Aretha's records used to make history. Now they're just historical "events" that she can't seem to get through without a lot of help from her friends. Of the eight (count 'em) cuts on Through the Storm, four are "pairings of the century": Aretha with James Brown on "Gimme Your Love" (a series of whoops and grunts as challenging to them as yawning); Aretha with Whitney Houston on "It Isn't, It Wasn't, It Ain't Never Gonna Be" (a fixed vocal bout in which Whitney can't get the gloves on and Aretha seems mildly amused); Aretha with Elton John on the title cut (what's he doing trying to sound like George Michael?); and Aretha with the Four Tops on a song that's already appeared on two albums.

Rounding out the bounty are "He's the Boy," an Aretha original that wouldn't have made the B side of any of her hits for Atlantic, and "Come to Me," a failed single from her 1980 Arista debut, Aretha (not to be confused with her 1986 Arista LP Aretha). Her finest moment on Through the Storm comes on her second remake of the 1968 classic "Think," and it's also her saddest moment: Has the state of current songwriting sunk so low that no one, not even Aretha herself, can write songs worthy of her voice anymore (how else to explain the presence of two songs from the soulless pen of Diane Warren, who should stick to Starship and Chicago)? Or is Aretha just in one of her prolonged lazy slumps? The problem with Through the Storm is you can't really tell.

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.