La Diva (1979) is Aretha's most infamous album and hated album till this day for one main reason: The Queen Of Soul has gone disco. Is the whole album disco? No, but there's enough songs for you to qualify it as a disco album. The pure fact that she went into one of the most hated genres is the reason why many fans will call this their least favorite album. As for me, I'm not a big disco fan, but I recognize good disco songs and there's very little of that here.

Of all producers to go to, she chooses Van McCoy (ever heard "Do The Hustle"?). Don't know his other work, but his production style is pretty generic/dated disco that you heard on TV or elsewhere. Anyway, she hasn't had a hit single or album since Sparkle and figured that going into disco would push her right back to fame. As it turns out, it failed to even enter the top 100 (the only Atlantic album to do that) and remains as her worst seller from 1967 and on. I'm pretty sure that if Aretha listened to it now, she'd be embarrassed. Also, as with every album of hers, there's always something different about her voice: this time the haze is more noticeable in her voice and for some reason it's a bit thin especially when she's hitting the high notes.

Let's get down to what truly brings the album down: the disco songs. Two of them are written by Re-Re herself: Ladies Only and Only Star...they're not good, which is usually not the case with her own written songs. The former copies the Donna Summer style of starting off very slow, languid, and kinda jazzy, which is pretty nice, and then the horror begins when it becomes an up-tempo disco song (repetitive rhythm, overblown strings, the whole nine) and she's even singing lyrics like you've been smoking discos all over town. Every bad thing that people say about disco is featured here: robotic, mechanical, and mindless. To top it off, she speaks in French in the middle of the song (good for laughs though). The only remotely good thing is her vocals are top-notch and tries to save the song, but she failed. The latter (Only Star) is another dumbed down disco song that's so bad it's funny. It's more Aretha putting on the disco image (the hook: I'm gonna be the only star tonight at the disco). You'll get good laughs from the females chanting we're disco queens and speaking in Spanish. I swear I was rolling when I first heard this. While the first two songs were funny-bad, The Feeling is just plain bad. It's more of that disco formula (heavy strings, completely fast rhythm, glittery synths) and I wonder how people could even dance to this. Aretha sings in her little girl voice and it doesn't work at all. Complete failure!

While the disco songs are pretty standout failures, the ballads aren't even successful either. They're so polish, lukewarm, Barbara Streisand/Diana Ross type ballads that don't fit her at all. What If I Should Ever Need You has nice nighttime atmosphere and Aretha really tries to give life to it with a great vocal performance, but that doesn't take away the fact that the production makes it stale and stiff & it's clearly more of Diana Ross thing. Van McCoy gets blame for giving her this trash and Aretha gets blame for even singing a song below her standards. Even worse is the complete Barbara Streisand-like You Brought Me Back To Life. How ironic for a title when the song is comatose?! Aretha tries and gives a nice restrained performance, but all it does is add more to the lifeless feel with it's slow rhythm, cheesy orchestration, and even more cheesy background vocals. Only once I was able to make it through this song and that was the first time I heard it.

There are some songs that had potential to be a good song, but it just couldn't be delivered. It's Gonna Get A Bit Better has that mellow funk sound that Luther Vandross would be famous for in the 80s (ala Never Too Much, Sugar And Spice). I really like the bass groove, horns, and Re-Re is working out them vocals. But the downfall is that it's nearly 5 minutes and half of it consist of her singing try dancin, dancin if you will over & over until you wanna shout "try shutting the hell up if you will". Half A Love is another case of great vocals, but mediocre production and arrangement. It's about not accepting anything less than 100% from your lover and her vocals truly evoke that, but goddamn the lush-yet-stale mellow R&B groove is the total opposite of it. It's pretty sad since her voice is truly amazing in this song.

There are some great songs here: 3 in particular. Two of them happen to not be produced by Van McCoy but by other people. Honey I Need Your Love is a soul song that the Queen wrote and produced herself & it turns out to be the best song of the album. For once, her piano is featured and she does some great things with it. The rhythm section adds more to the song and her horn & string arrangements are used very effectively. Of course, the star is her voice as she reaches for some great high notes and does a great harmony with her multi-tracked vocals. Reasons Why is a disco song produced by Skip Scarborough and it turns out to be pretty good actually. It has a danceable groove, but it's kinda mellow and the arrangement has none of disco's usual features. It's pretty sparse with a great bass, in-your-face horns, and Latin percussion. Of course, she does it justice. I Was Made For You is a ballad written by her son Clarence Franklin and it's obvious the talent has been passed down. This time Van McCoy gets it right with it's lush horns and strings & smooth R&B groove. It's a duet between Aretha and an unknown guy, but whoever he is does a great job and they have chemistry. This could've easily been an R&B hit.

La Diva is known as her biggest failure by critics and fans & while I'm not sure if it's her worst album (there is "Get It Right" also), I can't deny it's a failure. This would turn out to be her last Atlantic album as she felt they weren't promoting her enough anymore and that could possibly be the reason why it didn't sell. However, that still doesn't take away the fact that it's not good aside from a few songs. Like most of her mid/late 70s albums, it was never released on CD.

Track List
1. Ladies Only
2. It's Gonna Get A Bit better
3. What If I Should Ever Need You
4. Honey I Need Your Love
5. I Was Made For You
6. Only Star
7. Reasons Why
8. You Brought Me Back To Life
9. Half A Love
10. The Feeling

Great Music To Play While: convincing people of Aretha's talent

Recommended: No