Aretha

[Xaphan]

Aretha Franklin's final Atlantic albums: Sweet Passion. Almighty Fire. La Diva. Noticably absent from her compilations, overlooked by Rhino's remastering team, panned by Rolling Stone at the time of their releases.

I just have to ask: are they really that bad? Anyone out there own any of these releases? What do you think? I've just purchased La Diva via gemm.com, as I've found myself recently interested in Diva catalogues around the time of Disco.

[neonlights]

I bought the "La Diva" album a few years ago.. I don't see what's so awful about it..She sounds great as always and it's miles away from some of the dreck she released in the late 80s/early 90s ("What You See Is What You Sweat" anyone? :lol: )..But then again i only recently got into Aretha, so I don't have all her Atlantic or her Arista albums yet so I can't really compare it..

One reason might be that Aretha herself owns the rights to her final albums on Atlantic.. starting from 1975's "You" album, with the exception of "Sparkle".. I remember her mentioning that on a recent interview with Billboard..

[Pizzazz]

Apparently, Aretha wants too much money for the rights to these albums, maybe she's not particularly proud of them so whoever wants to reissue them is gonna have to pay ! Anyway, all were slated in Mark Bego's biography 'Aretha Franklin, The Queen Of Soul', particularly 'La Diva' which was described as 'a complete mess...a mixture of grade-c dance numbers and rambling ballads that were torture to listen to. The closest that Aretha came to disco was with the song ''Only Star'', which was an embarrassing bilingual debacle in English and Spanish. The album was a complete bomb...and is acknowledged as the worst album of her entire Atlantic Records catalogue...'La Diva' represented her all-time career nadir.' Even the cover didn't escape criticism !
Well, i've not heard 'La Diva' but recall reading / hearing similarly awful things about James Brown's 'The Original Disco Man' (finally reissued on CD by Universal Germany last year) which i really like, 'It's Too Funky In Here', Star Generation', etc. Doubtless, 'La Diva' was no match for Miss Ross 'The Boss' but i for one would snap it up were it to come out on cd ! Xaphan, have you heard it yet ? If so, do tell...
As for the other out of print Atlantic albums, i've only heard 'No One Could Ever Love You More' from 1977's 'Sweet Passion' on which she sounds fantastic, would love to hear her cover of 'What I Did For Love'.