"Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" is a 1968 single released by American R&B/soul duo Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, on the Tamla label in 1968. The B-side of the single is "Little Ole Boy, Little Ole Girl" from the duo's United LP. The first release off the duo's second album: You're All I Need, the song - written and produced by regular Gaye/Terrell collaborators Ashford & Simpson - became a hit within weeks of release eventually peaking at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the Hot Soul Singles chart, the first of the duo's s two number 1 R&B hits. In the UK "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" reached number 34.

"Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" is ranked as the 57th biggest US hit of 1968.

Aretha Franklin remade "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" for her 1974 album Let Me in Your Life from which it was issued as a single (the album's third) that August. Franklin's version radically re-invents the upbeat Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell original as a deep soul ballad which Jon Landau of Rolling Stone dismissed as "misconceived (done too slowly)" and "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" did not afford Franklin one of her very biggest hits with a Billboard Hot 100 peak of #47 (#6 R&B). However the song did win Franklin the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance Grammy for 1974 marking Franklin's eighth total and consecutive win in that category and her last such win until the Grammys for 1981.

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