A quick note: The day before this essay was published, a legal dispute erupted between YouTube and SESAC, a performing rights organization which handles Adele’s music. Nearly all of Adele’s music (including songs written by her) has been temporarily blocked on YouTube. As a result, alternate sites had to be utilized and a few performances are missing here, but will be updated once the dispute concludes.
One of the most thrilling challenges of this project is accepting the incongruent perspectives on these songs and this artist. It’s also making peace with telling hard truths. For some readers, this will likely be one of them (cue the Law and Order “bum bum”).
Ahead of the release of “Rolling In The Deep” in fall 2010, Adele called the song a “dark bluesy gospel disco tune.” From the first listen, “Rolling In The Deep” was a striking record, and implied that significant things were to come from the album its lead, 21. It had more punch than the acoustic-driven sensibility that drove much of her first album. The song builds. It starts with just Adele over intent guitar strums, and progressively, pounding drums, piano and bass, precise background vocals that meet her overflow into the chorus. The booming bass drum and strums of acoustic guitar match the grandiosity of her vocal. R&B-tinged chords progress into staccato chords and an earworm of a chorus.
It doesn’t just build in terms of arrangement, it also expands upon the foundation Adele established on her debut album, 19. She vented exasperation on “Tired” and endured feeling second-best on “Cold Shoulder,” but she never truly got mad. “Rolling In The Deep” leads with fire, in lyric and in tone. Her heartbreak informs her fury, and it all combines together to create a tremendous record.
The song cemented itself as a crucial piece of Adele’s legacy: it was received with universal acclaim and won both Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the 2012 Grammy Awards. It’s impossible to imagine a song like this existing without the influence of Aretha Franklin, and her peers who infused the sensibilities and traditions of gospel music into popular music.
Unlike so many of her classics, Aretha Franklin’s take on “Rolling In The Deep” is not a sweeping reimagining. It doesn’t rearrange the song beyond recognition, or add something that redefines it, like she did with “Respect,” “I Say A Little Prayer,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Spanish Harlem,” or “You’re All I Need To Get By.”
However, Aretha’s version of the song does do a few important things. First, it advances the tempo ever so slightly. The shift is just enough to make a difference in how it lands, in-part stripping the song of the anticipation created in the original. It’s a straightforward arrangement that doesn’t have sweeping highs and lows, save for the very definitive break at the end of the bridge as “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” surges through.
Second, though it retains guitar and bass drum, the drum is lower and the guitar is electric. This mix makes space for a more prominent piano part, which makes it feel more like an Aretha arrangement. There’s also the inclusion of the organ, emphasizing the gospel influence in the track.
Third, it turns the entire thing on its side by including elements of the Motown (and later Diana Ross) classic, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” The inclusion, which was Aretha’s brainchild (hence this being subtitled ‘The Aretha Version’), is seamless. It fits the arrangement like a glove, and provokes thought on what these lyrics mean in this context. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” is a love song through and through, describing the breadth of love.
In this context, the song’s incorporation could at first be read as a threat; nothing will keep me from achieving my revenge. But with a bit more consideration, it’s more along the tone of “Until You Come Back To Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do).” It’s a definitive declaration of her strength and her determination in the face of interrupted love. It is a further testament to the love she feels and thought they had; and believes they still can have despite his transgressions.
It would be journalistic malpractice on my part to discuss this song without acknowledging the elephant in the room: the vocal production. Someday, someone will answer for putting pitch-correction software (not necessarily Auto Tune, but something of that nature) on Aretha Franklin’s vocals for not just this song, but nearly all of Aretha Franklin Sings The Great Diva Classics. Perhaps now is a good moment to also mention that requests for interviews for this piece with the song’s producers Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds and Antonio Dixon, and the song’s mixer Serban Ghenea all went unanswered.
It is indisputable that Aretha’s vocals have been blanketed with pitch-correction software, because it was done poorly. In just the first few lines, it is so glaring that Aretha’s voice has been adjusted, you can pull up the song now, follow below, and easily hear it. Listen to the beginning of the song, and focus on the bolded words below:
There’s a fire burning in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch and it’s bringing me out the dark
Finally I can see it crystal clear
Go ‘head and sell me out and I’ll lay your shit bare
See how I will leave with every part of you
Keep in mind that those are just the most blatant examples in those lines. Further listening continues to indicate the use of pitch correction software both in this quintet, and elsewhere in the song.
There are so, so many reasons that this is frustrating. First and foremost, this is Aretha Franklin. She’s been called the greatest singer of all time. Hers is a voice that should never be computerized in this way. Though there are fashionable ways to computerize vocals that create an effect on the song, that’s not what happened here. This isn’t Cher’s “Believe.” This was likely meant to be subtle, but was executed with such wanton disregard for discretion it begs the question whether the hands at the controls had ever even done it before.
Second, it didn’t need to be done. Sure, by 2014 Aretha Franklin didn’t sound like she did in the 60’s, or the 70’s, or even the late 90’s. Her upper register was worn and her instrument was doing what a body does in later years, deteriorating. But it wasn’t a barren wasteland. Aretha Franklin still sounded damn good in the 2010’s, and still delivered astounding vocal performances. Case and point, 2015’s Kennedy Center Honors. Even on the song at hand, when she sings the first “deep” in the chorus around 1:01, she plunges to the depths of her vocal register and immediately rockets back to the heights of her head voice. The range she displays in that single run outpaces not only the vocal ranges of many contemporary artists, but the agility. She was also a perfectionist who may only lay down 2 or 3 takes by this point, but she wasn’t leaving without delivering a vocal that could make jaws drop and spark intergenerational inspiration.
Furthermore, remember that Aretha Franklin was the Queen of Soul. Just because she may not hit a note with the force she once possessed, doesn’t mean she wasn’t going to strike the core of your soul. Hitting the note was half the magic. The other half was how she did it. Listen to Aretha perform at this 1993 Clinton inaugural event. Her voice is riddled with rasp and diminished capacity due to years of smoking. But her soulfulness is as immense as ever, towering over the performance like a skyscraper. It’s one of the best performances of her career. It didn’t matter that her range was limited and raspy. Her ability to convey emotion took the lead.
Finally, and most importantly, it doesn’t appear that adding pitch correction was sanctioned by Aretha. During the infamous interview at The Wall Street Journal (which spawned the iconic “great gowns, beautiful gowns” comment), WSJ Senior Editor Christopher John Farley brought up AutoTune. His question was “what do you think of the use of AutoTune by some younger singers?” Her response was “what is Auto Tune? I don’t even know what Auto Tune is.” As he explained it, she dismissively and half-laughing interjected, “oh please… that’s ridiculous.” Someone out there has answers. The question is, are they willing to provide an explanation? If so, I’m all ears and would happily update this essay to include experiences of those who had a hand in this record. I’d also love to hear this vocal (and the rest of the album) with the pitch correction software removed. I think all of us deserve that.
The final single released in her lifetime, Aretha’s “Rolling In The Deep” was ushered in with much grandeur. It premiered on Terry Wogan’s BBC Radio 2 show Weekend Wogan on September 28, 2014. The following day, she delivered a much-discussed performance on the Late Show with David Letterman on the day of the song’s release, September 29, 2014.
Aretha put her all into that debut performance on The Late Show with David Letterman. When she first begins, her voice sounds rough around the edges. It doesn’t sound fully warmed up. As she gets deeper into it, the age of her instrument doesn’t vanish, but her vocal chords warm up and the capacity she still possesses is dizzying. The head-voice belt she unleashes at the beginning of the second chorus is clear as day, and powerful as ever. Even at 72, she’s feeling every molecule of the record she’s delivering. A record that, undoubtedly, was initially spun with Aretha’s own DNA.
This leads us to another aside that warrants acknowledgement. Just like the old days, the singular Cissy Houston is directly behind Aretha singing background vocals. For anyone who’s unfamiliar, above all else, Cissy is the one who belted those iconic soprano runs on 1968’s “Ain’t No Way.” She and her Sweet Inspirations helped shape the background vocals on numerous Aretha classics. And, of course, she birthed the Whitney Houston. Her presence is of such significance that even Letterman acknowledges her before the performance begins.
The Internet, specifically Twitter, had a field day with Cissy’s expressions during the performance, attributing everything from, “Aretha lied and told me we were going to Bible study,” to “did I leave a roast in the oven?” Shortly before Aretha’s death in 2018 it was widely reported that Cissy was battling dementia. My understanding is that, though this was almost 4 years earlier, it was an early instance of the condition manifesting. Cissy is a professional to the core, and she always led with that when she performed. Notice how at many moments she appears to not know the words to the song. That’s extremely uncharacteristic. And understand that Cissy wasn’t just pulled into this on the fly. Many people aren’t aware that Cissy is one of the background vocalists on the studio recording of Aretha’s “Rolling In The Deep.” She knew that part.
Aretha also performed the song on The Today Show and Live with Kelly and Michael, but the performances don’t match the fervor of the original, perhaps in part due to the lack of a live band. Instead, Aretha sings to track on those performances and a mix of the in concert performance. Live band or not, she’s clearly having a ball with each performance, and at this stage in her career, that’s a beautiful thing to see.
During the years that followed, Aretha also included it in her live setlists periodically. I had the good fortune to not just see one of these performances, but to hit record on my camera as well. She was a little under the weather that night in 2016, but she still knocked it out of the park.
A slab of remixes were also issued to accompany the single, helping it reach the summit of the Billboard Dance Club Chart. A trio of remixes by Morlando, Cutmore, and Wideboys initially circulated online. Later, a full 9-track LP of remixes from Aretha Franklin Sings The Great Diva Classics was issued. Only the Wideboys mix of the initial trio was included, alongside 4 other mixes and one dub mix of “Rolling In The Deep,” including contributions from PaperCha$er, Ralphi Rosario, and Mario Winans.
Aretha’s cover of “Rolling In The Deep” also peaked at number 30 on the US Adult R&B Songs chart and number 47 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. It was a record-setting entry on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, becoming her 100th entry on that chart. She became the first woman, and fourth artist overall to reach that milestone on the chart.
I’ll be bold (and hopefully not sound too stan-like) in declaring that I prefer Aretha’s version of this to Adele’s classic original. I can’t unhear Aretha wrapping her instrument around this record. I even think Aretha upstaged Adele, and I will gladly die on that hill. Vocally, it’s hard to argue that she didn’t upstage Adele because it’s Aretha and that’s just what she does. I will not say it’s superior to Adele’s, but I default to The Aretha Version.
Yes, the pitch-correction undermines the record, and calls into question the integrity of every well-trained ear that it passed without putting a stop to such an egregious wrong. How much it undermines the record is up to the listener, because the voice behind it is the standard for which pitch correction aspires to.
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365 Days of Aretha Franklin 