Though a number of commanding divas have dominated the stage and the record charts over the years, none have attained the status of Aretha Franklin, who for several decades was the very best and most inspired soul singer of them all. A number of decent anthologies of her work have appeared over the years, and this 87-track bonanza surely ranks among the very best. It does so by heavily focusing on her strongest years at Atlantic Records. Starting with “I Never Loved a Man”—her single from February 1967 that announced she’d arrived at a new label that understood her musically—The Queen of Soul runs through the obvious, the obscure, the deep cuts, and the b-sides that made her catalog more than just a list of remarkable hit singles. She made Otis Redding’s “Respect” her own and continued with the works of other songwriters, whether it was Curtis Mayfield (“People Get Ready”), Gerry Goffin and Carole King (“A Natural Woman”), Sam Cooke (“You Send Me”), Smokey Robinson (“Tracks of My Tears”), The Beatles (“Let It Be,” “Eleanor Rigby”), or Paul Simon (“Bridge Over Troubled Water”).