Shhh. I'm going to tell you a secret. Don't tell all your friends that I told you because they might hate you. And me. Okay?
Aretha Franklin is a big bag of piss. Her throat is a urethra and her mouth is a piss slit, gushing out loads of effluent and spraying anyone in the ear who gets too close.
That's an even less polite way of saying the thing that can be summed up thus: My God. I hate Aretha Franklin. She really is toss.
I think it was John Peel who mistakenly called her Urethra Franklin on Top of The Pops in the 80s. It might have been Mike Reid or Paul Gambuccini or David "Kid" Jensen. But I think it was John Peel and I think it was probably not really a mistake, if I'm honest. John Peel knew a thing or two about music, so I reckon he thought Aretha was a big bag of piss too. And a urethra empties a big bag of piss, doesn't it? Nah - I reckon he meant it.
What? You want me to qualify all that? Okay then.
There are of course exceptions. Aretha's performance of "Don't Play That Song" is stunning. Crystal clear. She hits every note with the most wonderful clarity. She's generous to the song - it's clear she loves it - and she wants it to shine through. "Think" is pretty darn lovely too. I'm sure there are other exceptions, but most of her work provokes a response in me far worse than fingernails down a blackboard - I haven't been able to bring myself to delve deep enough to find anymore hidden gems. So - now we've got that out of the way, let's get down to some serious hating.
Firstly, despite the fact that Aretha has got a fine set of lungs on her, she doesn't sing. She screams. In every performance I have heard (apart from the aforementioned "Don't Play That Song", the title of which seems increasingly ironic) she caterwauls so badly and so randomly that the songs just disappear. Take, for example, "I Say A Little Prayer." This song was written for her by two of the greatest songwriters of the 20th Century - Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It is the perfect marriage of music (soulful, easy, surprising) and lyrics (at times, pure poetry) - as all the best Bacharach and David songs are. Aretha was lucky to get it. So what does she do. She sings the first half of it pleasantly enough and then...then she just starts to SCREAM! And so you've got this beautiful Burt Bacharach piano groove going on with some mad woman having hysterics over the top of it. Aretha does this all the time. Even on "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves" - you have Annie Lennox - her voice is deep, round and genuinely soulful. She's able to improvise around the melody and yet still manage to communicate a sense of what that melody is to the listener. Aretha just makes a horrible, horrible noise. At times it's genuinely like the gearbox crunching on a bus.
Secondly, she is responsible for the song "Respect". This song deserves only one response and that is this. "Bitch, PLEASE!" You want to know what this song is? It's the aural equivalent of Bodyform sanitary towels. It's a Diet Coke break. It's the Weighwatchers PurePoints programme. It's Terry's Chocolate Orange. It's skimmed milk. It's a compilation album called "Songbird". It's Take A Break magazine. It's Karen Millen. It's an article in Cosmo about how shit men are. It's Bridget fucking Jones' twatting Diary. To put it another way - this song represents that horrible media image of women as man hating, dieting, lazy self centred dickheads who don't want much - they just want to feed their shoe habit, be a size 8, eat loads of chocolate and, oh yeah, they just want a little respect too. Aretha never says why she feels she deserves respect - she just says she's about to give someone all of her money and she wants the profits in return. Way to go, sister.
Thirdly she makes some bloody terrible choices. That duet with George Michael was execrable. Who's Zoomin' Who would be considered the lame piece of shit that it really is had it been sung by Paula Abdul or Gloria Estefan (and that is anything but outside the realms of possibility - just listen to it!)
Anyway - I am sure Aretha is a lovely human being. I bet she'd be damn interesting to talk to. But I sense no pain in her screeching - not like in that of Etta James or Tina Turner. I just hear cash registers ringing. And that's always guaranteed to turn me right off.
Don't play that song again.
Next time: Bob Dylan off!!
6 comments:
Aretha Franklin is NOT a nice person! She's a psychotic, egomaniacal cunt! Bitch has had maybe a couple of good songs, but she has been waddling on reputation--a reputation she does not deserve--for decades.
When VH1 did their first Divas concert, Aretha actually had each of the other singers come to her room one by one and explained why she was an actual diva and they were not. She even did this to Carole King who is not only one of the greatest songwriters of the last century, but who wrote one of the songs that Aretha is now most famous for. Seriously? Aretha is lucky Carole is an old hippie, because I'd have choked the bitch. "Oh you're a diva, are you? Well how you like my hands squeezing around your fat neck, miss diva? Does that make you feel like a natural woman, bitch?"
I assume you also heard about the kerfuffle at the Grammys. Fatty threw a fit because Beyonce referred to Tina Turner as "the Queen" or something. She got all, "No I'm the Queen!"
I'm no fan of royalty, real or fake, but Tina Turner blows Aretha Franklin the fuck out of the water. Tina's story is way more inspiring and deserving of that title. She went from being famous to being broke and having Ike Turner put cigarettes out in her nose back to being famous and making herself relevant to entirely new generations. Plus she did it while managing to still sound good and look awesome and scoring an Italian boyfriend who is 20 years younger. Furthermore, she remained friendly and maintained a sense of humor about everything including herself. Go Tina!
What the fuck has Aretha Franklin done in the last 30 years aside from clear out all you can eat buffets across the nation? Nothing! Even if one liked her voice back in the day, for the last few decades it has sounded like nothing more than a parrot being strangled. Don't get me started on the 80s and having to see that cow in a zebra print spandex body suit while she squawked out Jumpin' Jack Flash. Those scars run far too deep.
Sorry, I know this rant is probably almost as long as the original post, but I hate this bitch. I'm over people proclaiming her the queen of anything and being expected to fall in line with the sheep saying she has an amazing voice when in reality she sucks. Fuck that. Time for that cunty despot to fall.
Ugh, I think this might be an even better photo for this entry. http://dlisted.com/files/91788492.jpg Even Jabba the Hut is like "Damn bitch, gravy is not a beverage!"
And another thing! Did you know Aretha got first dibs on recording Son of A Preacher Man, but she refused to do it because of the content? So then Dusty Springfield did it and it was, as we all know, completely awesome. So Aretha the Hut got all jealous and decided she was going to do the song after all. I never knew Aretha did the song because Dusty's was the definitive version. However, when I saw a documentary about Aretha, Dusty was interviewed about the story and was super nice and said Aretha's version was so much better and she put the stress on different parts and it never occurred to her to sing it like that, blah blah. Long story short, Dusty showed loads of class and grace saying all that (though obviously it wasn't true) and you know Aretha would never do something like that. She's too goddamn busy stuffing her fat face and then using biscuits to wipe the grease off her chins and then eating the biscuits. Die, bitch!
I love the Marvin Gaye version of Respect, which I believe to be the original. Ike and Tina also did a really good version.
Girl! I don’t like AF but you angry! She’s just a singer! Calm your nerves!
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