{"id":41452,"date":"2009-04-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/whos-zoomin-who\/"},"modified":"2009-04-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-12T00:00:00","slug":"whos-zoomin-who","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/whos-zoomin-who\/","title":{"rendered":"Who’s Zoomin’ Who?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talk about an overhaul. The Queen Of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin, charged headlong into 1985 with an album that restored her standing on the charts and made people realize just how much she had been missed. Yeah, it\u2019s got a goofy title \u2013 Who\u2019s Zoomin\u2019 Who <\/i>\u2013 but then, the \u201880s were a pretty goofy decade if you care to look back on it. The nine songs that are found within are anything but goofy, however. They are mature, crisp and clean \u2013 in other words, typical Arista fare.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Guest appearances abound on Who\u2019s Zoomin\u2019 Who<\/i>, from a hit duet with Eurythmics (\u201cSisters Are Doin\u2019 It For Themselves\u201d), to a lesser known, yet effective rock summit with Peter Wolf and Carlos Santana (\u201cPush\u201d), to Clarence Clemons\u2019 sax solo on the terrific lead-off single, \u201cFreeway Of Love.\u201d Producer Narada Michael Walden really brought out the best of Aretha on this release, which ended up being her last album to go platinum. Since then, she has returned to her R&B\/gospel roots, leaving pop to the likes of younger upstarts Rihanna and Beyonc\u00e9.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The Aretha Franklin of old can be found on the slow-burn ballad \u201cSweet Bitter Love,\u201d which provides a nice vocal showcase for the singer. Also, \u201cIntegrity\u201d is the kind of track that only someone like Aretha could pull off, so it\u2019s hardly surprising that she opted to produce it and \u201cSweet Bitter Love\u201d herself. As strong as those soulful cuts are, the real standouts are the upbeat #1 dance singles \u201cFreeway Of Love\u201d and the fun, skittering title track. Critics were confounded by how effortlessly Aretha wore this challenging material, as if it were one of her expensive mink coats. \u201cSomething like this just isn\u2019t supposed to happen to a woman of her age,\u201d is what they must have been thinking.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That is the legacy of Aretha \u2013 her versatility and professionalism. She may not release albums at the pace other artists do, and she may take her own sweet time getting to her destination, but when she does, people sit up and take notice. Even her rare personal appearances are the stuff of legend \u2013 from her jockeying for top billing over rival Tina Turner at the Grammy Awards last year to her bow-hat upstaging President Obama at his own Presidential inauguration. She\u2019s got some nerve, that\u2019s for sure. But people love her for her audacity and respect her for her immense talent.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Aretha does miss the mark on the ridiculous Caribbean-flavored \u201cAin\u2019t Nobody Ever Loved You,\u201d which sounds like a Lionel Richie \u201cAll Night Long\u201d rip-off. Coupled with the momentum-crushing slow songs, Who\u2019s Zoomin\u2019 Who <\/i>isn\u2019t quite the perfect \u201cmasterpiece\u201d someone like Arista president Clive Davis would like you to believe it is. Still, it did prove Aretha could competently compete with the other \u201880s soul divas of the day. The spark may not be quite as strong anymore, but it was electric while it lasted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":29837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8084],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-41452","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-aretha-franklin","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41452"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41452"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}