Aretha Franklin's 30 greatest songs – ranked!
In one sense, United Together is symbolic of what went wrong with Franklin’s career in the early 80s – it’s a high-gloss MOR ballad, a world away from the music that made her name. But you can’t get away from the fact that she sounds amazing, investing the lyric with undeniable power.
29. Holdin’ On (2003)
Her last album (after 23 years) on Arista, So Damn Happy made more concessions to Franklin’s past than its immediate predecessors: she played piano, wrote material and sounded more comfortable in her surroundings. You can hear it on Holdin’ On, co-written and arranged by Mary J Blige, proof that her vocal ability was undiminished in her 60s.
28. Freeway of Love (1985)
Laden with guest appearances, home to Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves, 1985’s Who’s Zoomin’ Who restored Franklin to the charts. The album’s production is very of its era: the 60s Motown pastiche Freeway of Love was remixed to appeal to “rock” – ie white – audiences. But it’s such a fantastic song, it hardly matters: Franklin, meanwhile, sounds exuberant.
27. It’s Gonna Get a Bit Better (1979)
Her audience seemed to think Franklin was lowering herself by making the disco album La Diva, but the reality is far better than its wretched reputation suggests, as evidenced by her version of this Lalomie Washburn song, far too funky and robust to feel like belated bandwagonjumping.
26. Something He Can Feel (1976)
The Curtis Mayfield-helmed soundtrack to the film Sparkle is an overlooked gem in Franklin’s catalogue, his songs great, the lush proto-disco sound a delight. Something He Can Feel was supposed to be part of the repertoire of the 60s girl group at the heart of the film, but it’s too well-written and subtle to sound like pastiche.
25. I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) (1967)
Finally allowed, by her new label Atlantic, to do whatever she wanted – “They just told me to sit at the piano and sing” – Franklin responded with the title track of her 10th album, a blues into which she appeared to pour all the pain of her marriage to the appalling Ted White.
24. A Rose Is Still a Rose (1998)
The late 90s attempt to give Franklin a hip-hop/neo soul-influenced makeover didn’t really work, except on the album’s Lauryn Hill-penned title track. The beat and the lyrical references to “flossin’” are contemporary, but the singer sounds unfazed, delivering a coolly controlled performance.
Franklin’s early-80s albums don’t get a lot of love. They are certainly not unimpeachable classics to match her late 60s/early 70s imperial period, but they’re still studded with gems. From the Luther Vandross-produced LP Get It Right, Every Girl (Wants My Guy) is a fabulously sassy slice of post-disco boogie.
22. Soulville (1964)
Columbia Records knew Franklin was talented, but not what to do with her, peppering her career with false starts. Occasionally, however, her full power was unleashed, as here. A frantic take on Dinah Washington’s 1963 hit, this is more edgy and exciting than the MOR and jazz-pop the label usually lumbered her with.
21. Night Life (1967)
Franklin completely inhabits Willie Nelson’s song about his early career, struggling at the bottom of Nashville’s ladder. The backing perfectly conjures up a dingy club at 3am, her performance switching between weariness and a weird kind of relish: “The night life ain’t no good life, but you know it’s my life.”
20. A Deeper Love (1992)
Franklin’s great excursion into house music – produced by Clivillés and Cole of C&C Music Factory fame – features a typically amazing vocal over the relentless height-of-the-night groove. Picking up on the religious undercurrent of the lyrics, she shifts from scat singing to fervent gospel sermonising; its full power is revealed on the a capella intro of C&C’s Deeper Mix.
19. Young, Gifted and Black (1972)
Franklin was advised against taking on Nina Simone’s black power anthem. It was the organist Billy Preston who piped up that Franklin could “crush it”, and he was right: she took the intro to church, extending it until it consumed half the song, smoothing out Simone’s staccato performance until it sounded exultant.
18. Sweet Bitter Love (1985)
Amid Who’s Zoomin’ Who’s MTVfriendly sheen lurks a version of a Van McCoy ballad that Franklin had originally recorded in the 60s. If the new take isn’t as great as the rough demo, her vocal is still wonderful, the track itself a powerful link to her roots in the teeth of her 80s pop phase.
17. Chain of Fools (1967)
A song based entirely around one chord, Chain of Fools is really audacious. It should in theory be a monotonal dirge, but Franklin’s soaring vocal and the tight mesh of guitar interplay between Joe South and Jimmy Johnson makes it hugely compelling. Moreover, she arranged it herself, uncredited.
16. Mr DJ (5 for the DJ) (1975)
Her album You is usually pinpointed as the moment when Franklin’s creativity stalled. In terms of material, it’s not a patch on the previous year’s Let Me in Your Life, but the opening track Mr DJ is magic, a horn and call-and-response vocal-laden strut that defies anyone in earshot not to dance.
15. Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (1967)
The sessions for Franklin’s first Atlantic album were stormy; at one point they had to be abandoned after a row involving Ted Wright, leaving Do Right Woman, Do Right Man unfinished. Later, Franklin completed the song in one take. It’s tempting to say you can tell: her performance is calm but firm, precise and commanding.
14. The Weight (1969)
Perhaps the greatest of Franklin’s unfailingly brilliant reworkings of contemporary rock material – see also her versions of Bridge Over Troubled Water and Elton John’s Border Song – her take on The Band’s The Weight is tender country soul, with a gospel vocal that belies Franklin’s claim she had no idea what the lyrics were about.
13. Drown in My Own Tears (1967)
Even by Franklin’s standards, the vocal on Drown in My Own Tears is exceptional, a summoning of pain and inconsolable misery that gradually gains momentum until it reaches a startling peak of desperation three minutes in as she repeatedly wails the word “drown” in a manner that is genuinely chilling.
12. I Say a Little Prayer (1968)
Not for the first time, Franklin took someone else’s hit – a recent millionseller for Dionne Warwick – and made it utterly her own. Initially released as a B-side, her version was far tougher, lacked the easy-listening orchestration of the original and was subsequently acclaimed by one-half of its writing team, Burt Bacharach, as the definitive reading.
11. Call Me (1970)
Call Me was the only Franklin original on 1970’s This Girl’s in Love With You, but what an original: her piano playing pitched between soul and jazz, a pillowy – but not schmaltzy – orchestral arrangement by Arif Mardin, a vocal filled with longing and bruised optimism.
10. What Y’All Came to Do (2007)
Franklin’s final decade saw some incredible live performances – not least at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors – but, as she was beset by ill-health, her recorded output was patchy. Recorded as a contractual obligation, this duet with John Legend unexpectedly turned out triumphant: upfront, wildly funky, the best thing she had done in 20 years.
9. Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do) (1974)
Her sister Erma lauded Franklin’s ability to “transform extreme pain to extreme beauty”, which is exactly what happens on this Stevie Wonder cowrite. The song is about romantic obsession, but Franklin turns it into something transcendent and enraptured, her voice soft, the backing warm and alluring.
8. Angel (1973)
The combination of Franklin and Quincy Jones should have been triumphant, but 1973’s Hey Now Hey fell some way short of expectation. If it had all been as a great as Angel, it would have been a different story. Everything about the song is sublime, from the silky arrangement to Franklin’s emotional shift from vulnerability to resolution.
7. Day Dreaming (1972)
Apparently about Franklin’s affair with the Temptations singer Dennis Edwards, Day Dreaming is a fabulous piece of music. Languid and sexy, its wistful mood is ramped up by Donny Hathaway’s otherworldly electric piano, the scattered, abstract bursts of flute and a lengthy, slightly eerie beat-less outro.
6. Spirit in the Dark (1970)
The battle between the sacred and the profane that lurked at the heart of soul music was captured on the selfpenned title track of Franklin’s 17th studio album, later sampled by Kanye West. Beautiful and episodic, Spirit in the Dark’s sound is pure gospel, but the lyrics imply more earthly pleasures.
5. Think (1968)
Ostensibly a song about a relationship that has descended into gaslighting, Think seems to be driven by something else entirely. Recorded a week after Franklin sang at Martin Luther King’s funeral, the repeated cry of “Freedom!” and the demand for listeners to “let yourself be free” clearly had other resonances, giving the song a fraught power and impact.
4. You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman (1967)
When Frankin’s star finally rose, it did so at a startling speed. Four months after Respect hit, a songwriting team as respected as Goffin and King were writing material just for her. Fifty years on, over-familiarity hasn’t blunted the impact of her performance: the way she shifts from the control of the verses to the euphoria of the chorus still sounds sublime.
3. Rock Steady (1972)
Initially at least, Franklin seemed imperiously capable of assimilating any new musical trend into her sound, as demonstrated by the self-penned Rock Steady, her killer response to funk. It’s an exquisite tight-but-slinky groove, with a fabulous bassline, a vocal that manages to be raw but perfectly controlled and an addictive call-and-response chorus.
2. Amazing Grace (1972)
In reality, you could pick anything from 1972’s Amazing Grace, the double live gospel set that contains the most extraordinary vocal performances of Franklin’s career. But the title track might just be the most extraordinary of the lot, a display of potent, intuitive, shiver-inducing extemporisation that lasts for 10 minutes, without a second wasted.
1. Respect (1967)
It wasn’t just that Franklin’s version of Respect was simultaneously tougher and catchier than Otis Redding’s original – the “Sock it to me” refrain and “RE-S-P-E-C-T” hook were Franklin’s additions – or that the song helped catapult her to stardom. It was that her performance completely changed the song’s meaning, from a man demanding fealty from his wife to an assertive, ballsy demand for equality that could have been applied to women’s rights or black power, in the process helping to shift soul music into a new era when social consciousness blended with commerciality, an impossibly potent combination. “The girl has taken that song from me,” noted Redding, sagely. “From now on, it belongs to her.”