Aretha Franklin Chooses Ariana Grande Over Britney Spears, Adele And Lady Gaga

Ariana Grande may have some problems on her first ever arena tour, but she is clearly a favorite of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. According to Pop Dust,Aretha Franklin is a huge fan of Ms. Grande and chose her out of all today’s pop stars as a possible duet choice. As Pop Dust notes, Ariana Grande is a huge fan of Ms. Franklin and has covered several of her songs in concerts.

Aretha Franklin isn’t new to singing hot duets with hot music stars. She has crooned with George Michael, Christina Aguilera, James Brown, Annie Lennox, Mick Jagger and many others. The voices of Aretha Franklin and Ariana Grande on a song would be a dream for many pop music fans. It could also help Ariana Grande escape some of the bad publicity she has been receiving from her current arena tour.

The Chicago Sun Times believes for Ariana, her current tour is too much too soon.

“But Grande is not Mariah. Or Whitney. Or Britney. Or Katy. Not yet, anyway. Her stiff stage presence and unrehearsed dance moves still need attention as does her synergy with overlay tracks.”

The Sun Times review does go on to praise Grande’s vocals. The critic, Selena Fragassi, says that the stripped-back moments where Ariana Grande was in the middle of the stage or sitting atop a grand piano were much better than the numbers that required too much spectacle.

Critic Bob Gendron of the Chicago Tribune likes Grande‘s playfulness and innocence on stage. However, he says Ariana Grande’s singing and focus often got lost amidst recurring sonic interference as well as unnecessary visuals. He also mentions that some of her performance seemed artificial. It could be that Chicago critics are just uptight, but Jeff Niesel of CleveScene also criticized Ariana Grande‘s March 5 performance in Ohio.

“She looked terrific. The stage, not so much. Minimal props were used in the show, and the ones that were used weren’t particularly impressive. During ‘Best Mistake,’ she came out perched atop something that was supposed to resemble a cloud. It looked more like a paper mache art project that went awry.”

Like other critics, Niesel believes Grande is at her best during stripped-down segments that catered to Grande’s fantastic voice. Still, it appears that at least 11,000 showed up to the show at the Quicken Loans Arena, so at least Grande made money. Let’s hope that after the concert tour, Ariana Grande takes a short rest and then records a duets album with Aretha Franklin.

[Photo Credit: Joe Kleon/CleveScene]