I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You

Like all the soul/motown albums so far, I had high expectations that were absolutely shattered by this album. Songwriting, instrumentation, and especially Aretha’s voice are all peak

Respect sounds like an opening to a high school movie.

3.5
Enjoyed this , especially on a second listen, but feel like there was some filler

A great voice and a nice album. It's not exactly my cup of tea but I liked it nevertheless.

Favorite Songs: Respect

Aretha finally breaks through. 2 very good singles (Respect and I Never Loved a Man.....) which are surrounded by some average to good album tracks and covers. This is something that would justify its position on your CD or album rack, and I doubt anyone would say anything bad about it. It's not quite peak, but very solid and the proper start of a very long career.

This is the kind of music that everyone claims is timeless, that it's one of the best albums ever made, that Respect is the best song every created (what?). When I listened to it, it did absolutely nothing for me. I'm glad it's not timeless because I really wanted it to end.

Aretha Franklin is goated but we know this. What I did not know is how good this album is. Aretha has one of the deepest bags of all time, she dont miss.

"You heard of Aretha Franklin, right? OK, she's a big lady. But when she sings, she blows people's minds. Everybody wants to party with Aretha! And you know who else has a weight issue? Me. But once I get up on-stage, start doing my thing, people worship me. Because I'm sexy and chubby, man."
- Jack Black

Respect stands out here and the rest of the tracks highlight her incredible voice but nothing really captured my heart.

!!

A stone cold 5/5. Just perfect.

Met een deel van het gezin in de auto, dus ik sla Ian Dury even over en skip naar een zekerheidje. Want het begint met Respect en dat kennen zelfs de kinderen. Het komt nog regelmatig voorbij. Ik ben zelf niet eens zo'n fan, maar dit zegt natuurlijk iets over de klasse. Het is wat betreft de energie wel gelijk het hoogtepunt van het album. Het biedt verder prachtige soul, maar de basis is soms wat soft. Wellicht dat mevrouw Franklin dat expres doet. Want haar uithalen krijgen daardoor extra waarde. Altijd fijn als iemand schijnbaar moeiteloos zo sterk aanzet.

I can see the appeal but the truth is I can’t take more than 30 minutes of 60s soul at a time

I wish the recording quality was better, because it's a good album.

It’s the Aretha album with Respect on it. The rest of the songs could be her just playing the kazoo and it would still get 5 stars

Queen

Beautiful

I've never really gravitated towards Aretha. I tend to prefer the Motown and Stax aesthetics over Atlantic. But it was really great to have a concentrated dose of the Queen here. Let's call this a 4.49.

4/5. To get the incredibly obvious out of the way, Aretha Franklin is an all-time great vocalist and she shows her full power on this record whether that be on poppier cuts like “Respect” or the slower ballads like “A Change is gonna come.” The instrumentation keeps it simple but is well done, I especially love the few times on here where some horns come in. But it’s mostly there to be the bedrock for Aretha’s voice. One of those albums where you can immediately tell “oh so this is where a ton of singer/songwriters got their whole thing from.”

This album does not generate as much excitement in me as I would like, or as much as I would have suspected based on the killer opening track. Beyond Respect there are a lot of pleasant soul sounds from a vocal powerhouse but they are not as iconic or memorable as I would expect given Aretha Franklin’s level of fame and adoration. She’s cool though and I could see this album as being a bit of a leveller - it would be hard to imagine someone who would object to this being put on at the beginning of a party, or when it's winding down.