THE CULTURE GYRE 

1/18/2024

BY: IAN SHERRY

​

Smiles aren’t worth a thing anymore. 

     Aretha Franklin holds many titles and distinctions, the Queen of Soul, Rolling Stone’s greatest vocalist of all time, and the best funeral featuring an Ariana Grande performance - to name a few. She grew from the shockingly powerful youth vocalist in her father’s church choir to the voice of the world’s foremost musical city, and she built a career steeped with superlatives along the way. 

     June 10, 2017. My dad and I hop on our bikes and take a ride into the heart of Downtown Detroit to see Aretha Franklin. The Queen of Soul’s hot summer performance was free to the public and it attracted the perfect crowd. Lifelong fans from around the metro area poured in. As my dad led me through the crowd looking for familiar faces, which he correctly assumed was inevitable, there was a buzz I haven’t felt in any setting or any form since that day. I was young, which placed me in the minority (in more ways than one). Aretha’s audience mirrored herself. It was the generation that had to choose whether or not they’d flee when the city fell on rough times, and whose choice to stay was rewarded with a musical movement unparalleled in its time.

     As I rode up, chained my bike to a lightpost, and followed my dad into that crowd, I stepped into Motown. In that moment, ‘Motown’ became much more than the legendary record label or a nickname for the city I’d spent my whole life in. Motown is a people, and just as that understanding began to sink in, The Queen took the stage. Suffice to say, even at her age, she was still Aretha. Covering hits from all corners of her catalog with the help of a masterfully curated cast of supporting performers, she gave the crowd more than our money’s worth. One year, two months, and six days later, she was gone.

     Lumped into one massive and incredibly significant memory, I’ll never forget walking through my neighborhood after Aretha’s passing. As my family and I walked to dinner, her voice and music poured out of houses on every block. Listening to the neighborhood’s memorial serenade, I kept thinking back to that concert. Though it felt like just days before, with The Queen of Soul at rest, it had fully sunken in, to a level that can’t be easily smoothed over with time. Now, whenever I listen to the Aretha Franklin songs that live in the air of my childhood memories, the first thing that comes to mind, fills my chest, is that final loveletter she sang to her city on that summer day. It’s a difficult pill to swallow.

 

     Like any other member of that 2017 summer concert crowd, I am very familiar with Aretha’s work from the 50s through the 70s as well as her commercial resurgences in ‘85 and ‘98. In that time she covered all the bases. Regarding emotions, she took her audience through it all: the anger and sadness of a breakup, the longing of romantic loneliness, the fatigued satisfaction of finally finding the right one, catching a break. She speaks to friends, lovers, exes, you, me, and nobody in particular.

     An untouchable songwriter, performer, and short-form storyteller, walking in stride with The Queen is a privilege that any member of her audience can experience. But there is one emotion, one mode, that she seldom lets show: pure unbridled joy. Now, as my dad aptly pointed out in a brief discussion of this article, 'she’s pretty fired up on “Doctor Feelgood.”' A great point that I nudge to the side for two reasons. 1, With a discography as vast as Aretha’s, you're bound to stumble across almost any mood. 2, I hope you can imagine, I bear a fairly hefty weight each time I listen to the songs I was raised on, including “Dr. Feelgood”, which may well have played on the way to the concert that morning or as we strolled through the neighborhood a year later. So to the fault of nobody but myself, in order to share a purely joyful, burden-free moment with Aretha Franklin, I needed something new. Luckily, about a year ago, I stumbled upon a record that I’m sure did not play on those summer days in 2017/18, a record that finally flipped my emotional script when listening to The Queen of Soul: So Damn Happy.

     In 2003, admittedly after her final return to commercial / critical relevance, Aretha released So Damn Happy. The record did not gain any critical traction, which is understandable considering that stage of her career, however it's the cited reasoning I take issue with. In their brief but harsh, paragraph-long review, Rolling Stone gave props to the efforts of Mary J Blige on the production, but ultimately thrust Aretha’s 2003 effort aside because the vocals were ‘shrill’. They claimed the vocalist, who they declared the greatest singer of all time two decades later, didn’t belong on the 2000s contemporary r&b instrumentals. Why is that? I have a theory.

 

     The music critic community, into which I seem to have injected myself, has an unspoken responsibility to conform to fairly uniform taste. Meaning, even if a given writer’s individual taste doesn’t align with what is widely considered high quality work, there is pressure to recognize its merit. This year's best example of this tendency is the critical acclaim afforded to Sexyy Red. The newest culturally dominant female rapper, her style is unapologetic, and to me, unappealing. I am certain that I’m not alone in this opinion, however taking an anti-Sexyy stance at this point in her career is risky to say the least. Blowback could take any number of forms, including accusations of gender-based disrespect and being disregarded as someone who simply isn’t up with the times. (So if you’ll allow me to cover myself briefly), Sexyy Red is one of the most talented artists we’ve seen in generations; she is the future, no doubt. The reason for my digression is simply to highlight the fact that coordination is important, from sharing opinions on a given album to the validation of the most common musical tropes.

     Artists like Phoebe Bridgers have built a career on their ability to elevate their easily approachable sound with heavily emotional writing and performances. Bridgers could easily sit in the mainstream of pop like Taylor Swift, but she sets herself to the side through her complete commitment to all things melancholy. In doing so, she limits, or rather, concentrates her audience, creating a distinct although not overly unique sound, and placing herself in the favor of critics everywhere. It’s the same factor that elevates artists like Big Thief or Jeff Buckley who dip into the sad sack and happen to be some of my favorites. Effectively conveying emotion through music is an achievement critics recognize across the board, however, they seem to disregard one key emotion: Joy. 

 

     This brings me back to Aretha. For my money, there is no song in her entire discography more joyful than “Wonderful,” from So Damn Happy. After years and years of listening to The Queen battle through heartbreak and romantic confusion, there’s nothing more refreshing than experiencing a new thing, a good thing, by her side. She brings us into “Wonderful” with a bouncy and simple instrumental highlighted by flourishes on the keyboard. As strong a singer as ever, she rips through verses with her own flare, pace, and attitude, leading her backup singers through the sing-along-worthy chorus. As the energy builds throughout the song, Aretha begins to riff more on the microphone until the emotional climax in which her excitement takes control and transforms into joyful, nimble scatting. 

     The entirety of So Damn Happy dabbles in a lot of musical and emotional elements, which may be largely responsible for its low profile, but “Wonderful” puts them together more effectively than any other song on her 2003 record. It's a simple yet perfectly executed step outside her wheelhouse, which is something that is critically celebrated in nearly any other scenario. So why haven’t you heard of it?

Why is the song that makes me happier than any other not championed by critics the way they do Big Thief’s “Change” or Jeff Buckley’s “The Sky Is A Landfill?” Why is the nagging sadness I feel when listening to the music I associate with that final concert valued more than the joy I feel at the hands of my new discovery? Why is it that pulling your audience up into your state of happiness isn’t as critically significant as dragging them into your misery. Is it an industry trend? Is it the assumption that suffering is more relatable to the masses? Is it the widespread use of music as a coping mechanism for the streaming generation? Is it a societal obsession with hardship and misery?

Don’t ask me, I love being happy. Listen to “Wonderful” if you do too.

​