Happy 35th Anniversary to Aretha Franklin’s Who’s Zoomin’ Who, originally released July 9, 1985.
Aretha Franklin’s voice was something that was so familiar to me as a child. Not a week went by without the scratching sound of the record player’s needle hitting the vinyl and that wondrous voice filling our home within seconds. Aretha Franklin encouraged me to sing at the top of my lungs and dance with so much freedom that I just simply didn’t care who saw or heard me.
In fact, it is Franklin’s album Aretha Now (1968), released some seven years before I was even born, that has been one of the foundations to my career in writing about music and a benchmark for which I think very few artists could, would or will ever come close to achieving. Simply put, there was and will only ever be one Queen of Soul, and her name is Ms. Aretha Franklin.
Ever since I can remember, I have wanted to see the Queen of Soul live. I had wanted so badly to witness that incredible talent live and in its purest form. As luck would have it, I found myself in a dreamlike predicament that had me in New York at the same time as Franklin and she was scheduled to perform at Radio City Music Hall. Needless to say, I got myself a ticket on the spot and was ready to fulfill yet another childhood dream.
Sadly, that concert was cancelled and my chance at seeing Franklin was again put on the backburner. One thing that I had though was her music. Music that spanned a whopping seven decades (the 1950s through to 2018) and music that I had not just been given via way of my Mother, but music that I too had also come to love on my own merits.
Parental influences aside, it was Franklin’s 1985 album Who’s Zoomin’ Who that appealed to me during my teenage years. From the album’s lead single and opener, the deliciously funky “Freeway of Love,” I found myself hooked and somewhat obsessed with this newfound independent love of Franklin’s voice. Years later, I came to learn that not only did this song garner Franklin her twelfth GRAMMY Award (Best Female R&B Vocal Performance), but she had employed the vocal talents of people like Sylvester and Martha Wash to provide extra sonic layering in the backing vocals on this track. Not forgetting to mention the superb saxophonic addition courtesy of Clarence Clemons (of the E Street Band), which has now gone on to become somewhat iconic.
Who’s Zoomin’ Who was a clear and deliberate departure from Franklin’s foray into the adult contemporary genre she had found herself in with her previous two albums (1982’s Jump To It and 1983’s Get It Right, both produced by Luther Vandross), a move that saw her cover a broader range of genres like dance, pop and R&B.
With a total of five singles released from the nine-track album, Who’s Zoomin’ Who went onto become her most commercially successful album since 1972’s Young, Gifted and Black. Part of this success came in the form of the album’s second single and album namesake. Storming the charts and claiming the no.1 spot on the US Dance Club Songs, “Who’s Zoomin’ Who” continued Franklin’s reign over the charts.
Already in her early 40’s, some critics were quick to draw comparisons with fellow singer Tina Turner (also then in her 40’s) and the phenomenal success she had experienced with Private Dancer (released a year earlier). Both Franklin and Turner were now enjoying a newfound wave of popularity, an opportunity that sadly (and ridiculously) wasn’t afforded to many women over the age of forty back in the 80’s.
It was the album’s third single and duet with Annie Lennox, “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves,” that became one of the ‘80s most popular songs as well as a newfound modern feminist anthem. The song was written by Lennox and her Eurythmics partner Dave Stewart and it was initially meant to be sung by Lennox and Tina Turner, but due to scheduling conflicts with the latter, Franklin was invited to contribute her vocals instead. Thankfully for us, this iconic anthem went ahead with Franklin’s powerful vocals coupled with Lennox’s equally raw and emotive vocal prowess, creating musical history that is just as relevant today as it was back in 1985.
A further two singles were released from the album, the dance-pop “Another Night” and the almost Caribbean inspired “Ain’t Nobody Ever Loved You,” neither one coming close to the success attained by the trio that preceded them. Another duet, this time with rocker Peter Wolf on “Push,” along with a fiery guitar solo by Carlos Santana, further aided the album’s more mainstream crossover appeal. But it was Franklin’s decision to team up with musician-turned-producer Narada Michael Walton after his freshly built studio in 1985, that proved to give Franklin that younger sound she was looking for.
Some have argued that this album didn’t pull itself together in the way that so much of Franklin’s previous work had. But this album also happened to be unlike anything Franklin had attempted at the time and yes, she conquered it with a type of chutzpah that only the Queen of Soul was capable of. With an invigorated sparkle that runs deep throughout this album and her signature vocal panache that encompasses mastery, skill and a radiance that few have, or will ever come close to, Who’s Zoomin’ Who remains one of Franklin’s finest outings.
LISTEN: