The raw soul! The vocal acrobatics! The back-flip into a Motown classic! Aretha Franklin may be 72 years old, but the Queen of Soul out-riffs, out-wails, and out-emotes Adele — a woman one-third her age — on a cover of the English songstress' 2011 smash hit "Rolling in the Deep."
The cover is part of Franklin's latest album, Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics — ostensibly a collaboration with André 3000 and Babyface. But for an album premise that practically begs the elder stateswoman of divatude to drop all pretense of "reimagining" these songs in favor of soul-shaking, window-shattering, spine-tingling singing, that is (thankfully) exactly what Franklin does on this, the first single off the album.
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