Introduction

CHERISHED (1977)
1) Pirate; 2) He Was Beautiful; 3) War Paint And Soft Feathers; 4) Love The Devil Out Of Ya; 5) She Loves To Hear The Music; 6) L. A. Plane; 7) Again; 8) Dixie; 9) Send The Man Over; 10) Thunderstorm.
Much to Cher's honor, this seems to have been the only album of hers released so far to have a pun in the title, as endless as the possibilities are (off the top of my head: 10 Golden Cher-ries, Mon Cher Ami, Go Cher-ry Coupe Now, Cher-ade, and, of course, the queen of 'em all, Ochi Cher-nyje! Hmm, come to think of it, she wasn't saddled with all these songs of Cher-okee origins for nothing, either). But the title is not the only hint at desperation that seems to have gripped the Cher camp as two of her albums in a row flopped so badly — Snuff Garrett is back, obviously in a last-minute attempt to put her back on the track with another hit single of the ʽHalf-Breedʼ or ʽDark Ladyʼ caliber.
Unfortunately, it did not help this time. All faith was put in ʽPirateʼ, another soapy tale relying on romantic clichés from the pre-industrial past (and yes, the song even opens with the sound of seagulls — how fortunate for them that they did not have this idea three years back, or else we'd probably have ʽHalf-Breedʼ opening with an Indian war cry), and it is a dutifully catchy proto-power ballad with a nice singalong chorus (and a really silly accordeon part to boot — I'm not sure if Captain Flint or Henry Morgan were such big fans of the accordeon...), but, alas, it has neither the personal angle of ʽGypsiesʼ and ʽHalf-Breedʼ nor the fun aspect of ʽDark Ladyʼ; and although I'm fairly sure that there were much, much cheesier tunes to have charted in 1979, it is probably no accident that ʽPirateʼ ultimately did not make it, barely scratching the Top 100.
The second single was even less lucky: ʽWar Paint And Soft Feathersʼ is a shameless attempt to cash in on the fond memory for ʽHalf-Breedʼ by rewarding us with a literal pulpy Romeo-and-Juliet story in two Indian tribes. With awful lyrics and a cheap vaudeville flair, this must have been Cher's worst single release in a long, long time, and even Snuff Garrett should have been ashamed of that one, not to mention all the honest people in Indian reservations throughout the US, who should have probably barred Cher from their casinos for life.
Honestly, I don't even have any ideas about who most of those songwriters are — Steve Dorff? Gloria Sklerov? Gary Harju? Whatever. Warner Bros. may have had their reasons for being angry about Cher's albums flopping one after another, but they share the blame themselves: couldn't they find somebody at least marginally more talented to provide the lady with new material? The only songwriter here who looks like he's at least trying is Johnny Durrill, the author of ʽDark Ladyʼ: he is responsible for what is probably the best tune — the fluffy, but funny ʽLove The Devil Out Of Yaʼ, beginning like a slow boring ballad but then picking up speed and leading to a danceable, cuddly chorus with some endearing vocal moves (the accappella falsetto rainbow of "shine above ya this angel...", interrupting the discoish flow, is really endearing). And as much as I hate to admit that a Cher song called ʽDixieʼ and beginning with the line "Wish I was in the land of cotton..." could be any good, it is — the string arrangement in the chorus is quite unusual, with a tinge of psychedelia, and the build-up and resolution are quite... um... emotional?
The most «interesting» tune is probably ʽSend The Man Overʼ, co-written by Garrett himself: its tale of a struggling actress, stuck between stardom and whoredom, clearly sounds related (only tangentially, of course, but still...) to Cher's current predicament, and with each chorus conclu­ding with a rather desperate appeal to "send the man over, I guess, with a script... and the cash!", you could almost find yourself empathizing for the poor thing. (Not that she was particularly striving for cash at the time — on the contrary, her glamorous extravagance was legendary — but hey, it does hurt when your albums do not sell, even if you're already loaded. A matter of hurt pride at least. We're all human, even if Cher may ultimately constitute a separate subspecies).
On the whole, despite the shortness of the LP and a few decent tunes, Cherished is definitely a thumbs down kind of record — the old Snuff Garrett albums could be redeemed by their kitsch, but this is like an unfunny parody on kitsch, and too much of the material just sounds like weak, half-assed imitations of contemporary sounds from ABBA or Olivia Newton-John (regardless of our critical opinion on these artists, they at least always sounded like they knew exactly what they were doing and where they were going, whereas Cher here just seems lost most of the time). Had she been more in control of her personal life in 1977, this may have been less of a disaster, but the times were confusing, and what can you expect from a glamorous vaudeville star marrying a technically incompatible Southern rock icon anyway?
TAKE ME HOME (1979)
1) Take Me Home; 2) Wasn't It Good; 3) Say The Word; 4) Happy Was The Day We Met; 5) Git Down (Guitar Groupie); 6) Love And Pain; 7) Let This Be A Lesson To You; 8) It's Too Late To Love Me Now; 9) My Song (Too Far Gone).
This was a significant commercial rebound for Cher, and I think I know why — if you were a hot-blooded young male back in 1979 and you went in a record shop and you saw that album cover and it said TAKE ME HOME on it, well, not doing so would be like disobeying a direct order from your superior. And you could actually get away with it because it wasn't porn, it was art, even though you'd probably still have to look away and whistle a merry tune while the clerk was checking it out for you at the counter.
An inferior hypothesis says that the album (and especially the title track as its lead single) sold well because it had Cher finally going disco, and yes, ʽTake Me Homeʼ (the song) is like the distant ancestor of ʽBelieveʼ, Cher's fully fledged introduction to the world of hot-sweaty dance-pop; but then, almost everybody was going disco in 1979, and not everybody was able to make it up the charts, so I still hold my ground that it was the Golden Butterfly outfit paired with the lady's usual ice-cold look that did most of the job. Never was so much flesh bared before, and even though in terms of raciness she'd outdo herself on the next album, there's something unique about this combination of Conan the Barbarian paraphernalia and the deadpan stare that must have fascinated pop culture addicts back in the day.
Oh, and once you're done, there's some music, too. Everything is contributed by contemporary outside songwriters; the first side of the album is completely given over to disco workouts, but the second side is more diverse, leaning heavier on older styles of funk and R&B and weaving in some balladry for a change. Amazingly, it's not as bad as one might think — if we judge disco by its basic fun quotient (and that's probably the only way to judge disco), the songs on the first side really try to entertain. ʽTake Me Homeʼ, agreeing with the trend, is stretched out to almost seven minutes, and the instrumental section in the middle shows some impressive musicianship — a steady, gritty rhythm track with formulaic, but captivating string swoops and flows. And although Cher's vocals seem to aim for a sentimental effect, this does not hurt the overall light fun atmos­phere of the song. The same goes for everything else — decent rhythms, catchy choruses, and unpretentious carelessness is the word of the day: generic, but professional and almost never irri­tating (I think that the electronically treated «meet-your-subconscious» background vocals on ʽWasn't It Goodʼ are the only element here that transcends the permissible level of corniness, but we can all just pretend that we haven't heard them in the first place).
The second side, however, even goes as far as to feature a couple of really good songs: ʽGit Down (Guitar Groupie)ʼ trades in sentimentalism for a harsher, rockier sound, and Cher really gets into the atmosphere with her impersonation of a "lady from the valley / Coming out to check a band". It's a little sexy, a little sarcastic, a little silly, and everybody lets his / her hair down for a while, with frenetic (but not yet hair-metal-level) guitar soloing, wild piano banging, and a big step away from the over-glossed, no-risk-taking sound of Side A. And then there's Tom Snow's ʽLet This Be A Lesson To Youʼ, a funky, New Orleanian pop-rocker with a simple, but irresis­tible singalong chorus — not to mention that, as usual, Cher is always at her best when she is the dominatrix, not the love slave.
As for the ballads, we could all be very happy without ʽLove And Painʼ which goes as far as to rip off a whole complete line from Badfinger's ʽWithout Youʼ ("well I guess that's just the way my story goes" — well I guess we could call it an intertextual quotation, but the entire song feels like an inferior rip-off in the end), but at the end there's a little bit of enjoyable acoustic sweetness: ʽMy Song (Too Far Gone)ʼ is a completely autobiographical song about the end of her ill-fated alliance with Gregg Allman, with lyrics penned by Cher herself and melodic assistance offered by Mark and Brett Hudson of the Hudson Brothers (Mark Hudson would later go on to have a devil affair with Aerosmith, contributing to their artistic demise, and an angel affair with Ringo Starr, contributing to his artistic revival — go figure). It's touching because, technically, it's just another ballad in her usual story-telling vein, but this time you know it's all for real, and it almost re­deems for how the album started out on such a completely artificial note.
Bottomline, never mind the album sleeve (or, rather, never mind it in terms of musical relevance; it must have had a special meaning for the ʽPictures Of Lilyʼ fanclub): the album itself is no­where near as bad as it could have been, and, overall, it is definitely more fun than Cherished: Cher's personality does get dissipated behind the disco gloss, but, first of all, I've heard much worse disco gloss, and second, she never had that much personality in the first place to hold a mourning service or anything. And at least I'd be happy to have ʽGit Downʼ, ʽLet This Be A Lesson To Youʼ, and ʽMy Songʼ on any reasonable career overview.
PS. For a special review of the infamous «Allman And Woman» project, Two The Hard Way, you'll have to wait until I get around to Gregg Allman's solo career, since it's more of a Gregg project than a Cher one.
PRISONER (1979)
1) Prisoner; 2) Holdin' Out For Love; 3) Shoppin'; 4) Boys And Girls; 5) Mirror Image; 6) Hell On Wheels; 7) Holy Smoke; 8) Outrageous.
As ridiculous as it may sound, this album is actually fun, in its own sick demented way. The album sleeve takes us even further than Take Me Home — every time Cher makes yet another speech at some feminist rally these days, please don't forget to bring her an old copy of the record for an autograph — and so does the music, which is still essentially disco, but is now thoroughly mixed with elements of hard rock and bubbly-synthy New Wave. Some critics used this mixture as food for jabbing, accusing the lady of artistic confusion, and while they may have been for­mally right, I think that the main point of Prisoner is not to find a new musical direction, but to state, as brashly as possible, that «I'm crazy as heck and I want everyone to know it!».
Just look at this — there's not a single ballad on the album, not anywhere in sight. There are songs about ʽShoppin'ʼ (something that she really likes to do, and she's being brutally honest about it), about being ʽOutrageousʼ ("I'm gonna wear what I will and spend some" — you bet she is, even if what she wills consists of nothing but a set of chains and Lady Godiva hair), about representing ʽHell On Wheelsʼ ("Try me on for size at the roll-a-rama!" — yeesh...), and even when she gets around to a bit of tormented introspection, it is still set to a fast tempo and a punchy beat (ʽMirror Imageʼ). It's all about a flurry of rhythms, tempos, loud grooves, screechy solos, and non-stop energy — and, unlike the disco songs on the first side of Take Me Home, these tunes do not sound as if they were made exclusively for the sake of serving as dancefloor fodder. Even if most of them were written by the same songwriting team that served on Take Me Home (Bob Esty and Michele Aller).
ʽHell On Wheelsʼ, released as the first single and glorifying the lady's love for roller-skating (not biking!), is an honestly fun rock-disco hybrid, with several key changes, Van Halen-lite soloing (I think that Toto's Steve Lukather may be responsible for these parts, but not entirely sure), and a fabulous "LOOK OUT!" echoeing across the room as trendy synth explosions imitate the rocket-like propulsion of... well, it's all about life in the fast lane, and Cher does her best to deliver. She still did not manage to propel the song any higher than No. 59 on the charts, but at least it would be higher than anything else from her in the next eight years. And this kind of effort definitely suited her personality better than the second single, ʽHoldin' Out For Loveʼ, co-written by Tom Snow and Cynthia Weil — a somewhat softer, keyboard-based, discoified R&B tune with ugly synth tones for the main riff and an overall tepid delivery.
I mean, it's hilarious all the way, but about half of this record is directly autobiographical and very convincing. ʽShoppin'ʼ might be the best anthem to shoppin' ever recorded — at least, one of the most honest ones ("ooh, they're having a sale — my God, I love sales!"), a clever disco-era update of the decadent-sarcastic cabaret vibe; ʽBoys And Girlsʼ rolls on at an almost insane tempo, way too fast for disco, an exuberant party-pop-rock number with Cher spinning tales of wild, reckless living faster than you could process them; and even when she seems to be making some ecologically conscious statement on ʽHoly Smokeʼ, it is still not entirely clear if she is more concerned about mounting pollution or about mounting gas prices (I would think that in 1979, the latter was of far more concern to the lady than the former).
So, basically, you have to look past the first two tracks (ʽHoldin' Out For Loveʼ and the title track, a rather unremarkable and stereotypical dance number) so as to find a somewhat amusingly under­rated and overlooked, superficially personal little record that was probably much more true to the inner state of mind and the casual lifestyle of late 1970s Cher than, say, something like Spirits Having Flown was to late 1970s Bee Gees. To recognize this fact, I give the album a thumbs up where most other reviewers tend to give it one star out of five — even if you are by nature prejudiced against «white disco», Prisoner is not really a proverbial disco album; it's a whacked-out stylistic hybrid that paints a curious, but wholly believable picture of a befuddled socialite on her own highway to hell. It is obviously cheesy to the extreme, but it is far more vibrant, alive, and amusing than most of the lady's best-selling, but lifeless creations that restored her to commercial favor in the late Eighties. Kind of like the equivalent of silly, but fun late 1970s Aerosmith versus... well, you know.
BLACK ROSE (1980)
1) Never Should've Started; 2) Julie; 3) Take It From The Boys; 3) We All Fly Home; 4) 88 Degrees; 5) You Know It; 6) Young And Pretty; 7) Fast Company.
Cher as an «anonymous» member of a fresh young rock band? Come on, you're not fooling anyone — in fact, in 1991, when the album was finally prepared for CD release, the Spec­trum label recklessly slapped Cher's face and name on the front cover. But in 1980, somebody some­where thought that it might be a good idea to re-model Cher after Blondie — a naughty girl fronting a band of dashing, hot-blooded young men: they provide the innovative modern music and she provides the... umm... atmosphere, or something like that.
The basic partnership was between Cher and Les Dudek, an aspiring guitarist who'd already had several unsuccessful solo albums to his name and had played with Boz Scaggs and Steve Miller, among others — meaning that, even though he was eight years younger than Cher herself, there was really no talk of any truly «modernistic» New Wave approach here. The rest of the «Black Rose» band were not that different, either — mostly some unknown session players, occasionally aided by the same players from Toto that had already contributed to previous Cher albums. Who knows, maybe if she'd bothered to find herself a less bland team, the project might have been more successful, or, at the very least, Black Rose might have become one of those «cult» records that certain types of people are fond of rediscovering and reevaluating.
As it is, it's not too bad, but heck, if you're risking your neck on a project like this, you really shouldn't be calling the first track on your first album ʽNever Should've Startedʼ, right? Most of the songs sound like relatively safe, family-friendly late 1970s pop-rock, far heavier on the key­boards than necessary and neither too heavy on the hooks (bad news for lovers of pop) nor on the anger / kick-ass aspect (not surprising, since Cher was never that much of a certified rocker). But on the positive side, there are hooks, and everything is surprisingly listenable, not to mention that it's kinda fun to see Cher loosen up: on ʽNever Should've Startedʼ, she goes from a perturbed falsetto in the quiet first section to a Debbie Harry-like wild cat as the song picks up steam, and that's probably more of a transformation within one song than on any other tune from any pre­vious stage of her career. If only the guitar work were up to that level, and the synthesizers were not so obnoxious, this could have started something.
Arguably the main highlight is ʽJulieʼ, notoriously written by major glam-rock songwriter Mike Chapman with lyrics provided by Bernie Taupin himself (that is where you end when you tem­porarily suspend your relationship with Elton) — you can sort of tell this ain't no ordinary enter­prise with lines like "Well now I know / Julie you're the shape of sin / But I can strut like Bowie / When the line dance begins", not to mention Cher openly calling the protagonist a "lying bitch" (yes, we all know how strongly Bernie feels about women). Throw in the most modern-sounding arrangement on the whole album, with big electronic drums, weirdly warbled guitars, and a subtle robotic effect on Cher's vocals — and you just might have something there. Why wasn't this track released as a single? If you're gonna go odd on your audience, you might as well go all the way.
The other songs all trot along nicely, but there isn't much I could say about them. Cher barks and snaps as best as she can to imitate a tough rock'n'roll girl (especially on ʽTake It From The Boysʼ), but this is never outbalanced with any sense of humor or irony; and when the best riff on the album (ʽFast Companyʼ), upon being turned over to your core memory department, turns out to be a minor variation on Mick Ronson's riff on Bowie's ʽHang On To Yourselfʼ, you know they just aren't doing a very good job nohow. The Dudek dude takes lead vocals on one song (ʽYou Knowʼ), dueting with Cher, but he's one of those deadpan-sincere-sounding romantic guys with a decent set of pipes that all seem like inferior clones of Lou Gramm, so no.
Not that, had they kept it up, this could not have turned into something more impressive... then again, they'd probably have to replace most of the players and start bringing in more daring and competent songwriters, and that would end up an impossibility anyway. Still, whatever be, kudos to Cher anyway for taking the wise decision to break out of the disco trap (an easy decision, con­sidering the overall backlash of 1980) and to not go all electro-pop or «modern R&B» on our asses (a much harder decision, considering that would have probably been the most natural choice for her at the moment, following in the footsteps of many other «divas»). At the very least, this is kind of like a white stone instead of a black one in her career, even if it still does not deserve a proper thumbs up. But look up ʽJulieʼ if you have three and a half minutes of free time.
I PARALYZE (1982)
1) Rudy; 2) Games; 3) I Paralyze; 4) When The Love Is Gone; 5) Say What's On Your Mind; 6) Back On The Street Again; 7) Walk With Me; 8) The Book Of Love; 9) Do I Ever Cross Your Mind.
The only musical change that goes hand in hand with Cher dropping the «I'm just a singer in a rock'n'roll band» slogan is that there is a slight shift of melodic content from guitar to keyboards, but other than that, I Paralyze is pretty much a natural sequel to Black Rose — the lady is trying to adapt to new musical realities without selling out completely to the dance-pop scene. Once again, she has a new record label (Columbia) and a new producer — John Farrar, known for his work with Olivia Newton-John; and, maybe even more importantly, a recognizable songwriter partner amidst a sea of the usual unknown faces — Desmond Child, already established as a re­spectable money-maker due to ʽI Was Made For Lovin' Youʼ, but still way ahead of his glory years as a systematic cash generator for Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, and Alice Cooper (not to mention Cher herself, whom he would only take to financial heaven in her glam-rock phase).
This album was overlooked upon release and continues to be largely overlooked now, but in all honesty, it is a lot of fun, and it improves upon the formula of Black Rose by not trying so despe­rately to «rock out» in an environment crawling with members of Toto — and it goes without saying that it is much, much better than anything released by the woman in her big hair glam rock glory days to come. Short, tightly performed, relatively tastefully produced, it follows the ideo­logy of a balanced mix between modernity and retro-ism, and most of the songs are surprisingly catchy, even if they never truly showcase Cher as an artistic individuality (but what does?).
Thus, ʽRudyʼ opens with a pompous piano riff that is highly reminiscent of ABBA and «Euro­pop» in general — not surprising, since it is actually a cover (with a very inane new set of Eng­lish lyrics) of Dalida's ʽQuand Je N'Aime Plus, Je M'En Vaisʼ from the previous year, but done in a rockier fashion, with a larger guitar presence and with Cher putting a little less gloss on her vocal performance than the French pop star. In contrast, ʽSay What's On Your Mindʼ sounds like an updated take on the classic Motown sound, with one of those upbeat, rhythmic, but tender choruses that used to build up positive vibes in a matter of seconds. And still in contrast, the title track, coming from Farrar's team, is thoroughly New Wave in mood, with cold synthesizers and electronically treated vocals a-plenty, but then it also throws everything else in the mix — soul­ful vocal harmonies, R&B-ish brass backing, jangly guitars, sound panning, whatever. Clearly the most experimental track here, it failed as a single, probably because the public did not expect this kind of sound from a woman who, only three years ago, was largely busy catching the public eye wearing nothing but gold bikinis or steel chains.
Child's contributions are also surprisingly decent: ʽThe Book Of Loveʼ is a funny attempt to make a New Wave rocker out of a traditional folk ballad melody (Cher even gets to retain a "hey-ho" in the lyrics), and ʽWalk With Meʼ, like ʽRudyʼ, is a good case of a «mammoth pop» arrangement in the Phil Spector tradition, but putting the main piano riff well above everything else in the mix so you don't get to miss the main hook. ʽWhen The Love Is Goneʼ, however, is the first taste of sad things to come — a prototypical slow power ballad with more emphasis on power than melody, though, fortunately, still relatively unspoiled by the worst excesses of Eighties' production. On the other hand, I actually prefer this cover of The Babys' ʽBack On My Feet Againʼ (here retitled as ʽBack On The Street Againʼ) to the original — she sings it with more verve and recklessness than The Babys (who were little more than a Journey clone anyway), and the synth player at least tries to use his instrument creatively, weaving a complex pseudo-baroque-like pattern throughout the song and strengthening its melodic base.
On the whole, this just looks like a fairly solid B-level New Wave pop album to me, not too risky and not too embarassing — a fairly good direction to follow for a few years, but it also seems that this sound as such was quickly moving out of style in 1982, with mainstream values turning to more and more synthesizers and more and more boom-'n'-echo on the production, and this, per­haps, would also go some way in explaining why the record flopped so badly; in retrospect, I do give it a firm thumbs up as Cher's finest offering of the decade. Not that it had much competi­tion — Black Rose was the only thing that preceded it, and following the album's flop, Cher took a five-year break from her musical career, concentrating on acting, only to reemerge five years later as... well, you know, as the Cher that is remembered and treasured / abhorred by the MTV gene­ration these days.