Now Available: Aretha Franklin, The Atlantic Albums Collection

A few weeks ago, Rhino released Soul Manifesto, a 12-disc box set dedicated to the career of the one and only Otis Redding, a man we described as one of the defining voices in '60s R&B. Now it's time for another instant record collection for one of the other defining voices in '60s R&B…and '70s R&B…and so it goes through the decades, all the way up to the present, because no one has ever argued with Aretha Franklin's title as the Queen of Soul. (Not without hearing a few choice words about how wrong they are, anyway.)

The Atlantic Albums Collection is a 19-disc collection which features every album Aretha released on Atlantic Records in the '60s, several of the albums she released for the label in the '70s, and a few other things, too.

In fact, here's the full list of what you'll find in the set:

I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
Aretha Arrives
Lady Soul
Aretha Now
Aretha in Paris
Soul '69
This Girl's in Love with You
Spirit in the Dark
Live at the Fillmore West (Deluxe)
Young, Gifted and Black
Amazing Grace
Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky)
Let Me in Your Life
Sparkle
Rare & Unreleased Recordings from the Golden Reign of the Queen of Soul
Oh Me Oh My: Aretha Live in Philly, 1972

Now, just for clarification purposes, it should be noted that this is not a complete collection of Aretha's Atlantic output. If you're wondering which albums did not make the cut for this set, just so you're not disappointed, don't go looking for With Everything I Feel in Me, You, Sweet Passion, Almighty Fire, or La Diva, because they cannot be found within. (They also cannot be found on Spotify, so you may choose to make your own conclusions as to where they likely sit on the classic-Aretha scale.)

But, c'mon, look at the list of the albums that are in The Atlantic Albums Collection. If you've got any doubt about Aretha's legitimacy as the Queen of Soul, this should take care of it about 19 times over.