes! Now if she'd done a bunch of hard gospel elpees in a row, we wouldn't be havin' this discussion!!

Nope. Her classic Atlantic recordings were SETTING trends.

Unfortunately, yes. If that's the best you can do for her Arista years, I'm sticking with "I Never Loved A Man...".

a) response to Tallis wondering why ONE LORD doesn't count (or rather, doesn't fit in with the rest of her 80's shite)

b) response to the person who wondered if her classic recordings didn't follow the trends of the time

c) to the person who asked me if i heard "Jimmy Lee," "Get It Right" and two other 80's era songs

You better tell David Bowie.

Bowie follows trends a lot more these days than he did when he did actually sell lots. Back then, he was the one who introduced the trends and everybody else followed them.

she didn't do anything wrong of course. but i imagine what the original poster might have been looking for is something like what Bonnie Raitt did in the '90s. which of course isn't much different from what Aretha's done, except it doesn't have beats.

(But you still could be right - I don't know enuff about Bowie to say so either way.)

xpost

this is not necessarily a criticism, unless you're in the camp that says innovation alone makes for excellence, in which case good luck to you

yikes

something about the melody of adele's song doesn't suit her (it's like she doesn't really want it to stay on one chord as long as it does, but her attempts at elaboration just weaken the through-line), and her voice is strained much of time.

http://gawker.com/aretha-franklin-annihilated-rolling-in-the-deep-on-le-1640784983

She barrels through it

Audio version and Letterman show versions there

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/aretha-franklin-talks-adele-cover-clive-davis-influence-and-real-singers-20141002

Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics track list.

1. "At Last" (Etta James Cover)
2. "Rolling In The Deep" (Adele Cover)
3. "Midnight Train To Georgia" (Gladys Knight and The Pips Cover)
4. "I Will Survive" (Gloria Gaynor Cover)
5. "People" (Barbra Streisand Cover)
6. "No One" (Alicia Keys Cover)
7. "I’m Every Woman" (Chaka Khan Cover) / "Respect"
8. "Teach Me Tonight" (Dinah Washington Cover)
9. "You Keep Me Hangin’ On" (The Supremes Cover)
10. "Nothing Compares 2 U" (Sinéad O’Connor Cover)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/aretha-franklin-covers-adele-details-new-diva-classics-tribute-lp-20140929#ixzz3F8fVP1HV

seriously cannot stand to hear people talk even a small amount of shit about Aretha

she is the fucking best, the end

Sorry dude.

she is hardly unimpeachable!

If the rest of this is made on the same level as Rolling in the Deep, then burn all the copies!

The concept isn't as suspect, but this is done with as much care for the finished product as when Pat Boone did his metal covers album.

It was Clive Davis’ idea to team up with Franklin for a concept album of contemporary classics, and he initially sent the singer an extensive list of titles. “I picked the ones I thought were the best to perform, the most classic, and that I enjoyed the most,” she says. “I came up [in the business] with a lot of those songs, and I bought a lot of this music myself.” However, it was “Rolling In The Deep” that immediately stuck out.

Davis, who executive produced the album, envisioned the project as a return to vocal-centric performers of the past.

http://www.vh1.com/music/tuner/2014-10-06/aretha-franklin-adele-rolling-in-the-deep-cover-interview/

Clive Davis is a human turd.

he is very old

a turd with grey hair then

he's utterly loathsome

has new bio been discussed somewhere?

Hmmmm, maybe on the "Good Books about Music" thread, but not sure. How is it? Have only read about it...http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/books/respect-tells-aretha-franklins-life-story.html

me too

A.F. has always sounded like "a piece of work," at book length this wd probably depress me.

There's a playlist (waiting for me). I compiled twenty-five of my favorite Aretha tunes and performances.

Nice to see "get it right" on there, great tune

Very nice.

Yes, although anytime I see a list of Aretha songs I am reminded in my head of the time I saw Aretha in NYC at Radio City Music Hall sometime in the 1990s. A fan kept yelling very loudly through the whole show "do "The House that Jack Built""....Alas, she did not do it, or acknowledge that fan. At the time I was not that familiar with that song, whose version by Aretha made it to #2 on the US r'n'b chart in 1968, but later I did and it is now a fave of mine.

Nice to see "get it right" on there, great tune

― Inspired by an argument in the Stereogum comment section (brimstead

better realized than "Jump To It" imo

Y'all need to watch this if you haven't:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHsnZT7Z2yQ

Yes, although anytime I see a list of Aretha songs I am reminded in my head of the time I saw Aretha in NYC at Radio City Music Hall sometime in the 1990s. A fan kept yelling very loudly through the whole show "do "The House that Jack Built""....Alas, she did not do it, or acknowledge that fan. At the time I was not that familiar with that song, whose version by Aretha made it to #2 on the US r'n'b chart in 1968, but later I did and it is now a fave of mine

I saw Aretha at Radio City around 2008 and she did very few of her '60s hits, like maybe two. That surprised me, I didn't know that that's her MO. She did, however, let her son come out and do a long rap number (my friend's nickname for him = MC Ill Advised)

An Aretha gig I saw at a big outdoor place was kinda like that, but when I saw her in 2008 do a special MLK Holiday gig at the Kennedy Center in DC with old school civil rights folks in the audience and Cicely Tyson, she played piano and did more '60s material.