Great '80s pop-rock album
So, by 1987, Cher, confident in her acting career, decided to set sights on the area which launched her career: music. In 1987, Cher was enjoying a successful comeback that had begun in the early '80s with acclaimed roles in films such as Silkwood and Mask. She hadn't had a top ten hit since 1979's disco anthem "Take Me Home". Cher's self-titled 1987 album is very much a 1980's album. It's a little dated, but the songwriting and production were so strong, they hold up well. Songs like "I Found Someone", "We All Sleep Alone", "Main Man", "Hard Enough Getting Over You" and a cover of her own "Bang Bang" are strong and well-produced. I would argue that this is a better album than its follow-up, 1989's Heart of Stone, which was even more successful. .
Cher had something to prove with this album!
However, she had somewhat alienated herself from the younger record-buying public. It was 1987 and forty-one-year old Cher had been the star of a highly rated television series (with former husband Sonny), had won an Oscar (and had received several acting nominations), and had become a fashion icon. She had to show the kids that she could still rock with the best of them.
Well, she really showed them with this self-titled album, a collection of hard rocking tunes that exhibits the singer's passionate vocal and distinctive style.
She also pays tribute to her past with a hard-hitting remake of "Bang! Bang!, as well as the dance-flavored "Skin Deep. "
Of course, the quadruple punch of "I Found Someone," "We All Sleep Alone," "Working Girl," and "Dangerous Times" are the album's highlights, but this is an excellent release from a legendary performer.
It is also one of the best albums of the 80's and it's sometimes good to "turn back time" and reflect on monumental music. .
The Rock Years At Their Best
But alas Believe wasn't called Cher and that album as fun and perhaps innovative as it was isn't as good as this one. Had Cher named her big selling 1998 Believe album Cher, she would've made a history book or two as she recorded in the 60's and then had a brief dry spell until the early 70's when she released an album called Cher, then after a few hits it all dried up again until this 1987 album entitled Cher. In fact, after all these years it's quite clear to me that Cher can put out numerous excellant singles but in ways of full albums they aren't very good. However, this album seems to be the exception. Perhaps it's because when it came out I listened to it all the time and so all the songs are good. Of course it could also be that after the success of this album she made her next one that sounded almost identical, just like her follow up to Believe was almost a carbon copy to that album. But hey you can't blame the girl for trying to make a few extra bucks. Anyhoos, onto the 1987 album which opens with what is probably my favorite Cher single ever "I Found Someone"; a rockin' pseudo ballad complete with keyboards and the like, this was the song that brought the singing Cher back to light. Written by Michael Bolton and originally recorded by Laura Branigan in 1985, this is to me the best version of the song as Cher rocks it out a tad more than Ms. Branigan did. Then we go onto the Jon Bon Jovi composed "We All Sleep Alone" another brilliant singer from the girl and then an amped up and redone version of the Sonny written song "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" produced by the bon of Jovi in fact, this one rocks harder than the original and I like it. There are a few dudish songs on this 10 song set and "Main Man" is probably the song I hate the most. For some reason they even tried to release it as a single, it's just a slowish type of ballad with Cher spewing out some fairly strange lyrics for a woman of her age and umm personally conflicted life, but then we move onto two of my all time favorite songs "Give Our Love A Fighting Chance" is perhaps full of cliches and even those rock n roll riffs of the 80's that themselves are cliches but it's catchy and I can't help but love it; then Cher cashes in on some of those celebrity C-lists she is on by getting Bonnie Tyler and Darlene Love to sing a pseudo duet on "Perfection" which is so damn catchy it gets me singing everytime. The lyrics seem to fit Cher better than some of these songs as well, "All my life I've been driven by Perfection/ pushed it to the limit every night and day/ oh, I've been driven by Perfection/ but nothing's perfect if love ain't right" and the ultimate in lyrics, "When love is here to stay/and then it's gone today/you've got a list of lovers looking like a resume" - cracks me up every single time. There's some typical 80's fare in here as well including "Working Girl" which sounds like a song that should've been on the soundtrack to the Melanie Griffith movie of the same year, and "Critical Times" which is what one would probably call filter before ending the whole thing with the rock ballad "It's Been Hard Enough Getting Over You" which ironically, Laura Branigan ended up covering a few years later. So for the casual fan there's a million Cher compilations out there and for the extremist, they would want all the crappy albums Cher's put out over the last hundred years but for the semi-fan I would recommend buying one compilation and this album cause you really need to hear the songs that are the cream of the Cher album.
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I Found This Disc Takes Away the Heartache
. . of a boring Monday night.
I bought this album on cassette when it came out in 1987. I'm listening to the CD as I write this review. It is one of Cher's over-the-top albums, and I say that lovingly. It's fun, full of catchy tunes, with an overblown production with credits that read like a who's who in studio musicians. It is perfect listening when you are stuck in a traffic jam, or when you need music to propel you to clean your house. The high energy songs will help turn washing your windows or dishes into a tightly choreographed routine. Some reviewers refer to it as a comeback album, but for some of us, Cher never went away. There might have been a few years absence from the music charts, but does it really matter?.
Great music!
I love her albums, but you can't beat this one. This is one heck of an album. "Bang-Bang", "I Found Someone", and "Main Man" are the highlights of this album, but guarenteed you will enjoy them all. Great stuff!.
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